No man ever wanted a dumb broad for a wife

As I was flipping through some television garbage trying to induce sleep, I came upon an old western starring Kirk Douglas, Dorothy Malone and Rock Hudson. Once upon a time the above names would have been common points of reference — a collective vocabulary signifying the Fifties: chrome tailfins, standard-issue grey flannel suits, hats and stifled alternative views.

No longer. Common points of reference today are unrecognisable, at least for yours truly, still stuck on black-and-white movies, good manners and correct dress. At one point in the film, a young, beautiful girl tells a middle-aged Kirk Douglas that she loves him. He dismisses it, telling her she’s just a girl who will one day find a young man who’s right for her. ‘I’m not a girl,’ she cries. ‘I’m a woman who will wash your clothes and cook for you, and take care of you…’ Just as well that only a kiss is exchanged because Kirk turns out to be her father, conveniently shot dead by Rock at the end of the movie. Phew, that was a close one. The beautiful youngster was Carol Lynley, whom I once lunched with at Mark’s Club back in 1979. But that’s not the point of my story. It’s what she said to Kirk in order to get him to change his mind about her: I’ll wash your clothes and so on. Oh, for those good old days.

Which brings me to how very different things were for all of us, but mainly for women, back in the Fifties. Mind you, I’m not Virginia Nicholson, the lady who has written Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, a book about the lost world of womanhood during that decade. Excerpts in a daily newspaper hinted that the last thing a man wanted was a clever woman.