The other day I was watching some lousy, dull, supposed romantic comedy starring James Garner and Natalie Wood. (It was so awful, I'm intentionally not mentioning the name of the movie so YOU don't have to watch it.) Near the end, tall, hunky James Garner pretty much demands that he's going to marry Ms. Wood because "I'm going to make an honest woman out of you." He says it again a minute later.
Yow!
What does this imply? That all women are born dishonest (kinda like we're all born innocent until we sin) and women's only salvation is to have some big, dumb caveman swoop in, clobber them with their clubs, and drag them to the altar? Praise be to all big, dumb men for saving women!
Sigh.
You know, I'd heard this stoopid saying many times before when I was just a wee tot (probably from my grandma or mom), and just stored it away as another silly nonsense saying that had no business in the "real world." But it all came rushing back to me with this dumb movie.
Wow. How insulting. First of all, some of the strongest people I know are women (I'm looking at you, wife). Second, this ridiculous saying treats women as nothing but problems to be fixed by men (the forerunner of mansplaining? And we men just LOVE to fix problems for the helpless ladies, who for years we have envisioned as lil' Mary Tyler Moore crying in the kitchen over burned biscuits, so it'd be up to us men to swoop in, patronizingly tell them they were being silly, chuckle at their helplessness, and show them how to scrape off the burned sections. Ta-DAAAAA! You're welcome!). Third, why are women dishonest and not men? Particularly when it's been proven that men are liable to be more crook-worthy. I point you no further than to politicians.
As your man in the field, I chose to look into this sexist, dumb saying. In fact, I'll mansplain it very simply for my female readers. (Ducks and covers.)
First up, let's take a look at what old, wise Ms. Merriam Webster had to say. The definition is "to marry a woman (especially a woman one has had sex with)." Horrors! Living in sin! And it's entirely the woman's fault, natch, wink, nudge. There's that classic double-standard that's still prevalent today; a man who sleeps around with a lot of woman is admired by his fellows, while women who do the same thing are denigrated. Been that away since I was a teen. Hey, I don't make the rules, I just report them.
Another website claims the saying has been kicking around since the 1600s. Henry Fielding used it in his popular comic novel, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, back in 1749. Others claim the saying originated in the 1950s, that last bastion of human decency (or so the ol' folks think) where premarital sex was as abnormal as women in pants. I daresay the Bible may have had something to do with it...you know, with Eve, the temptress, leading Adam astray with her apple of evil seduction. Things don't get much more dishonest than that, right?
On the flip side, there is the phrase, "I'm going to make an honest man out of you." But, alas, it basically has the same meaning: the woman has led the decent man astray with her temptations and the only way out is to force him into marrying, thus making him "honest" again.
Women just can't win without men. Or so men think.
Speaking of really dumb men, my corporate satire/horror/mystery novel, Corporate Wolf, is just chalk full of them. Give it a read, ladies and see if you can't recognize some of them. I'll wait right here until you're done reading. Hello? Anyone still out there? HeLLOOOOO?
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