I remember a
song from the sixties, "The Everyday Housewife, Who Gave Up the Good Life, For
Me".
Nice sentiment, but how many women would demand that the husband, as a
condition of marriage, give up his job and any kind of financial independence and
become totally financially dependent on her for the rest of his life, no matter
how important he thought his job was or how he enjoyed his job?
I’ve seen too
many shows starring Lucy Ball that was all about some plot of her trying to get
money out of Ricky, played by Desi Arnez, or later Mr. Mooney, played by Gale Gordon.
There was
always Ricky’s reframe, “Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!”
Ricky never had to ‘splain’
anything to Lucy. Husbands of the time never did. They were the “heads” of the
household. Even in their production company name, Desilu, his name comes first, though she starred and brought in the money and he soon resigned.
I recently saw one episode of I
Love Lucy, where she and Ethel tried to start a business based on her great
cooking. It would be cooking. Women and wives were supposed to be great cooks.
She failed, of course. She was supposed to fail. She was required to fail.
Wives were not supposed to be good in business. They were supposed to be
housewives.
I don’t blame Lucy Ball and her
producers for making shows like that. She was a woman of her time, but I am a
man of mine and I don’t care to watch such things anymore.
