In Cecil B. DeMille’s 1920 comedy Why Change Your Wife? Gloria Swanson (DeMill
In Cecil B. DeMille’s 1920 comedy Why Change Your Wife? Gloria Swanson (DeMille’s regular leading lady of this period) as Beth, a respectable and rather prim wife who discovers that husbands don’t necessarily want their wives to be respectable and moral. It’s not that he doesn’t love her; he just wants a little romance in his marriage, and when another woman comes along who offers him the excitement he craves, he inevitably strays. And divorce inevitable follows. Beth then has a sudden revelation – maybe it’s not only true that men like shameless hussies, but maybe it’s also true that shameless hussies have quite a lot of fun. So she decides to transform herself into a sexpot.
