In a recent issue of a national publication for senior citizens, there were eight illustrations featuring handsome older couples, smiling fondly at one another.
There is never a hint, of course, that they could be on the brink of divorce or that the husband is about to die.Seven of the pictures were part of advertisements.
Such tandem advertising, as I describe it, is a publisher's pipe dream.
The scenes defy reality. Through death or divorce, many unions are suddenly broken and it is usually the woman who is faced with life alone.
When my husband died nine years ago, I became one of these women.
In earlier cultures, older women were banished from their villages and left to starve when the men who supported them died. Not long ago in India, a widow was immolated in the flames of her husband's funeral bier.
In our culture, once an older woman becomes single, she is banished just as effectively.
Wherever she appears in public, people look right through her, as if she had turned to glass.
Unfortunately, since romance requires that its object be visible, our transparency means we are unlikely to find a male companion.
Wherever there are gatherings of people, at the movies, the opera, concerts, the theater and, yes, on "Love Boat" cruises, count the gray heads and separate the sexes.
It's not surprising that the majority of the gray heads are female. Where are all those handsome couples? In magazines, on television, in the movies, in novels.
In reality, older, single women are very desirable companions. We are not trapped at home anymore. Many of us are exercising, going to school, working at responsible jobs, traveling.
We attend church, museums, concerts, theater and movies. We shop and take grandchildren to the circus. And we read books, magazines, newspapers - and advertisements that infuriate us.
Many women over 60 have more money to spend than young people, especially those who have been paid off to become glass women by ex-husbands eager to be rid of them.
But because we're lonely, we rent videos to fill our evenings. We go on cruises in the mistaken assumption that there might be men with whom we merely hope to spend pleasant time together. Many of us don't wish to marry again.
But we're often doomed to disappointment because men tend to search for someone 25 years their junior.
Don't those men know that younger women will only associate with them in the hope of inheriting money? Don't these men realize they won't succeed in reclaiming their lost youth?
Don't they know that older women are just as capable of being good company as younger women are? That we can share the wisdom of our years with them? That they can be themselves with us?
Next time you see a picture of a happy gray-haired couple of the same age, think about how many such happy unions you know. Then consider how many widowed or divorced women you know - if you think of them at all - and how many older men with younger wives.
This is my invitation to all glass women to join in boycotting products that are promoted by tandem advertising.
There are enough women alone that, united, we could represent a threat to businesses guilty of perpetuating a cruel stereotype.
(Theda Berkley-Street is a freelance writer.)