As Scanner Brian just showed you, back in a time when sex was called "marital congress" people had some pretty interesting — and terrifying — ideas about how their spouses were supposed to behave. And when we say "spouses" we mean women.
George W. Crane's Marital Rating Scale from 1939 makes this frighteningly clear, offering a series of merits and demerits for a wife's ability to keep up her house and her appearance.
How would we rate, Scanner Brian asks? Very poorly!
If there was such a thing as the equivalent of the blogger back then (the romance writer with a male pen name?), she'd be in big, big trouble. Demerits, demerits, demerits for wearing "soiled or ragged dresses and aprons around the house."
At least we'd get merits for being able to carry on an interesting conversation, but we'd get — fuck! — five demerits for using slang or profanity? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Infuriating, yet hilarious, right?
Luckily, there's a chart for the husband that makes us feel a little better about being such a poor potential spouse (can you really blame a guy for snoring?).
How would you rate, men?
Maybe a very poor wife and a very poor husband could be a very happy
couple.
See all three pages of each chart at tiabla's flickr.
[Monitor via Thrillist and via Scanner Brian]
Related: How Would You Rate in 1939?
