Julia Child_ A Life - Laura Shapiro [54]
Much as she cherished wifedom, it was impossible for Julia to be Paul’s helpmate and nothing else. And much as Paul believed in her career, what he really wanted was to have Julia with him at all times. To be pulled in such implacably opposite directions was a source of constant distress for her. Again and again she vowed to be a more dedicated diplomatic wife, only to find herself back in the depths of the manuscript, reflecting mournfully, “I am a cook book.” So when Paul began planning his retirement from the foreign service, they decided what would suit them both best would be a quiet, companionable future in Cambridge. Paul would paint, Julia would give cooking lessons—perhaps two a week. If the book became a success, maybe she could break into magazine food writing. Paul could take the photographs for her stories. Life would be simple and harmonious. Then came The French Chef, and any dreams of domestic balance shattered as Julia’s new career crashed like a meteor into the center of their marriage. New roles sprang up and grabbed them—she the star and he the support staff—but they were determined to maintain what Julia called “that lovely intertwining of life, mind, and soul that a good marriage is.” She knew the TV schedule was hard on Paul, who missed concerts and art galleries and dinners with friends, as well as time for his own pursuits. In 1965, her royalties from the book enabled them to build La Pitchoune, the little Provençal house on Simca’s property near Grasse; and they retreated there often for a cozier, less pressured daily life. But the real reason their marriage flourished despite the frantic demands they placed on it was that they came up with a very traditional arrangement, albeit with a twist of their own. Paul and Julia agreed to live one life, and that life would be Julia’s.
Despite, or perhaps because of, this arrangement, Julia sometimes professed loyalty to old-fashioned gender assignments. “I think the role of a woman is to be married to a nice man and enjoy her home,” Julia told the New York Times in 1966. “She must have something outside to keep conversation going and herself alert, but I can’t think of anything nicer than homemaking.” Even the reporter was unconvinced—she called it a “simplistic” viewpoint—and it certainly lacked any roots in Julia’s desires, beliefs, or experiences. Apart from cooking, housework bored her, and she was appalled by the Pasadena wives who lounged on their patios and played bridge all day. But she identified so strongly as a wife, she barely noticed that it was Paul who played that part in their marriage. At the time of this interview, moreover, the women’s movement was gathering steam; and Julia worried that cooking might be jettisoned, especially her kind of labor-intensive cooking. Betty Friedan had made it clear in The Feminine Mystique that women had responsibilities in the world, not just in the kitchen. Julia didn’t disagree, but she wanted to make sure the kitchen received the time and respect it was due. She was also aware that she still had something of a housewife problem. Her recipes could seem very intimidating, especially in print, and she relied on book sales for most of her earned income, not the nominal fees of public television. Associating herself with ordinary domestic life was an important aspect of her image. In later interviews over the years, she gave firm support to women with careers and spoke out vigorously in favor of abortion rights; nonetheless she always insisted she wasn’t a feminist. “I just think that women should be treated as people,” she said. So do feminists, but Julia was constitutionally unable to be a camp follower, no matter what the camp was.
If her proclamation of faith in homemaking rang a bit false, her faith in marriage did not: this was a belief at the core of her being. Julia changed much more than her name when she married: she changed her very identity, from an individual to half of a couple. She was Julia of Paul and Julia, fundamentally incomplete on her own, one piece of a two-part jigsaw puzzle. And