11th August 2011 / 2 Comments
Woman's Weekly /
6th June 1969
*emerges from bunker* Ah, peace at last. Anyway, I thought it was high time I treated you all to another Marryat. There’s a sweet letter about two youngsters in love, a woman who clearly wants backup from Mary to wave at her future son’s mum-in-law, but the most remarkable letter is tucked away, for some odd reason. Poor Joan is being threatened with eviction by her husband through no fault of her own, and although Mary tells her that she does have rights, as his wife, it’s strange to not have this as the lead letter. I hope Joan sorted out her life and got rid of her deadbeat husband, but it’s a telling sign that affairs and marriage breakup are nothing new.
Tags: blatant sexism, marriage, Mary Marryat, problem page
31st July 2011 / 7 Comments
Woman's Weekly /
9th April 1965
Well, I fancied some Sunday sexism, so I thought I’d drag out another one of Mary’s pages. Nowadays, I’d hope that men taking women on dates would assume that their companions were able to string a sentence together to order their dinner, but in 1965, this was obviously considered to be taking too much of a chance. Pity the poor woman who wanted to leave after the coffees, but whose male companion was getting stuck into the whisky and leering at other women, eh?
We’ve also got some poor girl whose mother is clearly terrified of her daughter growing up (my mum practically had to crowbar me into a bra), and an even more unfortunate girl. I sincerely hope she didn’t need the help of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child, and that her parents put the religious dogma aside to help her.
Tags: blatant sexism, Mary Marryat, misplaced morality, pregnancy, problem page
17th July 2011 / No Comments Yet
Woman's Weekly /
2nd April 1965
It’s our Mary again! Here she gives reasonable advice to a woman who is contemplating an affair with a married man (although note that she can’t resist implying that she’d be a ‘home wrecker’, as if the man involved had no responsibility at all), but what struck me was her reference to a ‘special boyfriend’ in the second reply.
This reminded me of my mother and aunt suggesting that I could go on dates when I considered myself to be in a committed long-distance relationship, and I think this change is probably down to the fact that relationships can now be serious without marriage getting involved. A generation or so ago, it was far more common to date (in theory, without sexual intercourse taking place), then getting engaged once you felt you’d found ‘the one’, whilst my generation haven’t really dated in that respect, as sex tended to happen at an earlier stage, meaning that a series of serious relationships are now more the norm.
Other letters of note here include the rather sweet enquiry about having youngsters around the farm (I would have loved to go on holiday at Mrs T’s place), and the mother who was clearly dying to address her son with the letters ‘B.A’. I presume he was the first in his family to get a degree!
Tags: blatant sexism, marriage, Mary Marryat, problem page, romance
24th June 2011 / No Comments Yet
Woman's Weekly /
19th August 1965
Here’s a few interesting indications of what life was like in 1965 for women. ‘Ruth’ seems to have paid the price for putting her own feelings above those of her family, ‘C’, thankfully, describes her positive experience of a ‘shotgun wedding’, and ‘Mrs S.C.’ seems to have a worryingly insensitive husband, judging from Mary’s reply.
Tags: blatant sexism, Mary Marryat, pregnancy, problem page, social history
22nd May 2011 / 1 Comment
Woman's Weekly /
20th June 1969
MARY MARRYAT IN QUITE SENSIBLE SHOCKER. Nah, I can’t find much to be snarky about here, sadly, although the silly woman asking for advice on what to write in a prayer book was clearly a gift to Mary. Money for old rope!
Tags: Mary Marryat, motherhood, problem page
6th January 2011 / 1 Comment
Woman's Weekly /
23rd May 1969
Horray, it’s Mary Marryat! We’ve had an uneasy relationship with the long standing Woman’s Weekly agony aunt, but she’s not being particularly awful here. Tracking down your adopted children is ethically dubious, and would have been extremely difficult in 1969 anyway. Her advice to ‘Fenella’ (I love that name) and ‘Miss A’ is also sensible. However, it’s the letter to ‘Bernadette’ which raises childish giggles, as well as highlighting the essential conservatism of our Mary. She only views interest in sex as part of marriage, and recommends various hobbies to take Bernadette’s mind off her entirely natural libido. I can’t help but think that the late, great Claire Rayner would have suggested a different, free, form of entertainment…
Tags: blatant sexism, Mary Marryat, motherhood, problem page
23rd May 2010 / 4 Comments
Woman's Weekly /
11th March 1967
Oh dear. I’m pretty sure Mary meant well, but advising a worn-out and demotivated young mother to expend even more energy trying to keep her spoilt brat of a husband happy? Sounds like a sure-fire recipe for depression to me. Woe betide that the husband actually *help* with the baby that he helped create and grow the fuck up, eh?
Also, we have another one of the mysterious replies without the original letter! No prizes for guessing what the ‘habit’ might be…
Tags: blatant sexism, dodgy advice, marriage, Mary Marryat, pregnancy, problem page, social history, teenagers
8th November 2009 / 3 Comments
Woman's Weekly /
2nd August 1957
Seriously now, is this woman actually married? Any woman knows that men don’t get hints, so her advice to ‘Disgruntled’ is just bizarre. What she really wants to say, of course, is “I had to put up with it, so you can, you slutty mare”. Instead, she opts for a subtle suggestion that hubby is going out because his wife has let herself go and he can’t bear to look at her anymore. Pre-feminism isn’t pretty, boys and girls.
Tags: blatant sexism, dodgy advice, Mary Marryat, problem page
25th October 2009 / 3 Comments
Woman's Weekly /
9th March 1957
Later to be known as Mary Marryat, this agony aunt worked for Women’s Weekly for a great many years (there’s copies of Woman’s Weekly from the 1980s on eBay which mention her), and, frankly, I don’t care for her that much. I know I need to consider her responses in the context of the time, but her attitude to someone deciding for themselves how they get married is a bit rum, and asking a 27 year old woman to wait around for a dithering idiot of a man is bloody silly. It was the 1950s! She’s almost on the scrapheap! No wonder she’s worrying!
Tags: blatant sexism, dodgy advice, marriage, Mary Marryat, problem page