The Wittier Sex : ‘An Uncommon Scold’: Women’s Caustic Views on Men, Marriage, Life

FOR REASONS THAT remain obscure, I have always preferred to converse with women rather than men. For one thing, women tend to talk about real life, but men talk in metaphors: football, baseball, money, sex. Also, men can’t separate their conversation from their egos. And women are wittier, possibly because they have a history of oppression.

Anyone who doubts that women are the wittier sex should sample “An Uncommon Scold” (Simon & Schuster), a very funny collection of remarks by women, living and dead, from Jane Austen to Gloria Steinem, compiled and arranged by Abby Adams.

The term scold suggests that women’s wit is thought of as vitriolic and caustic, but all wit is caustic, and if women are better at it than men, is it sexist to say so?

Many of the remarks collected here are indeed caustic. “A man’s home may seem to be his castle on the outside; inside it is more often his nursery.”-- Clare Boothe Luce.

Women are less vulgar though franker than men about sex: “Unless there’s some emotional tie, I’d rather play tennis.”-- Bianca Jagger. “I like a man who takes his time”--Mae West. “Sex appeal is 50% what you’ve got and 50% what people think you’ve got.”--Sophia Loren.

On divorce, they are cynical: “Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left”--Jean Kerr. “In Biblical times, a man could have as many wives as he could afford. Just like today.”--Abigail Van Buren. “He’s the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of.”--Mae West.

They are outspoken on gossip: “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”--Jane Austen. “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”--Alice Roosevelt Longworth. “Nobody’s interested in sweetness and light.”--gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.

On housework they are understandably bitter: “Men cook more, and we all know why. It is the only interesting household task. Getting down and scrubbing the floor is done by women, or by the women they’ve hired.”--Nora Ephron.

On husbands, these women are even more cynical than on divorce: “It is ridiculous to think you can spend your life with just one person. Three is about the right number.”--Clare Boothe Luce. “I think every woman is entitled to a middle husband she can forget.”--Adela Rogers St. John. “A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished.”--Zsa Zsa Gabor.

On infidelity, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis seems to have been soured by her own experience: “I don’t think there are any men who are faithful to their wives.” Marilyn Monroe perhaps also speaks from experience: “Husbands are chiefly good lovers when they are betraying their wives.” And from Clare Boothe Luce, the inveterate cynic: “There’s nothing like a good dose of another woman to make a man appreciate his wife.”

Most of the scolds have nothing but jocular contempt for the word lady : “I have bursts of being a lady, but it doesn’t last long.”--Shelly Winters. “The word lady . Most often used to describe someone you wouldn’t want to talk to for even five minutes.”--Fran Lebowitz. And the title of Beatrice Lillie’s autobiography: “Every Other Inch a Lady.”

The subject of love provokes a disarray of attitudes: “I am so convinced that love is a nuisance, that I am delighted my friends and I are exempt.”-- Madame de La Fayette (at 20). “To fall in love, you have to be in a state of mind for it to take, like a disease.”--Nancy Mitford. “I could follow him around the world in my shift.”--Mary, Queen of Scots, of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. “Love is so much better when you’re not married.”--Maria Callas. “To be loved is very demoralizing.”--Katharine Hepburn.

Their remarks on marriage are a grab bag of conflicting attitudes, mostly unfavorable: “Bad enough to make mistakes without going ahead and marrying them.”--novelist Craig Rice. “Don’t marry a man to reform him--that’s what reform schools are for.”--Mae West. “I married beneath me. All women do.”--Nancy, Lady Astor. “The surest way to be alone is to get married.”--Gloria Steinem.

The comments on men are mostly fun (however true): “A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever.”--author Helen Rowland. “The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things”--English writer Jilly Cooper. “All the men on my staff can type.”--Bella Abzug.

Somehow, my favorite is a remark allegedly made by Mrs. William Gladstone to her husband, Victoria’s prime minister: “If you weren’t such a great man, you’d be a terrible bore.”