Editors Note: This column by Lee Robinson (1921-1968) originally appeared in print in 1966.

By Lee Robinson

If the fashion experts are able to swing it, in the near future there will no longer be a question as to who wears the pants in the family.

Hot on the heels of the Mod fashions for the teenie terrors, I.e., mini skirts, see·through garments that reveal the "real you," checked or flowered trousers for the male (yuck), the latest word is that men may be wearing skirts. (Mini happy returns of the day, fellers.)

La belle dame sans merci' is in for a lot of chuckles.

Wait 'til you get a gander at THEIR legs, girls. And I've been wondering what other changes will be in store.

Will the boys also don pantie stockings, ruffled bloomers, waist cinchers, and garterbelts and heaven forbid, panty girdles?

Will we have to wait in line at the hair salon because that's where the boys are?

And what about the first time you go to the closet to find that your spouse has borrowed the outfit you were planning to wear!

Will they be wearing lacy slips or petti-pants and·how will this new trend effect the nylon market. Surely no thinking male would appear in public in sloppy socks and a short short skirt.

One emboldened to adopt this attlre, where will they stop? It can change our whole social structure. Personally, I would resent going out with a fellow who had a prettier dress than mine. I believe I would Instinctively shove him In the first mud puddle we encountered.

Just wait and see what happens the first time they try to sleep with a head full of curlers, or snag their last pair of nylons, or the garters are missing from their best girdle, or the new rinse they tried turns their hair green.

It isn't easy to be a girl, you know. And the older you get the tougher it becomes.

How will a clumsy male ever cope with eye liners, mascara and lipstick. Picture your own spouse attempting to give himself a pedicure and daintily dabbing at his tootsies with Blushing Rose polish. Don't snicker, ladies . . . it's possible.

New York City and Los Angeles have established beauty salons for the male and they are doing a land office business. The boys have facials. massages, manicures, pedicures, hair settings and just about every treatment accorded the female.

Only a few centuries ago the female was a drab sparrow compared to the male. It would seem that as the women progress the men retrogress.

It may well be that we have only ourselves to blame, ladies. Because we have dared to invade their world and wish to stand side by side without male counterparts, we have unseated their reason.

Or they may be using a devilish ploy to force us back to the home and hearth. If they can't lick us, they are gonna join us.

I say it won't work.

I am not anxious to see 'em try. I don't believe they could last a week.

I am willing to admit that some of them can cook, some of them can, in an emergency, iron a permanent-press shirt (and they do, you know), some of them can sew a fine seam and make a bed and even darn their own socks.

But none of them oan perch demurely on a tiny Victorian chair, balancing a tea cup in one hand with knees close together, for several hours.

None of them can tidy a house, tend a batch of kiddies, cook a gourmet meal and appear hours later dressed like a queen ready to dance away the hours until dawn.

I don't think they have the stamina to be more like us.

I prefer to go on believing that "boys will be boys." Like Will Rogers. I've never met a MAN I didn't like.

How about you?