apparently, I'm a very, very bad wife.
At least according to Dr. George Crane. I tripped on this little gem while browsing some random non-Vox blogs, and I had to share. Dr. Crane was a marriage counselor in the 1930's, and wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column dispensing marital advice. In 1939, he came up with the genius "Marital Rating Scale," a testing tool for couples to assess how well they were doing in their prescribed roles. Demerits or merits were assigned, based on Dr. Crane's scale of most essential marital duties, and wives could figure out just how well they were doing by their man by adding up scores and getting a rating. Yes, indeed, I think Dr. Crane would have rated me in the "failure"* category.
*Incidentally, I love that a marriage counselor had a failure category. Very confidence inspiring for the fledgling marriage.
Clearly, I am a very bad wife. I think my score could quite possibly be negative.
As you read it over, does anything strike you as very ornamental about the identity of this perfect wife that emerges through this chart? Lots of contradictions between the merit and demerit list (a little bit, but not too much! of everything), molding the perfect wife into a very shallow and people-pleasing creature of delight for her husband's satisfaction. She is to be perky, intuitive, intellectual, and beautiful, but only because it reflects well on the marital union, so never in a way that advances her own interests or desires. It makes me shudder just a little.
I think some of my favorites might be "reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress," (for a whole 10 merits!Nevermind if husband is actually good at said congress, I guess wife should just put on Oscar-worthy performance) and the requisite cheery morning disposition (I'm a goner on this one...might as well sign the divorce papers now). On the demerit side, I particularly enjoyed demerits for shoulder straps or slip hanging out or crooked (bad wife!), being more than 15 pounds overweight (fat wife!), wears red nail polish (whore wife!), wearing pajamas while cooking (I'm going to wife hell for this one), too talkative (but of course spunky and well-versed in many topics, according to the merit list); and squeezes toothpaste from the top (please God, don't ever let my husband see this one).
I now fully understand why use of "happy potions" and qualudes were rampant by housewives in this era.
So, where do you stack up on the good wife scale?
Comments
That's frightening. I like the "eats onions, garlic or radishes before bed" in the demerit column. Awesome. There HAS to be a husband chart floating around somewhere from this guy.
I'm proud to say I'm a very, very bad wife.
I collect books from that time period and earlier on topics such as marriage, sex, hygiene, etc. Most all of them are pretty darn wacky by today's standards. Makes for some very interesting reading.
I wrote my college thesis on women's culture during the 1920s and 30s! It is a very fascinating time period to study. Any good book recommendations?
My thesis was on the lost book Weeds by Edith Summers Kelley. Very tragic commentary on the culture of farming, women and poverty post-World War I. Have you ever read it or heard of it?
As for my books--certainly none of them will ever make the best seller list.
Here is Sex Technique for Husband and Wife by Edward Podolsky, MD (1949).
OK, how about The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex by Drs. Willy, Vander and Fisher as well as Other Authorities (1950)? This one is very clinical in nature and has lots of illustrations!
The Art of Love by Ovid is a very quick read.
Youth: It's Education, Regimen, and Hygiene by G. Stanley Hall, PhD., LLD. (1904) covers a wide variety of topics for boys and girls.
Those are the only ones I could put my hands on at the moment.
http://www.j-walk.com/other/goodwife/images/goodwifeguide.gif
I suppose I also fail by this article's standards...
Thanks for the suggestions!