I think growing up in that era as a female probably makes me more sensitive about the lyrics - my experience is that a lot of men don't even hear them and don't interpret them the way women might. It comes down to having the experience of being women in a "man's" world and things that were galling to us weren't even on their radar. I am not sure why you would think pots being cold has any meaning other than that she is not home cooking - why else would he say that? He can warm the darn hearth, himself if that is what he wanted. Face it, cooking went with being a woman/wife - these days it doesn't but it sure did in those days. I woman who didn't cook for her man was not doing her job. In fact, my father-in-law (age 85) still expects me to cook every evening and he has yet to see me pick up a pot or pan. He doesn't hold it against me but is always suprised. It was just the way he was raised.

When I first started practicing law in the early/mid nineties, there was a cut off of chauvanism with male lawyers that was utterly striking. Say, age 65 or older, they treated the women lawyers like secretaries and expected us to make and fetch the coffee. It was unreal. They'd call us Honey, pat waitresses (it was embarassing) and direct us into nonlitigation areas - perhaps with kids or other domestic issues. Men under age, say, 58, were completely different and treated us like equals. The old breed has all but died out, retired or finally have enough sense to keep their mouths shut. They didn't mean anything by it but it was a definite change.

For that matter, women of my mother's era often acted like little bunnies, fluffy and living for male attention and approval. I don't mean they were hussys but I just saw many women who came of age post WWII but before the sixties that seemed to define themselves by being soft and attractive. Contrast that with the women of the thirties and forties. THOSE were women who actually "did" things and blazed trails without asking for special favors and asking people to make allowances for their femininity. Of course, in those days, women had to choose between being wives and mothers and being career women (pre reliable birth control).