I learned today that Weight Watchers® spokeswoman Jessica Simpson will be taking a break from the company's commercials during her second pregnancy.
The announcement said she was expecting her second child with fiance Eric Johnson. She and Johnson have been engaged, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Simpson), since November 2010. Their first daughter was born May 1, 2012.
Back in the day - my day, that is - a reputable company such as Weight Watchers never would engage the services of an unwed mother (or father) as its spokesperson. Marriage, back when it was between a man and a woman, was the norm for people who intended to raise a family.
A "single mother" meant a divorcee'; an unwed mother meant a woman with a child born out of wedlock, one who is "illegitimate." (This definition of "illegitimate" remains the first, i.e., most common, use of the word: not recognized as lawful offspring; specifically: born of parents not married to each other .)
Yet Hollywood, "Hollyweird" to some, seems to accept - perhaps even celebrate - unwed parents. Perhaps this is logical since Hollywood marriages, when there were marriages, often lasted less than the two-plus years (and two pregnancies) of Miss Simpson and her beau, Mr. Johnson. Perhaps the stigma of illegitimacy current in "my" day and in my part of the country no longer exists anywhere in the country; if it did, would a nationally advertised organization such as Weight Watchers have a Ms. Simpson as its spokesperson.
Unmarried couples have been "making babies" since men and women first discovered "there is a difference." Unmarried women have been "going it alone" with only a little help from a sperm bank and their favorite doctor for decades.
Judaism, unlike other beliefs, until "modern times" never considered the off-spring of an unwed woman illegitimate, primarily because a man having intercourse with an unwed woman was a form of marriage, one of three acceptable to the religious authorities. A "bastard" - in Hebrew ממזר - was the child of a forbidden liaison. I suppose that were Ms. Simpson and Mr. Johnson Jewish they would be considered married, although I am certain today's rabbis and religious leaders would balk at that status.
Still, the idea of entering into a progenitorial relationship before marriage is as foreign to me as "marriage" between two people of the same sex. (I'll accept a sanctioned relationship on an equal footing with traditional marriage, but don't call it "marriage." )
While there have been "unwed" mothers (and fathers) since the invention of state sanctioned unions, until the 1960's "free love" decade, flaunting such relationships and the off-spring of non-sanctioned unions were "discouraged."
I am a "geezer" - it beats the alternative - and the idea of an unwed mother, soon the unwed mother of two, as a spokesperson for a national company leaves me shaking my head.
