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06/05/2013
How things have changed in our culture. There was a 1950's movie on TV this week that depicts how different things have changed in this country. The movie is "We're Not Married". A Justice of the Peace married six couples before his position was legal. Two years after the marriages, one couple filed for divorce only to learn they were in luck because they were not legally married. The Justice had to feverishly track five couples down to inform them of the error.
Couple #5 was in a situation that would be unheard of today. The husband was in the Army on his way to war when his wife wrote him they were going to have a baby. He had also just received the letter informing them they were not legally married. There was a panic as he didn't want his child to be born out of wedlock because of the stigma of being a bastard child. Suppose he was killed in the war before they could be legal married? He was actually on a ship when a Chaplain, who was on shore with his woman, married them using radio communications. The Chaplain had a cross on his uniform and actually mentioned Jesus Christ as part of the ceremony. There would be outrage today if that was a current movie. Actually, I believe, the story would even be produced today. And we are supposedly so tolerant.
The movie reminded me of the public moral standards that existed then. Two of the couples, in bedroom scenes, each had single beds. Even though the stories were fictional, they did not allow actors to be shown in the same bed. There was a Board of Censors which kept movies clean. It represented our moral standards of society. Women were actually put on pedestals then. The move was a star-studded including Ginger Rogers, Fred Allen, Marylin Monroe, Paul Douglas, Eve Arden, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Louis Calhern, and Eddie Bracken. It was produced in July 1952, just before my senior year in high school. Contrast that with the cultural background of today. It is why those of my generation abhor what is currently happening.
And we are the dinosaurs who were brought up in a much more decent society.
Stan
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