The Irony of Marie's Verbal Contract with Knut
Before agreeing to marry Knut, Marie makes him agree to govern their marriage by egalitarian standards. She's afraid of ending up in an abusive relationship like her parents'. The irony here is that she's making him promise to listen to her, but as soon as they're married there's nothing she can do to enforce this promise because she is the physically more vulnerable person. Whatever good intentions Knut has at the beginning of their marriage, he is not subject to obeying Marie nor honoring their agreement.
The Irony of the Bartender and Big Buck's Proposals
Both of these men try to help Marie after she is raped in New Mexico. The bartender tries to patch her up, but he quickly discovers that she's a virgin. He immediately proposes to her, an idea so repulsive to Marie in her current condition that she packs up and moves out of state right away. Then she finds her way to Big Buck, who basically does the exact same thing. Both men seem to think that Marie's sexual purity is an indication that she's seeking a husband. Unfortunately neither of them seem to understand Marie's actual needs and necessary apprehension surrounding physical intimacy and men after her traumatic experience.
The Irony of Annie's Marriage
Annie gets married young. She, just like Marie, feels a very strong need to escape her family's home. When she finally meets Sam, she marries him and achieves all her wildest dreams of a happy home life with a stable financial situation. Ironically, however, she is robbed of all this too when she dies in childbirth.
The Irony of Marie's Beliefs about Sex
When Marie learns that her Aunt Helen is a prostitute, she is excited. She considers the profession nearly akin to marriage except that her aunt retains her autonomy and makes way more money than her sister, Marie's mother, who is married to an abusive husband. Marie challenges traditional concepts by preferring prostitution to marriage as somehow the more honorable choice for a woman.
The Irony of Anand's Jealousy
Anand Mankevar marries Marie after she is released from prison in New York for her charges of espionage. He marries her because he admires her devotion to helping oppressed peoples and immigrants especially, of which he is one. He changes his tune, however, as soon as he learns Juan Diaz's story of raping Marie. Anand's intense jealousy wins and he leaves Marie because she is impure. What he seems not to realize, however, is that Marie was both not responsible for her own rape and also raped while protecting valuable documents for the Indian Independence Movement. If he had really examined the details of the situation, Anand would've realized that Marie had nobly sacrificed for just the quality of hers for which he fell in love.
