Spousal irritation checklists for marital bliss, ca. 1930

These old data-collection checklists were used as part of a 1930s project to enable husbands and wives to give one another constructive feedback and end seething resentments by identifying and tabulating frequent sources of irritation.

In the 1930s, [Scientific Marriage Foundation founder George Crane] went around to a bunch of husbands and said, "Hey husband, what does your wife do that annoys you?" And then he added all those complaints up and created a handy chart that let you rate your spouse against the generic ideal/anti-ideal. That's what you see in the chart above.

Happy Valentine's Day! Try Out This Marital Rating Scale (via Neatorama)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Boondocker

HUSBAND
9.5 Teaches wife to read. (5)
MrsBug

I love the “seams in hose often crooked” cause you know that crooked stocking seams are really just a gateway drug. Slippy slope, those stockings. Next thing she’ll be wearing dresses at her knee and rouging her cheeks! Twenty-three skiddoo!
Anonymous

I sort of like having people read to me. And my most recent boyfriend loved having me read to him. In this case, though, I think that the point is that the woman is probably doing some sort of chore, like ironing or cooking, and so it’s seen as a nice thing for the man to entertain her or read her the news because it is a sort of sharing and lets her keep up. Remember, no TV at this point in time!
jonw

Is blowing one’s nose at the table taboo? I have not heard of this one. It’s not a regular habit of mine, except at the odd Thai restaurant or when I have a cold. I prefer a wipe or gentle blow rather than let it dribble or snort it back in…
PeaceNerd

Seams in hose crooked? In what hose? The garden hose? What the? I don’t even…

I’m just thankful for the men’s lib movement that gave me the right to kick these shoes off right here in the living room. aaaaaaah!
- IronEdithKidd
  
  “Seams in hose” refers to stockings (more recently a reference to pantyhose) which prior to WWII were made with a seam running up the back of the leg. Semi-modern movie reference: Kelly McGillis is wearing seamed hose in Top Gun as she enters the first classroom scene.
seyo

“Puts her cold feet on husband at night to warm them”

I kinda like that actually. Does that make me weird?
chgoliz

I love the fact that the lists cross over each other in funny ways.

Like, it’s a demerit for the husband to bring uninvited guests to dinner or come to the table late, but it’s a merit for the wife to be a gracious hostess to unexpected guests and to have food on the table on time.

The uninvited guests part I actually agree with because it is a good sign that a spouse (male or female) is gracious to others even when unexpected AND that a spouse (male or female) is respectful enough to communicate with their spouse rather than spring something like that on them unawares.

I also enjoy what isn’t said: like, he has to be courteous to her friends, but apparently he doesn’t have any friends for her to be courteous towards? And what if he doesn’t want kids himself…wouldn’t it be a merit for his wife to not want them either?

As for the only 10 merit point option: isn’t it funny how far we haven’t come in the States since 1930?
Unmutual

Casual observation: the husband score card has more “Merit” line items that have a higher value of (5) than it has in the “Demerit” column, the wife scorecard is the reverse of this. The husband’s scorecard is biased to come out higher even before the line items are taken into consideration.
- IsolatedGestalt
  
  The husband’s scorecard is biased to come out higher even before the line items are taken into consideration.
  
  Perhaps the implication here is that husbands generally failed to score as well, and adjustments were made to get a normalized result….
  - Anonymous
    
    It should be noted, that this isnt the whole list. If you look at the whole list everyone can get the same points.
Brainspore

You get points deducted for snoring? That’s just not fair.
Freddie Freelance

My wife might disagree with “Reads out loud” as a Merit.
pasmith984

Are we this pernickety these days? I consider myself an easy going character but I suppose if I was asked to give 50 slightly annoying things my partner does it wouldn’t be so difficult. I suppose there are more divorces these days so people probably have less patience for annoyances (or our issues have grown in size so as to make them less tolerable). In any case I wonder what this list would look like nowadays.
- IsolatedGestalt
  
  In any case I wonder what this list would look like nowadays
  
  You don’t have to wonder — there are any number of online dating sites that begin with just such a scoring breakdown. The only difference is that we’re more flexible about how to weight the items, and into which column they’ll go.
  
  It’s not that we’ve transcended forcing people into tidy but restrictive boxes, it’s just that we have more boxes, culturally speaking. If you’re someone who doesn’t fit neatly into any of the currently acceptable boxes, you’re no better off than in the 30′s.
MarkM

You could write a PhD thesis about men and women in the US in the 30s from just this pamphlet.
Of course, being prurient, I focused on the naughty bits:

Men (Merits)
38. Ardent lover– sees that wife has orgasm in marital congress. (20)
43. Is true to his wife. (10)
Women (Merits)
23. Reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress. (10)
24. Faithful and true to husband. (10)

Fun fact: Women react, to men. They don’t act.
So women get fewer points for “marital congress”, I guess,
because all they’re doing is reacting and stuff.

It’s hard to stop looking at each (De)Merit and not come away with a question
about the people interviewed, the interviewer, and the society of that time.
Every one of these is a gem. What to make of this one:

Women (Merits)
47. Polite and mannerly even when alone with husband.

This test doesn’t have issues. It has a subscription.
Mark Frauenfelder

“Puts her cold feet on husband at night to warm them”

That is a 10 demerit penalty in our house.
jimbuck

My wife leaves her shoes on the top step of the basement stairs… so as to kill me one day.
Sekino

It’s totally ridiculous, that’s for sure. But I sometimes wonder whether the average husband/wife really cared that much about such douchebaggery.

I’m pretty certain that people 80 years from now will dig out articles/lists out of Cosmopolitan and People’s magazines, or episodes of The Bachelor, and laugh at how shallow and stupid ‘we were back then’…

I mean, hopefully the world will be that much more advanced…
- gwailo_joe
  
  80 years from now? No chance the culture will be more advanced. . .
  
  We’re not striving, we’re de-viving. uh. er, well. . .SEE?!?
Anonymous

A friend coded this as an Internet quiz when this came around a couple of years ago.
Halloween Jack

#38 in the men’s merit list needs to read, “Knows where the goddamn clitoris is.”
ben

So, I’ve never seen anyone read anything aloud to another person, except when quoting or reading a headline (or in school obviously). Did this used to be common? Do I live in a cave?

“Goes to bed with…much face cream.” 50 DKP MINUS!!!!!
Anonymous

Similarly, I like how each minor child the wife has is worth 5 merit points; thus, for every child you are raising, you can excuse yourself from guilt about five “bad” habits!
Phikus

Actually, each item on the merits side shows what you can do to get away with the items on the demerits side. As long as the man is courteous to the wife’s friends, he can get away with reading the newspaper at the table. As long as she personally puts the children to bed, it doesn’t matter that her seams are crooked.

(It’s no mystery why I remain single.)
Anonymous

While I think it’s awful to keep score in a relationship, I’m actually surprised that the husband also has some responsibilities consulting wife on business and social decisions and turning over paycheck surprised me.
peterbruells

Why is “dresses for breakfast” under merits????
- Anonymous
  
  Have you looked at youself when you first get up? It just means that she gets ready for breakfast. I’d rather see my husband after he gets ready then with bed head:)
- Jardine
  
  Why is “dresses for breakfast” under merits????
  
  If she’s not dressing for breakfast, she’s probably going back to bed after he leaves for work. Meaning either she’s lazy or sleeping with the milkman.
  - Ugly Canuck
    
    Eating breakfast with naked people isn’t as nice as you may think it is.
    - Unmutual
      
      yeah . . . breakfast and coffee are the first items on my morning checklist . . . shower and brushing teeth come after those.
AnthonyC

“Sends children to church and goes herself”
“Lets husband sleep on in sundays”

Methinks I see a problem.
- Anonymous
  
  You see problem, I see opportunity!
sergeirichard

I’m startled by how much more the social expectations for women have changed than those for men. Reading the male checklist it seems dated and amusing, but still pretty reasonable. The merits and demerits are still merits and demerits. It even opened my eyes to my bad habit of leaving shoes in the living room. My partner doesn’t.

But then I turn to the list for women, and get vertigo.
- Rayonic
  
  If the woman happens to be a stay at home housewife then her list isn’t as bad.
Textuality

I can only assume this isn’t the complete checklist… because the absolute max the wife could get is 26… making her “Poor”.

Then again, the 30s were pretty sexist. :D
- Anonymous
  
  @textuality These are just part of the questions. Your red nail polish and breakfast jammies didn’t bury you, yet.
Digilante

Hey BB – make an online poll of this stuff, weigh the answers correctly, and let’s see how BB readers fare. Would be cool to see just for interest.
Anonymous

Am I the only one who wants to rate Betty and Don Drapers marriage against this list?
irksome

Just in time to be two days late for Valentine’s Day. How many demerits for that, Cory?

My girlfriend and I have decided that, since we treat each other to occasional gifts for no occasion, share the household chores and are respectful to each other throughout the year, Valentine’s Day will be the day when we can hurl invectives and generally abuse each other for no particular reason.
Anonymous

Here is the full list in all its glory.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiabla/sets/72157605047200616
Wendy Blackheart

Whats wrong with red nail polish?
- BookGuy
  
  The same reason that the infamous Letter was Scarlet: Everybody knows that red is whorey.
escowles

Full booklet with complete list for both genders is here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiabla/sets/72157605047200616
Anonymous

The thing that strikes me about this is that husbands can get score high for merely being polite, but wives must really work hard.
Crystaltips

“Puts her cold feet on husband at night to warm them” – KACHING!
Husbands are warm for a reason, you know.
Anonymous

I scored my wife negative 26 and she scored me negative 32…..
Nancy Jane Moore

Vertigo, as sergeirichard mentioned, is an appropriate reaction, though mine is to run screaming for the exits.

And, yeah, Textuality, the 30s were pretty sexist. But if you think it stopped at the 30s, you might want to catch up on episodes of Mad Men. Or read The Female Man or “The Women Men Don’t See.”
Anonymous

So 7 dates a week from the husband will definitely cover the demerits of flirting with several other women, or the wife can go to church to cover a bit of flirting herself.

And nowhere is there a merit checkbox for hot, hot sex.
- Anonymous
  
  If you read the whole list guys get 20 points for getting their spouse off. Women get 10 points for simply enjoying themselves.
Hophead

For a little challenge I converted this test into a quick Android app. Took a bit longer than expected to write and publish, but it’s now available for free on the market:

http://market.android.com/details?id=com.fullroom.vintagespousetest&feature=search_result
dilrods

Agree with sergeirichard: the male list would mostly still be useful in my household! While the female list is kooky, I LOVE “slow in coming to bed …” Some things never change.