MarkRichardson thanks for the Google history of american womens' entry into the professions. I think your education would be more rounded by viewing the film "Rosie the Rivetter" which deals with the mobilisation of american women into the workforce in 1939 and the demobilisation of same in 1945.

As many a young gel can tell you almost all of the novels by Jane Austen were about the search for a husband who was kind and wouldn't squander her dowry or would accept a woman with a small dowry. Up until 1918 middle class Australianns waited till rich old aunt XXX died so they could marry.

Ever wondered at the origins of the term "RULE OF THUMB". A husband could beat his wife with a switch that was no thicker than his thumb. Its still on the Australian statute books.

Speaking of the "Rule of Thumb" Billie,
Ena did not mention THE great women's experience of quality or non-quality; the female Orgasm. She mentioned "giving birth, breastfeeding, menstruation, and menopause".
None of those includes her husband.

In Embrace the Change, this is what Jane says about husbands:
". . . it was women who sublimated their own dreams and ambitions for those of their husbands and, eventually, their children."
" . . . then back into the workforce as their children grew and, as happened frequently, as they left their unsatisfactory husbands."
"Women today, particularly women with jobs, husbands and children, are living life in an entirely new way."

The entire article is about "me, me, me" as a woman. It is not about "Us" as a couple, a woman and man together, an entity together, facing the world together for the best thing for their children.

Many couples are married but apart. There is a great gulf but it is not talked about. All they do is sleep together. And that is today's marriage. God who wants it. Intimacy is what real love and marriage is about but it does not exists today. Woman make sure it doesn't as they are looking after themselves. Maybe Jane should go home and say to her husband: "What do you think? . . . the world knows what I think but what does the man I married think?" Why isn't her husband's thoughts part of Jane's article?

hey Glenwriter,
read it again, carefully, then go back through the posts till you find the one where I explain that this is actually a heartfelt tribute to my beloved partner of 30 years, my husband, a man who gave me the room and the support and the space to grow and by doing so, taught me how to at least try to do the same for him and, most importantly, for our kids.

GlenW,
Are you not disposed to responding to my inquiry regarding your assumptions regarding me and my post? I can only guess they fall into the ‘too hard’ basket as it doesn’t fit into your world view.

Speaking of which, if I were to perform the same mental gymnastics that you did for me (that is to make a random guess at my life) I would have to say that from your posts, I am dealing with a somewhat angry man who lost out in a divorce and blames the woman for desiring more than he was willing to give or could give. For example:

“Why am I divorced Ena?
Because I didn't do all the housework to the standard she wanted?
I didn't listen to her whinges long enough and attentively enough? She was a schoolteacher and had to tell me about her 28 children.
And my arms and hands aching in massaging her?
Then she complained because I was dressed in an apron most of the time.
And what hapened after all that? She said I did not act like a man. We divorced.”

These appear to be the emotive comments from a man dealt a cruel blow. I sympathise with you GlenW but not every relationship (or woman) would be as you have described.

I can only wish you the best of luck in finding someone who you can relate to and find a true bond with. I would first suggest that you lose the ‘chip’ on your shoulder about women though.

All in all, the sooner we accept each other as equal and human – and reject stereotyping on gender and ‘roles’ – the better the world will be.

Reason,
I am a sub-editor and must correct what I see is wrong with English, composition and meaning.

Second,
My marraige lasted 29 years 10 months so that is why I feel that I am just like ena's husband. I had a wife who thought much like ena.
My marriage was successful until I decided that I too had a life to live instead of just for "the family".
Ena did not answer my question of asking her husband:
"What do you think?"
That is a very important question because i was not asked in my married life.
It was 'presumed' when I just agreed for peace and my three children.
It was later that I knew that i was selling my real self out.

Third, I am a human person who has worked with the disabled, the drug addicts, the homosexuals who are bashed and the derelicts in the street, the very, very bottom of society and worked with the Salvation Army. When you walk with the people at the bottom you realise that talk is cheap and how much a sham the world is. So I am angry. Isn't everyone including feminists angry. Anger is a motivator. Anger is used by all people including John F Kennedy when he took the world to the edge of nuclear war to stop the Russian missiles going to Cuba. At that point the world could have ended, when Kennedy got angry.

Fourth, feminism just does not see that young males in their teens are suiciding. That does not matter so long as feminism continues even when young males are forgotten in school but females are promoted. To bring one gender up means to put one gender down even at the expense of young men's deaths . . . and it is not seen.

Billie: You wrote, "Ever wondered about the origins of the term "RULE OF THUMB". A husband could beat his wife with a switch that was not thicker than his thumb. It's still on the Australian statute books."

This is one of those myths which is all too eagerly seized upon, until it takes on a life of its own. In fact, the origins of the term "rule of thumb" have nothing to do with punishing wives. It's thought to derive from wood workers who were skilful enough to measure using their thumbs rather than rulers.

As for a rule regulating the size of a switch for punishing wives, no one has ever found any written reference to such a rule in English common law. Quite the opposite: British law since the 1700s has prohibited wife beating.

Ena: you say that women had an "appalling" legal status when, after a marital separation, they had no right of custody to their children. Do you then believe that the past generation of men have had an "appalling legal status"? After all, hundreds of thousands of men have lost custody of their children over the past 30 years, and many men have been denied even occasional visitation because of a lack of effective court enforcement of visitation orders.

It's interesting that during the era when it was men who had custody rights men seldom separated children from their mothers. In contrast, almost as soon as the situation was reversed, vast numbers of women chose to separate fathers from their children.