Monday, May 14, 2007

A seven year itch?


In our day to day lives, we use phrases which we don’t really know where they came from and it is a deep sense of ‘Ignorance is bliss’.

On our decadal anniversary (we met for the first time that day, I know its so girlie stuff!) Three days back, I had one of my girl friend say, oh so your seven year itch is over, and I merrily replied yes long time back, but least did I even ponder for a second if I actually knew what the ‘seven year itch’ was anyway? I mean we use it like a cliché but do most of know its basis?

According to the phrase, after the first seven year in our love relationships, marriages, live-in etc, are over, we get more stable, but this is what most of us have always presumed, and presumption does not have any basis, so get the real supposition: The 'seven year itch' refers to the urge to be unfaithful after seven years of relationships with a desire to satisfy one's sexual urges ('itches').

I again presume that most of you may also resort to a dictionary of phrases and idioms to see the real meaning behind it, well most likely you would not get it, it maybe incorporated now but it never existed as a phrase before 1950s as The Seven Year Itch was a three-act play, written by George Axelrod. Billed as a romantic comedy, the play was first presented by at the Fulton Theatre, New York City, on November 20, 1952. (Yipee!! all supa cool things happen on 20th Nov)

In 1955, 20th Century Fox released a film adaptation starring Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell running this phrase down in history forever! The entertaining film is best known for the definitive performance of the radiant Marilyn Monroe with a little girl's giggly voice basically portraying herself as a blonde bombshell, and known simply as The Girl. The film's promotional tease photographs packaged her as the sexually-endowed girl next door - an ideal fantasy figure for all the committed yet weary spouses.

So now that we had a successful film adapted from a play, and we had a phrase to follow, psychology came to play, people actually started believing that it was true, I have a short except from a website that reads:

Relationships: Got the seven year itch?

“When my husband and I were married seven years, we would always hear, ‘Uh oh, the seven year itch!’ or ‘Do you have the itch yet?’.

The question: what is the seven year itch and is it real?”

The website answers: The seven year itch is actually a real phenomenon which occurs in many couples, although not always at seven years. One interesting fact to note is that the average median marital age of divorced couples is 7.2 years, which is where they came up with that number. Why seven years? Usually by the time you get to seven years, you have children. The strain of increased responsibility is enough to get you itching…..
A whole phenomenon from nothing, kudos to human imagination and applied logic!
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