Here are a few platitudes we hold to be self-evident. We live in a time of rapid social change. Over the past quarter of a century, women have joined the paid workforce in record numbers. At the same time, the divorce rate has soared. The days of the traditional family are numbered. Its values count for less and less. Now they can command their own bank accounts, women are doing what they want, when they want - in outfits entirely of their own choosing.
And so it was with Gwyneth Paltrow: instead of wearing the standard almost-topless evening gown to the premiere of The Talented Mr Ripley earlier this week, she chose to shock the nation with a sleeveless, emerald-beaded Versace top, aqua blue trousers and snakeskin stiletto sandals. The bold move paid off: most reports of her "understated" ensemble were highly favourable. No one even minded that her hair was in a bun.
But God, what a fuss they made about her decision to attend alone. When queried about this shocking lapse, she was characteristically good-natured. Instead of saying: "What year are we in - 2000 or 1867?" she replied that it was even worse than they thought. It was not just that she was dateless on St Valentine's Day - she had not even received a card.
Compare and contrast the press coverage of her co-star, Matt Damon, consortless on the night but known to be dating Winona Ryder. No one talked about his clothes and no one was amazed about his decision To Boldly Go Solo. No one paid much attention to him, either, so perhaps in publicity terms Paltrow was the winner. But you still have to ask why she can't even walk down a receiving line alone without people acting as if half of her is missing.
The question they ought to have asked her is: "If you had appeared with a man in tow, how do you think that man would have been treated?" Her answer could well have revealed the crux of the mystery. If a woman happens to be linked with a man who is her social or professional equal - or, better yet, if he is in the same business but higher up the ladder - then he can appear with her and still get the respect to which he is accustomed. But if he works in a different business or if, God forbid, his social standing is lower than hers, he can expect to be ignored and dismissed. And if he doesn't like it, if he thinks he's worth more than that, she can expect to be attending the next party alone.
It's not just the tabloids that are keeping the old double standards alive. We all do it. Even if all they are doing is going to a charity benefit or a Saturday night work do, women can still expect to raise eyebrows if they arrive on their own. It is not that everyone they meet will give them a hard time, but everyone does notice and there will always be at least one person who asks: "And where is ..?"
There is always a tinge of pity in the eye of the enquirer. You might think this shouldn't matter, but it does matter to a lot of women I know, even women who started companies worth 14 million after covering 19 wars in Southeast Asia, women who see nothing strange in spending two months hitchhiking around New Zealand with a baby in a backpack. Even very resourceful, independent women mind the leading questions at public functions because they feel they are being judged. The implication is that while they might be successes in the male world, they have failed as women. And as wives.
Remember the fuss Diana caused in 1992 when she visited the Taj Mahal alone? "Solo Diana visits monument to love" was how one paper put it. Charles later admitted he had been "a fool not to be by her side". When she visited Cairo alone later that same year, the headline was: "Postcards from the edge of unhappiness." The accompanying photograph of Diana at Giza was "the picture that captured front pages around the world. The beautiful young princess starkly alone against a backdrop of pyramids."
The underlying concern was made clear in comments about an earlier trip she took to Pakistan at the invitation of Benazir Bhutto: "Advisers fear that travelling without Charles in the Islamic republic may upset fundamentalists." As it turned out, it upset "fundamentalists" in Britain far more.
Does it matter, though, what people think? Well, it does if it bothers you so much that you stay at home instead. Certainly it bothered me a great deal just after I got divorced. I was shocked at the sudden change in the way many married friends and colleagues behaved from the moment they heard about the decree nisi. I would go to a weekend party alone and I was red meat to the men and dead meat to the women if I so much as laughed at their husbands' jokes. Somehow, the very fact that I was single was a threat to their marriages.
It was never this way, though, at the functions I continued to attend on week nights in connection with work. At these, I was a person in my own right; my marital status was not an issue because almost everyone else would be alone, too. The first few minutes in a room full of strangers were still hard to negotiate, but gradually I worked out how to get through them and even enjoy them. Eventually I came to look back on the years of being part of a couple as a pleasant but puzzling aberration.
When I settled down again, it never crossed my mind to ask my partner to be my constant companion. I like it when we can go out together, but because I enjoy going out a good deal more than he does, I still go out alone all the time.
But it isn't always easy to be the lone woman in a room full of couples. People still make comments about empty chairs or rush around in search of a "spare man" to "even out the numbers". Despite all that "rapid social change" they will often spend all evening talking about, their mental images of social balance remain sacrosanct.
How long would these images last if people stopped conforming to them? If more women said: "What the hell, I'm going anyway, it doesn't matter if I get a comment or two, and so what if no one will come with me." At the very least, they'd have other lone females to talk to when they got there. Outnumbered, the couples might no longer want to see lone females as symbols of social decay. So go on, Gwyneth, set a trend.
