A night out with the girls

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33520, 29 April 1974, Page 6

A night out with the girls

Only about a quarter of all married women in Britain are able to ‘‘get away from it all” and have regular evenings away from the household chores. But more than 50 per cent of husbands go out whenever they want to.

The night out with the boys is the most sacred

i married male institution. So what does the wouldbe liberated woman do about lit? It’s obvious, isn’t it? She insists on a night out with the girls. It sounds logical, I know, but how many of us actually do it? According to social studies, only a pathetic 26 per cent. Mainly, I think, because men expect to go out by: themselves, but curiously resent it when their spouses do the same. A young wife told me that every time she had a chance to go into town with her sister, or have a coffee with some girl friends, her husband always found something to stop her. “It's infuriating. Either he’s late home from work, or has to do something or other which makes it impossible for him to mind the children even for a couple of hours.” DISAPPROVAL Her husband is a pretty I easy-going chap, yet for' some strange reason he: must subconsciously dis- i approve of his wife’s out-! ings. I It’s a shame. Every liberated woman needs a night out with the girls now and again, to escape for a few brief hours from her home and her family, and be herself. It’s not that we're gada-: bouts (not all of us anyway). It’s just that occasion-1 ally we feel the urge to bei separate people, with; thoughts, feelings and opin-; ions, of our own. Surely the; most devoted wife needs the relaxation of being away from her home and her worses? Certainly, too few husbands seem to understand [this. But no liberated wife should expect a husband to sit in unliberated obedience by the fireside every night. He’s entitled to his time off.; too.

To some women this is a very real worry. As one

This is the first of three articles by Stella Bruce on how to be a liberated woman.

wife in her thirties told to me: “When I first discovered : that my husband sometimes I preferred to be away from I me. I found it baffling and I hurtful. , “I was sure there must be .another woman and we had l some awful rows. Eventually he said: ‘lf that’s what you think, you’d better come along.’ “I spent the evening in a pub with four of his mates from work. They drank a few beers and talked about cars. It was ghastly. . . ” The least your husband can do is to give you a similar chance to enjoy yourself — which, if research is any guide, you will at least make more of an event: perhaps go to the cinema or even a concert. STRONG LINE But what do we do when a man refuses to liberate us? We can either sigh deeply and get on with the menIding, or we can take a strong line and go out, whatever he says.

This has to be done skilfully and without faltering. Make the decision and stick | to it. Don’t ask him if you :can go out for a couple' of Jhours — that’s fatal. Take a leaf from the book

of a woman I know who her home-coming husband in her hat and coat, saying briskly: “I’m going out with Alice for a couple of hours. “The children are all asleep and your supper's in the oven” — and off she went before he could utter one word of dissent, returning later looking about five 'years younger, and a good deal better-tempered. EYES OPENED [ Her husband, who thought 'the world of her, but who had never thought for a second that she wasn’t getting all the freedom she deserved, had his eyes well and truly opened. Now they have an arrangement whereby she can go out one night a week if she wishes (and her husband has a similar deal).

Now that she can, she [doesn’t often want to. It’s the feeling that she can go out if she wishes, which really counts. Her husband often gently urges her to go out more often. It’s not that he likes to get her out of the house (or so he says), but he quite enjoys an evening to himself once in a while. The children? They think the new liberated arrangement is smashing. They troop down from their beds to watch television with dad the moment their mother is out of the front door. — Features International.