OBITS REVEAL A DYING CULTURE

Most people don’t enjoy reading newspaper obituaries, unless it happens to be someone they know. However, I’ve always found them fascinating if they contain interesting details about someone’s time on this earth. My contemporaries are beginning to leave this world at an alarming rate, and their obituaries reveal a dying culture.

First, it’s important to realize that obituaries are bought and paid for by the survivors. Newspapers used to publish them for free, but no more. You can pay anywhere from $200 to $1000, depending on how many lines of copy. And if the obit is in an extra day, it provides even more revenue for struggling newspapers who are hard up for advertising dollars.

An obituary of a certain class of women of my generation provides a startling glimpse into the marriage customs of the elite during the fifties and sixties. After the usual bio as to her parentage, we often find that she attended a well known college where she met and married, “the love of her life.” She belonged to a sorority, which meant she was attractive, and came from a “good family.” Having landed a college man who could support her, she may have taught school for a year or so before settling down as a homebody and raising her children. No career for her. She was a member of faith based women’s clubs and other feminine circles. Her highest achievements may have included serving as president of the PTA. She belonged to a country club, where she played golf, tennis and bridge. If the husband did well enough , they might have spent summers at their Michigan cottage or winters in their Florida home.

The most salient feature of these obits is the age at which the woman married…a median of 21. Many of my college friends married after their freshman or sophomore year, before they were even 20! Which brings us back to that “love of her life,” issue. I guess they didn’t have a chance to find out if they could have fallen in love with someone else.

Obits Reveal Dying Culture — In 1960, the average bride was 20. Now, Obits Reveal a Dying Culture, with the average bride almost 30..

But in the late sixties and early seventies, all that began to change. The pill, and the subsequent women’s movement, gave women and men the freedom to live together without benefit of matrimony. Before 1970, few couples would have lived together outside of marriage. But by the late 1990’s at least 50 to 60% of people did.

By the year 2018, only 29% of Americans age 18-34 were married, compared to 59% in 1968, Men and women aren’t in a big rush to get married. The average age of marriage has gone from 21 in 1950 to almost 30 in 2020.

The obituary of a millennial woman will probably read more like her male counterparts. Her life will not be defined by the person whom she married. She probably won’t have met “the love of her life” in college. While she might enjoy tennis , golf, or bridge, she didn’t have the time to pursue them as an important component of her social life. She may have had a career as an accountant, doctor, lawyer, or marketing manager. She probably didn’t marry until she was close to 30, and she might have had more than one husband.

Women are no longer living in the shadow of their husbands. Obituaries of elderly women reveal a dying culture.

August 17, 2020August 17, 2020

WHERE HAVE ALL THE BAD GIRLS GONE?

If you were young and single in the fifties, there were a lot of bad girls out there. Unmarried females weren’t supposed to have much of a sex life. To do so, would be at great risk to your reputation. Intimacy allowed in unmarried relationships was limited and clearly regulated. Kissing was about the only thing a girl could do if she wanted to have a “good reputation.” If you were going steady in high school, pinned during college, or engaged after that, you might go a little further. But going “all the way” was verboten. Nevertheless, a lot of so-called trashy girls, did. But now, we’re into the 21st century, and you have to wonder. Where have all the bad girls gone?

Of course, the real reason for all the abstinence was the fear of pregnancy. If a bad girl did get pregnant, the young man responsible was expected to marry her. However, there was no DNA testing available. Consequently, If a man wanted to contest a paternity suit, all he had to do was take five of his buddies with him to court. That was the magic number. Five. If five males swore under oath that they, also, had sex with the pregnant girl, the man was off the hook. He didn’t have to marry her or pay child support. The assumption being that promiscuity precluded the ability to ascertain which man was the biological father.

In 1963, availability of oral contraceptives began to change all that. Girls could have sex without worrying so much about pregnancy. The pill was a far more reliable method of birth control than condoms. Then, ten years later , the most important thing happened: Roe Vs. Wade made it legal for women to get abortions. Finally, women were free to act like men always had. Call it free love, free sex, whatever. All of a sudden, girls and boys started living together even if they weren’t married. If a girl got pregnant and had a baby, it was because she wanted to, not because she had to. Now, 40% of all births are to single moms. There are no bad girls anymore.

Where have all the bad girls gone? Kamala Harris would have been considered one back in the fifties. — Where Have All The Bad Girls Gone? Back in the fifties, Kamala Harris would have been considered one of them.. The Times, They Are A Changing.

Which brings us around to the love life of Kamala Harris, the vice presidential candidate for the 2020 election. It’s public knowledge that she had a long time affair with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, when she was twenty-nine and he was sixty.. Fifty years ago, a woman who had a very public affair with a married man would have been considered one of those “bad girls.” There were names for women who did such things—four letter words ending with T. Certainly she would not have been seen as fit for the 2nd highest office in the United States. The Times , They Are A Changing..

Where have all the bad girls gone? I’m not sure there ever were any.

July 1, 2019July 16, 2019

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN COLLEGE WAS CHEAP?

When I graduated from an all girls high school in 1953, it cost $15 per semester hour to attend the local state teachers college. If you lived at home, you could pay for that with baby sitting money. Strange as it may seem, only 10% of my class went on to college. Why was that? What happened in the old days when college was cheap?

college degrees are losing their luster — Free College May Not Make Much Difference to High School Graduates

Young women weren’t motivated to attend college in the hope of getting a better job. In those days, most girls got engaged to be married before they were 20. Why bother with college at all? And for those of us who scrimped and saved and slogged our way through college, it didn’t really pay off. A good secretary who learned to type and take shorthand in high school made as much as a teacher.

Girls who went on to college were accused of looking for an “MRS degree.” It was assumed they were only interested in finding a well educated husband, who could provide a better life than a truck driver. . And it must have worked. If you read the obituaries of octogenarians who were prominent in society, it often says they met their husbands while attending such and such university.

Back then, most women who did graduate and entered the work force got married in a couple of years, had kids, moved to the suburbs, and became stay at home wives. Their hard earned college degree wasn’t nearly as helpful as reading Dr. Spock.

The birth control pill in 1960 marked the beginning of the women’s liberation movement. “Good” girls didn’t have to get married in order to enjoy sex. And they didn’t have to have kids unless and until they were good and ready. Employers began hiring women to fill traditional male occupations., and paying them better salaries. Their college degrees paid off if they studied accounting, engineering, or medicine. As more and more women attended college, tuition and fees went up. That small teachers college in my home town became a State University. Enrollment multiplied five times over the years.

Now, I see the pendulum swinging the other way. A college degree is beginning to lose it’s luster. Enrollment is declining. With salaries rising for skilled trade jobs, and the $15 an hour wage looming on the horizon, it hardly seems worth it to pile up half a lifetime of student loan debt. https://livingwellafter80.com/why-some-bright-kids-drop-out-of-college/

And, let’s face it. We’re heading toward socialism. When health care and a college education are free, then there’s less incentive to spend four years of your life in a classroom when you could get a good skilled trade job, buy a house, and start a family before you’re thirty. As a matter of fact, waitresses and bartenders now make more than many college grads.

I’m all for a free college education as proposed by numerous presidential candidates. Just don’t be surprised if a lot of young people aren’t interested in taking advantage of it.