Don’t catch men on the rebound immediately after they’ve been left by their wives: they’ll sob all over you, and then go off with someone else.

Any girl who is determined to get married should go for a man who’s been married six times, and get him into bed. He will then divorce his sixth wife and marry her, being one of those incurable romantics who believes that if he sleeps with a girl he’s got to do the decent thing by her.

Divorced men who show no sign of marrying again and appear to be thoroughly enjoying themselves will be a constant source of irritation to their friends, for the men will be jealous and the wives will sense their husbands’ jealousy.

Another person who will be disapproved of by society if he appears to be enjoying himself is the lover.



LOVERS

“There always seems something so dirty-sweatered and dirndl-skirted about living with a man you’re not married to.”

ELAINE DUNDY


Lovers live in unmarried respectability, furnish their love-nests from Co-habitat, and are disapproved of by society, which feels that the man is having his cake and eating it and that both of them shouldn’t be avoiding tax. Society is slightly less shocked by men living in sin with girls under twenty-four, because it doesn’t feel the man has yet ruined the girl’s chances of getting married.

It never enters anyone’s head that it might be the girl who is refusing to get married.

Lovers in fact behave far more respectably than married couples. Have you ever heard of a mistress-swapping party? Although they wear their unconventionality in public like a banner, in private they are watching television, washing up and having sex 2·8 times a week like everyone else.

A liaison like this usually begins when a girl is moving flats and wants to leave her luggage somewhere so she dumps it with her boy friend. Before he really knows it, she’s moved in, had a key cut, changed the wallpaper in the drawing room, and is adding the usual little feminine touches—bras dripping over the bath, make-up on the carpet. For the first few months they enjoy the thrill of living in sin and playing at being married. The possibility that Daddy might roll up with a horse-whip adds an edge to the situation. Soon other couples are asking them to dinner and they start asking them back, until it becomes a habit.

Men who are living with women are at pains to tell you within five minutes that they are not actually married. On the whole they seem to be more overtly randy than married men just to prove they’re not tied down.


SCHOOLBOYS (see Students, Bachelors, Lovers, Married Men, Divorcés)


Class


CLASS AS A subject is as taboo today as sex was during Victorian times. Nevertheless there are still certain differences between the classes.



THE ARISTOCRACY

Sir Galahad everyone in sight


“Open yer legs, dam’ yer!”