One has only to remember that large sums of money and vast estates pass away from families in default of an heir male to understand how sometimes the girl-child is dressed and brought up as a "boy" from the earliest period.
The fraud must sooner or later be found out, you would think. But with money to back it up there is no absolute reason that it should be.
Many of these men-women have been married to "wives," and the wife has kept the secret. There are a dozen cases known and authenticated to prove it.
In most instances the secret has been discovered or confessed at last. But there are some cases in which the secret is kept undivulged through life and passed on to the eternal silence of the grave.