Tuesday, May 13, 2008

The Martial Rating Scale for Wives - 1938

"The test was designed to give couples feedback on their marriages. Either husbands or wives could take the test, which rated wives in a variety of areas. For instance, if your wife "uses slang or profanity," she would get a score of five demerits. On the other hand, if she "reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress," she would receive 10 merits. The test taker would add up the total number of merits and demerits to receive a raw score, which would categorize the wife on a scale from "very poor" to "very superior."

I particularly like (sarcasm) the idea of demerits and merits. Wives get demerits for:

Failing to sew buttons or socks
Wearing red nail polish.
Puts her cold feet on husband at night to warm them. (Heck, with proper warning I always thought it was a nice thing to warm her feet up. Do unto others . . . )

In the Merits category, I like the irony of 11 and 12:
Wife takes kids to church on Sunday.
Wife lets husband sleep late on Sunday.

There was no husband scale, because husbands are perfect.

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