In the old days, before the feminist movement, before women competed with men for high-level careers, before women wanted more for themselves than to be an armband and homemaker for their husbands, we lived in a Noah’s Ark mentality. We lived in a couple society. You were nobody if you had never been married, and less than nobody if you had not had at least one child born from that marriage.
I groan when I think of the role women played in those days. They were told that they had to look pretty for her husband but not to worry about her pretty little head with important decisions. One of the old jokes told with irony during the Cold War is the one in which the husband asks his wife: “What do you think of Red China?” and she replies, “I think it would go well with gray or white plates.”
The women were told that they would not be able to understand the mechanics of politics, so they should vote like their husbands did and not try to understand how things worked in Washington. And, of course, there were no women in elected office in Washington.
They were told that their purpose in life was to marry and procreate and that God help those who could not find someone to marry them and, worse still, those who did not want or could not have children. They were the ones to be pitied and gossiped about.
In those days, and for many decades after, women did not go to restaurants alone, and if they did, they would sit in the back near the kitchen. It was unusual for a woman to want to sit alone at a table and eat the dinner she had ordered alone without a man doing it for her.
No matter how old a woman was, her status in society was tied to her husband. She did not aspire to go to medical school; instead, she aspired to be Mrs. Doctor. She did not dream of being a lawyer and defending cases before the Supreme Court. Instead, she dreamed of being Mrs. Lawyer. In those days there were very few female doctors and lawyers and those in those fields were considered rarities.
Women, if they loved the medical field, trained to be nurses or technicians, and if they were drawn to the law, trained to be legal secretaries. They typically didn’t see themselves going to school and qualifying for those careers; they were always the appendages of men who had their medical degree or their Juris Doctor degree.
Society has definitely gone through a metamorphosis. Women still do not dominate the workforce, nor do they receive equal pay for equal work, regardless of new laws. They still can’t break the glass ceiling in many places of business and are still subject to the good network of friends and attitudes that make advancement in many fields almost impossible to break.
But above all, what has gone through most of the social changes in America is the attitude that women have today about marriage.
I remember when Jackie Kennedy made the comment: “The first time you marry for love, the second time for money and the third time for companionship.” It was novel thinking for women who didn’t think marriage could be divided into those categories and who didn’t plan beyond their first marriage.
European marriages have always had more options than American marriages. Even in the good old days, when American women were filled with angst at the thought of having a child out of wedlock, European women often lived with their lover and had children with him without the benefit of marriage. In today’s society, Americans are rapidly catching up with their European counterparts and living with and having children with a significant other without suffering the stigma of illegitimate offspring.
But I think the biggest change has been in the attitude of so many women who don’t want the restrictions of marriage because they want to pursue fulfilling careers and aren’t ready to start a family. Many of them are choosing not to have children altogether; they want the same freedoms that men have always taken for granted.
It is interesting that so many women would rather live with a lover than marry him, especially if that woman is divorced. If she has a good career, money in the bank, and owns a home, she doesn’t feel the need to marry for a man to “take care” of her. She prefers her independence and wants to be free to come and go without asking permission or seeking consent.
The older a divorced woman gets, and the more time she’s spent as a single woman, the less inclined she may be to re-enter the dating game or remarry. She may prefer to live with a man, have separate bank accounts, and manage her own investment portfolio. She may wish to pursue her own interests rather than those of her lover.
Times are definitely changing. The Noah’s Ark mentality is slowly but surely disappearing; women are no longer content to be second in command at work or at home. Increasingly, women want to be CEO of their company and want their partner to share in all aspects of their home life. They want their partner to share in cleaning, cooking, laundry, shopping, and raising their children. They seek equality in their relationships and if they can’t have that, they prefer to live alone.