The Housewife Turned Feminist

Posted on January 16, 2006

Terry Hekker became an overnight success in 1980 with her book Ever Since Adam & Eve, which advocated women not working and just being the perfect housewife. But when her husband divorced her for a younger woman on Hekker's 40th birthday, she wised up. Her new book's working title is Disregard First Book. It addresses a growing segment of society: divorced older wives who don't have the skills to support themselves.

'My anachronistic book was written while I was in a successful marriage that I expected would go on forever. Sadly, it now has little relevance for modern women, except perhaps as a cautionary tale,' Hekker wrote last week as she announced her U-turn.

In a display of spectacular bad taste, Hekker's husband presented her with divorce papers on their 40th wedding anniversary and left her for a younger woman. The divorce left her facing an uncertain financial future, bereft of income and - after spending her adult life bringing up five children - lacking skills to make her attractive in the job market. Despite that, the judge in her divorce case suggested that - at 67 - she go for job training. She ended up selling her engagement ring to pay for roof repairs and discovering she was eligible for food stamps. Her ex-husband, meanwhile, was holidaying with his new lover in Mexico. Hekker, once a role model for young homemakers, is now rapidly becoming an icon for so-called 'silver divorcees', older women who suddenly find themselves alone without skills and with a much reduced income.

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Hekker's advice to young American women now could not be more different from that of 25 years ago when she travelled the country extolling the virtues of making good meals, keeping a clean house and bringing up fine children. She still believes that those things are worthwhile, but she is under no illusions about marriage being forever. Today, she says, women have to look out for themselves as well - to prepare 'for being abandoned, so that if you end up alone you will have the skills to look after yourself'.

For Hekker, though, the story does have a happy ending. For months she had been offering a new book to New York publishers without success. Now, following publicity for her Times writing, she has literary agents knocking at her door and she is being signed for TV appearances.She is once again - a quarter of a century after her last appearance - booked for the Today television show.

Good for Ms. Hekker: we hope that when it's released, her book will be a bestseller.

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