Friday, May 29, 2009

Acting Single

My initial reaction to Elly’s line in today’s reprint in For Better or For Worse is that Elly (and her counterpart) Lynn seem to have the idea that a woman can act single, or she can act married. If you act single, then waiters make passes at you. If you act married, they don’t. Based on that idea, then I would think most women would want to act married, so they don’t get harassed by waiters.

What did Elly do that was different between being single and married? The only thing we saw in this strip was that she bathed and wore nice clothes. The implication is Elly dresses like a frump the rest of the time because that is the way married women dress. If she dares to dress up, she will be acting single. That’s almost like a call to poverty. It’s another notch on the married mother martyrdom list. Aside from having to take care of the kids and clean the house all the time, Elly also can’t wear nice clothes, for fear of attracting unwanted male attention. I can think of a few countries that have these same beliefs, but I never thought Canada was one of them.

The second part of the strip is where Connie tries to get Elly not to feel guilty because a man found Elly attractive. That’s easy to do. The waiter never said one word about Elly’s appearance. Ergo, Elly is feeling guilty over something that did not happen. The waiter just thought Elly was easy, I mean single.

Then Connie mentions that John will have all kinds of opportunities at his dental convention. If Connie is doing an exact comparison to what she just said about what Elly did, she means if John dresses up and takes a bath, a woman might tell him that he is attractive. That’s not so bad.

However, if Connie is doing an exact comparison to what actually happened with Elly and the waiter, she means that if John dresses up and takes a bath, a woman may give him her room number at the convention hotel, or a prostitute working the convention may give John an opportunity to engage her services (depending how you view what the waiter was doing). This is the problem. Elly is only going to be upset with Connie, if she thinks this second way. After all, why would she be upset if John was clean and looked good at a convention among his dental professional peers? And why wouldn’t she think this second way? After all, that is exactly what happened to her. That waiter gave her a phone number, not a compliment. Connie's little comment about John only works to upset, if Elly is thinking phone number, not compliment.

Connie is a radiology technician and thus, works in a medical field like John Patterson. By extending Connie’s statement about John to Connie, then does Elly think that when Connie goes to conventions for radiology, she throws herself at married radiologists? Well, knowing Connie, she probably does.

This is acting single. It is not a just a marital state, but it is way of acting. It is not just the desire to have a husband, but the actions a woman must take to get a husband. If Elly thinks this way about Connie then getting her married is not just being nice to Connie, but it is practically a moral imperative. Connie is a danger to every man in her community -- a danger which can only be contained by marriage. I get the impression that when people consider marriage as “making an honest woman out of her”, Elly Patterson really believes it.

17 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe I'm insane, but I kind of like it when other women find the guy I'm with attractive. It's an ego boost. So the idea that women would hit on my partner doesn't bother me. What would bother me would be the idea that he couldn't resist getting some action on the side when the opportunity presented itself. Then I'd start questioning my judgment as to why I was with such a jerk.

The only way Elly could guarantee John not having opportunities to cheat would be to lock him up. I guess the train thing was close enough for her.

10:29 PM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

First off, most Canadians do not share Lynn's delusion that married women have to parade around in the moral equivalent of a burka. That's all Lynn. It comes from the same constipated mindset that hypothesizes that Single Connie is an active danger to every marriage in a hundred-kilometer radius. Lynn may try to sidestep the issue with stupid jokes and an aw-shucks grin but it's clear that she's still living in the eighteen sixties.

10:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Single women in the 1860s weren't considered dangerous to marriages. Lynn's living in her own little world, of no particular time or geography. The Lynniverse.

11:01 PM  
Blogger howard said...

clio_1,

The only way Elly could guarantee John not having opportunities to cheat would be to lock him up. I guess the train thing was close enough for her.-

As a matter of fact, here is a strip where Elly actually says that.

Single women in the 1860s weren't considered dangerous to marriages. Lynn's living in her own little world, of no particular time or geography. The Lynniverse.-

I remember finding out, much to my surprise, that today’s women are much more marriage-obsessed than in the generations which preceded them. My generation has lost the concept of the “maiden Aunt” or the “confirmed bachelor.” The statistic I remember was that in our generation, by the time a woman has reached her 40s, 85% of them have been married at least once. Back in 1880, that percentage was closer to 40%. In that day and age, if a woman was not married by her early 20s, she never got married.

On the other hand, I remember reading an Emily Post book from the 1920s once, where there was an element of etiquette for men and woman with respect to when a man and woman had to step over something. The man had to step over first and the woman after. The idea was that if the man followed after, he would get a glimpse of the feminine ankle and be filled with lustful thoughts. So, there is something to what dreadedcandiru2 suggests.

1:19 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

First off, most Canadians do not share Lynn's delusion that married women have to parade around in the moral equivalent of a burka. -

I had figured as much. Of course, I wonder where it is that Lynn got that idea in the first place. She has enough of an open mind to accept that women can work, that it’s all right to be gay. And yet, she has very specific ideas about married women.

1:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Re dressing like a married woman: I once knew a very pretty young woman who had long, thick, luxuriant hair. Not having seen her for several years, I met her on the street recently, and she was still pretty but she had cut her hair off short. Without thinking, I blurted, "You got married, obviously!" And I was right.

8:16 AM  
Blogger howard said...

josephusrex,

Not having seen her for several years, I met her on the street recently, and she was still pretty but she had cut her hair off short. Without thinking, I blurted, "You got married, obviously!" And I was right.-

Sad, but true. I love long hair on women.

The last time my wife had her hair long was before we were married. She chopped it after she had kids, claiming that small children grab hair and pull, so it was safer to keep it short. Of course, my kids are so big now, this has not been a danger for years, and yet, her hair continues to be short.

9:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In that day and age, if a woman was not married by her early 20s, she never got married.That is a common misconception. Women of the highest echelons tended to get married somewhat early, but overall, for all classes, the "range" of marriage ages was large. Women could, and occasionally did, get married extremely young. But many, many women didn't marry until their 30s, 40s, or even later. People also remarried a lot, because their spouses died a lot. A man looking for a second wife usually wouldn't want a very young woman to take care of his children. And people usually married for affection.

People in general were a lot less monolithic than we tend to give them credit for being. The 1950s painted a picture of everyone (everyone in the white, American and Canadian middle and upper classes) being the same that wasn't even true then, and it was probably more true then than any other time because of the massive economic boom. The 1950s was also the time when the castigation of "the Victorian era" for being full of reactionary, hypocritical prudes took hold. Interestingly, people in the Victorian era liked to castigate the Puritans for being reactionary, hypocritical prudes. We, of course, like to berate the 1950s. The accusations are equally true, and untrue, of each era.

Of course, in the 1860s in the non-United States as they were then, getting and keeping a husband was a rather dicey proposition, especially for Southern women.

As for long hair: it's a pain in the butt. One of my professors said she chopped hers off and kept it short in her 30s because, to quote, "I didn't want to play any more." I keep mine shoulder length because that's easiest for me, with my kind of hair, but when I was 19 I had it down to my butt. Never, ever again.

2:05 PM  
Blogger Muzition said...

My hair is really long, and I don't plan to get married soon and cut it off. :P

3:47 PM  
Blogger howard said...

clio_1,

In that day and age, if a woman was not married by her early 20s, she never got married.-

That is a common misconception.-

Thanks for correcting my obviously wrong statement. Nevertheless, my main point was that the societal push for everyone to be married is relatively recent.

A man looking for a second wife usually wouldn't want a very young woman to take care of his children.-

That may be true, but was certainly not the case in my own family history when wives died and husbands found a second wife. Unless by very young woman, you mean a woman younger than 24 years old.

And people usually married for affection.-

This is considered to be the common characteristic of not being rich or titled, and living in countries that no longer believe in arranged marriages. I remember reading stories about young women in early America, when the ratio of men to women was very high. No one had enough money for wealth to be a problem, and the young women could pretty much pick the husband they wanted. The chosen man would be foolish to refuse, and generally didn’t.

People in general were a lot less monolithic than we tend to give them credit for being. The 1950s painted a picture of everyone (everyone in the white, American and Canadian middle and upper classes) being the same that wasn't even true then,-

My father was brought up during that time, and is quick to tell me that the view of the 1950s is definitely idealized. For him in the United States, the 1950s were the times of the sit-ins and extreme poverty (in some areas of the country).

I keep mine shoulder length because that's easiest for me, with my kind of hair, but when I was 19 I had it down to my butt. Never, ever again.-

That’s a sad story. By your statement, “with my kind of hair” I presume this means that when your hair is long, it is like a wild beast that needs to be tamed.

6:55 PM  
Blogger howard said...

Muzition,

My hair is really long, and I don't plan to get married soon and cut it off. :PThat’s a happy story. Do you plan to cut it off, if you get married?

6:56 PM  
Anonymous Vancouver Cosmetic Dentist said...

This particular short phrase fro the top of your post caught my attentions and please allow me to quote it here "a woman can act single, or she can act married".

Just a question though..."Don't we men not do the same sometimes?" LOL.

7:14 PM  
Blogger Muzition said...

No, I don't think I'll cut my hair if I get married.

7:43 PM  
Blogger howard said...

Vancouver Cosmetic Dentist,

This particular short phrase fro the top of your post caught my attentions and please allow me to quote it here "a woman can act single, or she can act married".

Just a question though..."Don't we men not do the same sometimes?" LOL.
-

Ah, the old double negative question. Tricky. Letting the negatives cancel each other out, I believe you are asking if we men act single or act married sometimes. I think the answer to that question has to be “Yes” assuming that there are only the marital states of single or married. I supposed divorced could be in there too, but I usually think of that as single.

9:13 PM  
Blogger howard said...

Muzition,

No, I don't think I'll cut my hair if I get married.-

Excellent. As a person who loves long hair on a woman, I am quite happy to hear that.

9:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I loved having my hair long. However, when I reached about twice the age I was when I got married, I noticed my hair had lost a lot of its volume. This is a pretty typical occurrence with aging, I've heard, but when one has fine thin hair to begin with (the kind that has "no weight" even at waist length), loss of volume makes it horribly straggly and unattractive. Hair needs a certain volume to look good long.

I do really miss it being long, but it simply looks better short now - and the plus side is its a LOT easier to take care of.

9:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

By your statement, “with my kind of hair” I presume this means that when your hair is long, it is like a wild beast that needs to be tamed.It's very fine and I have a lot of it, so yes. It would take 45 minutes to brush and then get tangled in the next half hour. I look much better with shorter hair anyway -- most people do, imo. I don't like really long hair.

1:12 PM  

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