A more commonly quoted version is, "An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can get: the older she gets, the more he is interested in her."
Agatha Christie was reported to have denied ever making this remark. The Quote Investigator, however, notes that the author's aversion to giving interviews (see below) made it difficult to authenticate any quote that may be attributed to her.
The first traceable reference to the remark appeared in a Swedish shipping trade journal in 1952, and was reprinted in various US newspapers as well as the Reader's Digest. The latter named a journalist called Alec de Montmorency as the author of the original article, but this is almost certainly a pseudonym.
In a 1956 profile of Agatha Christie, Life magazine reported that she'd been quoting an unnamed "witty wife". According to a biography published in 1967, however, the remark (a slightly different version) "was the creation of some pundit whose neck Mrs. Christie would be glad to wring if he would care to identify himself – she neither made the remark nor does she consider it particularly complimentary or amusing."
Following Christie's death in 1976, the Sunday Times reported that "She hated being interviewed and was very upset when a woman reporter printed some remarks incautiously made in a powder room to someone Agatha Christie believed was a fellow guest."
In conclusion, the Quote Investigator offers two possible explanations: either (a) the quotation was invented by 'Alec de Montmorency', and Christie's denial was true; or (b) Christie did make the remark, but did so in the belief that she was among friends, and didn't expect it to be reported.
© Macclesfield Quiz League 2019