There was a father who called his 5 small children together. As they sat together in a circle on the floor the dad placed a toy in the middle.
He explained to them that he won this toy as a door prize and he wanted to give it to one of them.
He asked them “who is the most obedient?”
Five sets of eyes looked up at him.
Sensing that they didn’t understand the word he then asked, “OK, who always obeys mommy, and does everything she says?”
One of the children picked up the toy and handed it to the father. “You win!” exclaimed the child.
Would you fail if you were a 1930s husband or wife?
When we get glimpses of the way things used to be back before the divorce rate climbed to one in three, whether it’s a scene from Mad Men or the charts presented here, we try not to think that this might have been the way things were for our grandparents and great-grandparents — that marriage was a kind of pleasant business partnership in which both partners walked a fine line between cheerful (he) and deferential (she). Would my great-grandfather have really been disappointed if his wife “put her cold feet” on him at night “to warm them”? Then again, can I even imagine my great-grandmother putting her cold feet on him at night to warm them? Nope.
Of course, the saddest thing about these charts, which were created from surveys of real men and women of the 1930s by Scientific Marriage Foundation founder George Crane, is that the answers are so different. I don’t suspect my female forebears had a craving for red nail polish, but it is comforting to think that these days, fewer and fewer people would even blink at the sight of anyone wearing any color of nail polish, least of all red. Nor would they necessarily mind if a woman had crooked seams in her hose, or if she didn’t “dress for breakfast.” These small fashion statements speak loudly of how times have changed.
As for the men’s chart, it’s particularly depressing that women wanted men to read aloud newspapers, books, and magazines to them, and it makes you wonder whether we’re about to find out about some horrible Way Things Were, like that women weren’t required to learn how to read in school, but no one has let on until now because they thought it would make us sad.
There are a couple of things listed here that will always stay the same. For one, it’s still not fashionable to be “jealous” or “suspicious.” Too bad.
Love: When you take a bubble bath together
Lust: When you take a bath in Jell-o together
Marriage: When you give the kids a bath
Love: A romantic candle-light dinner for two
Lust: “Do I have to buy you dinner first?”
Marriage: 4 McDonald’s Happy Meals . . . to go
Love: Giving your love some candy
Lust: Thinking you are the candy
Marriage: Scraping the kids’ candy off of the carpet
Love: Sex every night
Lust: Sex 5 times a night
Marriage: What’s sex?
Love: A night out at the symphony
Lust: A night out at the Holiday Inn
Marriage: A night out at Disney World
Love: French perfume
Lust: Brut aftershave
Marriage: “The baby needs changing. . .”
Love: Lending your jacket to your love when he/she is cold
Lust: “I can think of a way to stay warm . . .”
Marriage: Your teenaged daughter has borrowed all of your jackets
Love: Talking and cuddling
Lust: Rolling over and falling asleep
Marriage: Getting up to wash your hands . . .
Love: Long drives through the countryside
Lust: Long parking sessions at Lover’s Lookout
Marriage: Long drives with the kids screaming in the backseat
Love: Your eyes meet across a crowded room
Lust: Your tongues meet across a crowded room
Marriage: Your belt won’t meet around your waist, and you don’t care
Love: You’re interested in everything your partner does
Lust: You’re only interested in one thing
Marriage: You’re not interested in what your partner does and the one thing you’re interested in is Stock Market