This story has been doing the rounds today. According to the Telegraph:
American psychologists have unearthed a “marital rating scale” used by marriage counsellors in 1939 to assess the performance of wives
That's right - wives, not husbands, for whom apparently there was no equivalent scale.
Kris has a fine take on it here. I can't help wondering if one wife who would be sure to score 100% would be ... the long suffering Marge Simpson. Accordingly, I shall continue to model myself on Homer (the perfect wife must be married to the perfect husband, no?)
12 comments:
Dr Crane's obituary from the New York Times suggests that his views were not quite in the mainstream.
Normally stuff like this tends to have been faked - this example is the classic. It may yet be that Dr Crane's chart is a spoof too. That's certainly where I'd put my money.
Oh you may well be right, but my late grandmother's views (she was born 1909) weren't dissimilar. She told all of her daughters (none of whom listened so far as I can tell) that a woman's first duty was to her husband, and she berated my mother for attempting to teach me and my brother (Prodnose: don't you mean my brother and I? No, I don't) to cook.
She needn't have worried, the number of a pizza delivery firm is about as good as we managed.
Also my parents have a book about etiquette from the 1950s which isn't a mile off (it advises women not to kiss on the first date, or he may have got what he wanted and scarper ...)
The whole booklet is shown here. Since the tale that goes with it varies depending on where you see it reported, it just has to be a hoax!
Those merit expectations lasted a long time, well after 1939. Sounds very fifties to me. I'm afraid I am/was a failure. Better things to do than be a doormat and keep a spotless house.
I just read the comments. It may have been a joke but trust me there were a million articles like that in magazines.
Fine research Stephen. I have to say though that as JMB mentions there certainly were publications to that effect - such as the one I mentioned before
A quick review of the scholarly literature around marital roles and advice in the period, coupled with Crane's publications all point to it being legit to me. Crane is cited over and over in peer reviewed Gender Studies journals, and the contributor to Flickr says that his/her 'mom' gave it to him/her as a joke, not that the booklet itself was a joke.
For mine, it doesn't at all stand out as particularly in the context of marital advice in the period (and for some time after), as both yourself and JMB have pointed out. Betty Friedan talked about Crane and his ilk quite a bit in her work.
Despite Dr Crane enjoying a certain degree of notoriety, I still believe it's a hoax. The sexual attitudes of the past are too easily parodied, often with considerable accuracy.
Dr Crane was certainly a prolific author. Here's the cover of another pamphlet from the same series. Given the family nature of your blog PU, I've not linked to the content!
Sorry PU, must have been the wrong link. Here's one that works!
Well I think whatever the veracity of the particular document, it wouldn't be surprising if it was genuine, let us just say that times have changed. Can anyone imagine a PM's wife before Cherie Blair writing memoirs telling us details of her contraception and menstrual cycle? (in that respect, times I feel have changed for the worse ...)
Good Job ! :)
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