I am amazed. I loved 'Bewitched' when I was a child, but I never saw Samantha as a subservient airhead. I thought Darren was a pain in the neck, but even though Samantha paid lip-service to her subservience to him, she always ended up doing what she wanted. Forbidden by the pompous Darren to use magic, nevertheless she always did. And it generally turned out all right in the end.

I hated Darren and never understood what she saw in him (I still don't) but I was always glad that again and again she got around his ban on using magic. Although nominally subservient, she always did her own thing in the end.

Louise

To understand both Samantha and the world in which she lived, we need to differentiate between the two incarnations of Darren (her husband), played by Dick York and later by Dick Sergeant.

...I never saw Samantha as a subservient airhead. I thought Darren was a pain in the neck, but even though Samantha paid lip-service to her subservience to him, she always ended up doing what she wanted. Forbidden by the pompous Darren to use magic, nevertheless she always did. And it generally turned out all right in the end.

This is an apt description of the second (Dick Sergeant) Darren. He was definitely pompous, forbade Samantha to use magic and was a darker character in general than the "York" Darren.

In the early years of the series, the "York" Darren was even more dopey than Samantha, making her look wiser by comparison - but only by comparison.

With Sergeant's Darren, Samantha became less dopey and more manipulative. Likely it was an adjustment by both Elizabeth Montgomery and the show's writers, first trying to have Samantha "duck under" York, then later changing to a more subtle kind of subservience, or even a feigned subservience.

Sergeant's Darren was someone who could be resisted, someone whom it was fair to out-wit, because he had some strength and seemed to be generally aware of his surroundings. He went so far as to be dismissive of Endora (Samantha's mother) at times.

York's character was so weak and so dim-witted that Samantha would have appeared cruel if she had reasoned intelligently with him or used any kind of strength of character to get her way.

Still, in both cases, it seemed like she (Montgomery) was "toning down" or even "dumbing down" in order to avoid upstaging Darren.

As for keeping things secret, there was a York-years episode where Darren suggests that they just go public. Let everyone know she's a witch and be done with it. Samantha waits until he is asleep and creates a dream - a nightmare - of what things would be like if the public ever found out.

When he awakens, he has seen the error of his ways and has decided that they should keep the secret after all. It was one of the few episodes of the York years in which we saw Samantha actually dominate the situation - albeit from behind the curtain of a dream.

The consequences of revealing the secret were so dire that she was forced to take matters into her own hands and directly manipulate her husband with her magic, rather than following his lead and merely offering suggestions along the way.

To me, that episode made it seem that, from the beginning, he was "requiring" her to keep a secret which she knew she had to keep. They were maintaining the all-important subservience of wife to husband by his being the "bad guy". (In fact, "making her do that which she knows she needs to do," was one of the earliest forms of taking in hand that I adopted with my wife).

I think, even at a young age, I saw her subservience to him not quite as a facade, but as an acceptance of "the way things were" between men and women. She had to prop up her inept husband-leader in order to make it possible to be subservient to him.

Of course, the propping-up might not have been a machination by Samantha. It may simply have been that weak writing and acting created a caricature of a couple rather than a portrayal with real depth.

But at the time, my ability to see the difference between the character's facade and the actor's facade, was limited by my six-to-eight-year-old's understanding of adult relationships and acting techniques.

Bewitched was one of the earliest opportunities for me to see the inner workings of a husband-wife relationship. The real adults in my world concealed such things behind the standard facade of "not discussing things in front of the children".

As with many first-impressions, it had a lasting impact on my developing understanding of the differences and relationships between adult men and women.

Yes, that's a scary thought - that a very silly, contrived sit-com would have such a profound effect on my development. But that was due, in large part, to the vacuum created by my parents' and other adults' unwillingness to let me see the real thing.

Nor were my parents unique in that regard. Most parents don't let their young children see them relate to each other. Children have to figure out adult relationships, either by gleaning snippets from occasional lapses in the facade, or through the literature and theater of the day.

On the other hand, perhaps it isn't so scary after all. If I had seen more of the coldness and distance of my parents' relationship at such a young age, it might have formed my understanding of marriage. Thank goodness that did not happen.

While Samantha and her two Darrens had their faults, she clearly loved her husband. He, too, whether incompetent or overbearing, demonstrated a real warmth toward her and showed the effect that a woman's charm and love has on a man.

I would not have learned any of that from observing my parents. Perhaps children are better off, in general, learning about relationships from some source other than the particular couple who produced them. Perhaps portraits of love between a man and woman are best painted by professionals - even those who paint for the low art-form of television.

After all, I was able to accept the validity of the love between husband and wife, while rejecting the moronic behavior as some kind of comedic artifact. Unfortunately, it took a very long time for me to figure out that the asymmetry of their marriage - the wife's acceptance of her husband's leadership - was actually a good and positive thing, if done well.

I consigned that kind of relationship to the bygone era of my parents' generation - but I would have done so even if I had seen it in real couples of their age.

As for the two Darrens, their examples as husbands really didn't have as much of an impact on me as Samantha's wife-example did. I simply didn't like them, and did like her. I didn't want to be either of those two men, but I did want to have someone like her.

Or, more accurately, I wanted a woman of great power who would give her love and herself to me. Without really understanding what it was, I wanted that quality of willing surrender, based not on some requirement of society nor lack of strength, but based on an inner desire to be taken.

And I think there is one thing on which most can agree: neither of the two Darrens deserved such a woman.