e-mail to a friend in needRetro ratings
Mind Hacks recently featured a highly amusing husband and wife rating chart from the 1930s, invented by marriage counselor George W. Crane, MD, Ph.D. How it works: your spouse earns merit or demerit points based on his or her behaviors and characteristics. Some (”Snores”) are things we can still relate to, while the rest offer a curious peek into the norms and expectations of that era (demerits for a husband who “talks of efficiency of his stenographer or other women” or a wife who “fails to sew on buttons or darn socks regularly”).
Crane aimed to be “scientific” in the development of this test; true to form, according to the American Psychological Association, he started the Scientific Marriage Foundation, which took a “scientific” approach to marriage and claimed to have set up more than 5,000 marriages.
I wonder what a modern version of this questionnaire would look like. Demerits for “brings laptop to bed”?
How about merit points for the wife if she makes a home cooked meal more than twice a week?
Or points for the man if he does a load of laundry?
Bringing the laptop to bed would be definite demerits in our home!
Comment by Rebekah — May 16, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
[...] world with more than costumes and performance art. After all, what says “Congratulations on your continued connubiality” more than shared health benefits and hospital visitation [...]
Pingback by Breakup Girl » Love and marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage — May 18, 2008 @ 9:24 am