Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 145

The Women of Norman Lear 141 meals. Her rewards for these accomplishments were usually complaints and insults. Edith's secondary status was a frequent topic of conversation on the show. In one episode, when Archie suffered a back injury, he complained that he had been reduced to using Edith's chair. In another, when Edith told Archie that she was having a private conversation on the phone, Archie's response was as follows: "Private? This is my house, my living room, and that's my phone. I am in on all the privates in this house." Moreover, when trying to prove a point to Archie, Edith often followed immediately behind him with a shuffle and a high-pitched voice reminiscent of a child seeking approval and acceptance from an adult. Despite her second-rate status in the Bunker household, Edith represented a woman of virtue whose goodness and selflessness guided the entire family. She was the perfect contrast to her husband. She was open and accepting of others when Archie practiced bigotry; she was honest when Archie was crooked; she was less moralistic when Archie was judgmental. Often, she served as the foil for Archie's shady deals and questionable schemes. Edith's virtue was her own reward. She took things at face value and was often protected from personal hurt by her own naivete and the optimistic outlook that human beings were basically good (Meehan 48). As "All in the Family" develop ed, so did the character of Edith Bunker. Edith gradually began to assert herself and forge a life separate from the one that she shared with Archie. Edith slowly discovered that she could always count on someone—that someone being herself. In 1974, Jean Stapleton, the actress who played Edith, conunented on her character's gradual blossoming: I couldn't be more thrilled with the effects of women's lib—all that consciousness-raising. But we can't hide the kind of woman who is restricted by her domestic life. She exists. And I think that by showing Edith as she really is, we are doing more good than an in stant ou t-of-character liberation ist would accomplish. There's a slow development going on with Edith and that's the way it's really going to happen in this country. (McCrohan 217)