This story came through yesterday, NPR's obituary of Jean Stapleton, a woman my Mom never knew but whose character, Edith Bunker, became one of her best friends. Mom spent a whole lot of Saturday nights with Edith, admiring her common sense, her resilience, her ability to fend off and stand up to her domineering and ignorant husband, Archie.
My Mom didn't have to cope with as much abuse as did her pal Edith, but she could appreciate and recognize the similarities, the common lot of so many housewives. They were the familiar assumptions and expectations so many American women had to endure for generations. To that, once a week on Saturday night, Edith Bunker took to the television airwaves to demonstrate that "simple housewives"and "dumb women" really did possess the insight and wisdom to guide the species to greater understanding, tolerance, and the value in caring.
It has been more than 40 years since I last sat in the den with my parents and watched All In The Family and it's a bit sad seeing this centerpiece pass on. For both of my parents, as well as my brother and me, watching that show let us enjoy the education of a nation. Through gut splitting laughter and tears we relished the disrobing of bigotry, sexism, and all manner of intolerance. But for the housewives of America like my Mom, I think there was truly a special bond with Edith, the "dingbat" who was just oh so smart, oh so capable, and oh so repressed by her place in this society. But she knew, my Mom did, that Edith Bunker was exactly what so many women of the time were: Trapped by norms, treated as inferior, capable well beyond what most everyone ever saw, and responsible for more than anyone knew. Friends. Sisters in Arms.
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