When I was in college in the late 1940s, the conversation turned to sexual equality.
Many of those young women were headed into the world of business opportunities, and they wanted a fair shot at the top jobs and income given mostly to men.
Not many were thinking of a sexual revolution as expressed today except in the context of the occasional unwed mother who was faced with the social ostracism and the responsibility of supporting and raising the child.
The fact that the man faced neither was viewed as inequality and patently unfair, but it never
occurred to us at that time that equality would become freedom to equate oneself with man in this baser roll and the resulting frivolous irresponsibility.
The 1960s brought in, with its disregard for the status quo, sexual equality without social consequence with the help of pills and abortion.
It took awhile before Mom and Dad were willing to overlook unmarried cohabitation of young couples, particularly in their own homes and among their own children.
But the overwhelming numbers involved in this practice, and the erosion of moral certainty started the slide to more acceptance of that form of equality among the sexes.
The years since the beginning of this public acceptance has seen the skepticism, the uncertainty, the lack of a moral direction that has secured the family as a fixed and respected unit to further that security in future generations.
Jokes have lost their humor in their vulgarity. Language has lost its romance and endearing assurance of a secure future.
It has too often lost its connecting and sustaining value.
All this can be seen in the eyes of those who feel the loss of something that they can not understand, and from which our present moral values will not help them recover.
The Dean of Women at that college back in the 40s said it all when she cautioned us girls to set high standards because our dates would abide by them.
Lowering our standards was not seen as a means of acquiring equality or respect.
Sincerely, Norma Christian
Raymondville
