Wedged as we are between the death of the last lingering New Year’s resolutions and the start of Lent, I meandered through a bit of James Branch Cabell, an author my grandfather read but tried to keep me from reading. His reputation for elegant naughtiness was well-deserved, and he would find no shortage of controversy nowadays with his depiction of women as essentially dangerous creatures: he stated here and there among his works that they were a snare and a paradox for unsuspecting men. Women, he declared, was the great inspiration, leading men to attempt mighty deeds beyond what they would have tried otherwise. AND they were the ultimate obstacle, bent on preventing men from accomplishing the very deeds that were being attempted in their honor.
Which brings us to the promised topic of today’s column: the Fisherman and His Wife.
Ideally, to that alien observer we discussed last time, who thinks, from looking over our postcards, that the fisherman was king of our universe, a wife would exist to encourage and support her fish-hunting hubby. And yet they would see, again and again, that our cartoonists insisted it was not so.
The fisherman’s wife, according to the postcards, regards herself as long=-suffering, and wishing to share that suffering with her partner.
They are a terrible distraction when a man is busy trying to catch the wily enemy.
Even when the husband is successful, they can be heard critiquing his work.
And offering unsolicited advice.
Even when they do their best to be helpful wives do not, on postcards, quite GET it.
Failing to understand the seriousness of the fishing pursuit.
And even, when convinced to take part in the noble sport, declining to take their spouse’s superiority with the seriousness this deserves.
When the fisherman leaves them onshore, however, the carping (sorry) continues.
Wives, say our fishy cartoonists, are never satisfied.
Rare, rare indeed, our alien friend will learn from our postcards, is the married couple who enjoy the fishing trip on a basis of complete understanding and shared passion. Mind you, if that alien also gets hod of the postcards about how husbands behave around the house, there might be an antidote to this version of twentieth century womanhood, but since fishing postcards predominate, this may be too much to hope. (By the way, James Branch Cabell’s wife was known to state, with pride, that she had never read even one of her husband’s books. These things do have a way of evening out.)
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