I love the 1939 film, The Women. I watched it again the other day and every time I do I see… more. It’s just one of those films.
It’s an amazing piece of history: the entire cast was female (not the crew and the animals, as is sometimes reported, though). And it’s surprisingly profound while, at the same time, hits every negative stereotype of women you can imagine: vanity, cattiness, money hunting, etc. Most of the characters in the film are society women, as they were called. In other words: rich broads either through marriage or inheritance (or both).
The fundamental point of the film is, however and perhaps surprisingly, that love requires superseding your ego. One might argue that a bit of unintended Buddhist philosophy sneaks in, exactly where you’d never expect to find it.
The basic plot is that the main character’s husband strays. She (Mary, played by Norma Shearer) finds out through the social grapevine and everyone’s favorite manicurist. The other woman, who works the perfume counter of a Sax-like department store, is a real siren (Crystal, played by Joan Crawford in full lower-class-hustler-trying-to-get-ahead-however-she-can form) looking for a sugar daddy. She (we learn) targeted Mary’s husband when he went to buy his wife some perfume for her birthday, and that he never stood a chance. Regardless of the circumstances, when Mary learns of the betrayal, she believes that the violation is so complete that the relationship must end.
However, before Mary actually ends her marriage, her mother learns from the same manicurist about the affair and gently confronts Mary. Mary tells Mom that she believed in her marriage and that its love was pure; now it is tainted, so it’s over. Most of all, she must end it because, as she says, “I have my pride.” There we see the ego, in opposition to love.
Mom has a fabulous scene here. She says that virtually all men cheat at some point and, when they do, it’s not because they don’t love their wives but rather because they lose themselves. Men, she asserts, don’t have the good sense to change their office or hair as women do. Instead, men look to see themselves as fresh and new in the eyes of someone new and younger. It isn’t love and it isn’t about the wife–it is the man’s ego (in opposition to love, again).
Mom even casually admits her (now dead) husband, Mary’s father, had an affair back in the day, shocking Mary. Mom points out that it isn’t love and that it will end, and likely soon. Mom also cautions that Mary needs to think about more than herself and her hurt pride, she has a daughter with her husband, and that must be considered. Mary opines that her daughter will appreciate her choice in time. Mom scoffs at that.
Mom closes her argument with a doozy: she says that ignoring the cheating is the only real sacrifice they, as super privileged women, have to make in life. Ooof! But accurate. Overall, she’s telling her daughter to feel hurt but, more importantly, to be compassionate to everyone involved (her kid and her husband, the latter in his own weakness) and to be grateful for the good things even with the bad things. To be less hooked by either. Middle path, for the win. Strong Buddhist vibes, Bodhisattva-Mom.
Mom ends her visit by asking Mary if she’s told her friends. Mary says that she is pretty sure they know anyway and Mom says that if she hasn’t told them that she knows, “Don’t. Don’t confide in your friends.” Mom points out that if Mary does, then her friends will, with best intentions usually, make sure that the marriage ends. She finishes with the great line, “I’m an old woman, I know my sex.” Then Mom manufactures a need for a trip to Bermuda for her health and gets Mary to go with.
Of course, Mom’s right. Mary should take the time to sit in the discomfort and decide more rationally how to respond rather than just react; to look at the situation from a more dispassionate perspective, not to be rash. To not stab herself with the second arrow[1]. And Mary does try this. She tries to go on as if nothing is wrong, to let the flirtation/cheating run its course and wait for the husband to stop (as it appears he is).
However, as her mother warned, it is listening to her friends that makes moving on impossible. First, they plant the seed by calling her on her trip to nudge her insecurities. Mary comes home early. However, things seem better with the husband after her return and Mary appears to be moving on.
Shortly, however, after the fashion show (oddly, a scene done in color in a rather surrealist manner), Sylvia (Mary’s friend and cousin) points out that Crystal is in the next dressing room. When Mary reacts just a little, the friends learn she does know about the affair and they (especially Sylvia) pounce, pushing her to action. Playing on her ego (pride) and her maternal instincts (telling her that her daughter and husband were seen with Crystal in the park while she was gone), they essentially force a confrontation with Crystal.
Mary can’t let herself lose face. She tells Crystal to back off; Crystal digs in. And, the genie cannot be put back in the bottle–the papers get a hold of the relatively minor incident and make it a much bigger deal. Mary’s pride takes another hit. Of course, she confronts her husband and it all goes south, according to the housemaid who reports on the fight to the cook. The marriage is over.
After settling things with her husband via his robotically efficient secretary (trope of the sexless working woman), and finally telling her daughter of the split (just as she is preparing to leave for the train station–perhaps as a sign she was hoping for a last second reprieve), she is off on a train to Reno to get her divorce.
One of Mary’s friends (played by Joan Fontaine, who is, in my opinion, the most annoying of the actresses in the film) suddenly leaves her husband and joins her on the train. He won’t let her spend her own (obviously inherited) money as it apparently emasculates him and, well, as she puts it she too has her pride. This woman, however, when in Reno, discovers she’s first-time pregnant. That changes everything. Of course, her husband wasn’t cheating on her so, in a way, it was easier for her to get over her pride and go back to him, which she does in a tearful phone call, meekly getting his permission at the end to reverse the long distance charges. Screw pride–she’s having a baby and loves her husband (whether he deserves it or not). She’s annoying, but she does show Mary that she can have the love she wants… if she lets go of her ego.
This all happens on the morning Mary’s divorce comes through. Another woman from the train to and the ranch in Reno, Miriam (fabulously played by Paulette Goddard), is a chorus girl (thus of a lower class) who is divorcing her “bum” of a husband to marry a wealthy man (Sylvia’s husband!). Miriam tells Mary she obviously is still in love with her husband and needs to tell him so. Miriam counsels Mary to call her man and say she’ll tear up the decree. She says Mary let her pride get in the way and she should have fought more for him, for them. Just as Mary realizes that Miriam is right, the phone rings and it is Mary’s now-ex-husband. Mary, smiling, responds to his unheard question about whether the decree was granted with a “Yes, but…” when he seemingly interrupts her. In the silence, Mary’s face becomes awash with sadness.
Of course, in the few hours since the divorce is granted, Mary’s now-ex has married Crystal (his own ego wouldn’t permit him to just shag her). Mary holds it together to congratulate him, then ends the call. Miriam can see what happened. Mary says, before collapsing into tears, “At least I have my pride.”
Time passes and the husband (Stephen) is miserable (his own doing for having married Crystal), Mary is brave-facing it through life; Sylvia has backed Crystal, feeling betrayed by Mary who made friends with Miriam before she knew about the husband; Crystal is cheating on Stephen, with another Reno-divorcee’s husband….basically, there is a shitton of second-arrow hell going on. But, of course, things work out in the end. Mary learns that Stephen is miserable, that Crystal is cheating, and she decided to enact a plan to win him back. Spoiler: she does.
The last line of the film seals the Buddhist-reading deal. Sylvia, Mary’s friend who has played on her ego the hardest throughout, tries to prevent the reconciliation between Mary and her ex. Sylvia reminds Mary about her pride as Mary is literally turning to go back to him. Mary, rejecting the intervention, responds that pride is something “a woman in love can’t afford.”
And there we have the deeper truth: true love requires a loss of pride, well, of ego. If you’re worried about how loving makes you look, to others, you aren’t really loving with your whole heart. If you are judging your partner, you are not really loving. If you are judging yourself, you are not really loving. Moreover, there is a difference between pride and self-respect. It takes the journey of the film to teach Mary that. If she had known that self-respect and pride aren’t synonymous, there would have been no story to tell here.
Mary’s story is a very Buddhist journey. It is all external at first, then she learns how to be quiet and observe. She learns about herself, good and bad, and her friends (same), and to accept all as they are, including her flawed husband and her flawed self. To be true to herself is to admit that she loves her husband, even as she hates what he did. She learns that she owes it to herself to honor that by reconciling, if she can. She even essentially jiu-jitsus Crystal and Sylvia into exposing Crystal’s infidelity and freeing Stephen to reconcile. Finally, she chooses, actively, to love–imperfectly but wholly.
I would argue that in so doing, she becomes a stronger human, and a more peaceful one. There is no more striving for the perfect marriage, not more seeing her husband or herself as ideals. They are simply humans with flaws (note: he is never portrayed as at all abusive, which is important in this context) who choose to love each other and do the work, together. A Buddhist love story.
[1] The Buddha taught that life happens and painful things happen in that life, things out of our control–the first arrow. We get sick or someone is mean to us…first arrow stuff. If we react (“I’m an idiot for getting sick!” or “He’s an asshole for being mean to me!”) we usually make ourselves suffer more–like stabbing ourselves with a second arrow. We can control our responses to the first arrow stuff and not stab ourselves with the second.