Sweet Surrender by Mary Moody

Author:Mary Moody
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2009-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

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The 1950s was a period of social repression. In the decades between the war and the sexual revolution of the 1960s, family life was portrayed as neat, clean and harmonious. A woman’s place was in the home, and her role as a mother and homemaker had saintly overtones. It’s easy to look back and laugh at the innocence of those days, but there was a dark side as well. Women were clearly subservient to their husbands, economically and in every other sense. I can remember in vivid detail how difficult life was for my mother when I was a child, and how she grasped the nettle to change her lot. She was ahead of her time.

Every week, my father handed my mother ‘housekeeping’ money that was intended to provide food for the table, buy clothing for the family, and pay a few small bills. After the rent he kept the rest of his not inconsiderable pay packet entirely for himself. It was his responsibility to pay the more substantial bills, such as telephone, gas and electricity. Sometimes he did, but if he lost at the races on a Saturday afternoon the accounts were shoved into a drawer and forgotten until the debt collector or bailiff banged on the front door early Sunday morning.

By the time I was seven my mother decided the family unit could no longer survive unless she got a job. In many ways, working probably saved Muriel. She had some cash flow and could pay the bills. She bought a car to get out and about in, and work provided an escape from her embattled domestic life.

She didn’t manage money well, nor did she enjoy housework. Both she and my father smoked and drank heavily, which meant that although there was always plenty of food – and good food at that – there were rarely any new clothes for her or for us children. My father, on the other hand, spent lavishly on his wardrobe. He was a vain man and a dapper dresser. He could easily justify this expenditure because of the nature of his job as a newspaper editor, but in truth his appearance was important to him because he also enjoyed the company of women. It was hard for Mum to address his selfishness with him because he had a fiery, irrational temper and was violent when cornered in an argument. Feisty Muriel was not cowed by his outbursts, but I certainly was. And I have remained nervous of confrontation all my life.

These days, few women would tolerate a situation like my mother’s. But in the 1950s, divorce was rare and carried a social stigma. I cannot remember any of my friends in primary school having divorced parents, but by the time I reached high school one or two were being raised by a mother alone. Divorce was mentioned in hushed terms. The women and children involved were pitied and, to some extent, scorned.

A neighbour of ours had four children; one day her husband simply disappeared.

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