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This generous deed will get you five merit points!
Each chart came with a list of things for which you can either receive merit or demerit points. At the end, you would have to subtract your demerit score from your merit score, and the higher the number, the better the partner. Here are some merits for men.
This one would get men a well-deserved 20 merit points!
The chart gives the examples of compliments regarding her looks, cooking, housekeeping, etc., and offers men five points for those sweet nothings.
If you have more than one date with your wife every week, you can collect five merit points per date.
Because she can’t read?
The duty of providing for the family was a heavy one for men to bear, but at least it earned them five points?
The audacity of regretting your marriage out loud in public is surprisingly only one demerit point.
This would cost you five demerit points, and today it may cost you even more.
They couldn't just order takeout to accommodate for the extra mouths!
This demerit still stands today.
It doesn't specify anything about in private, but publicly this would cost five demerit points.
This is still one of the hilariously petty arguments only married people have.
No pajama breakfasts for wives!
For keeping things clean and tidy, wives earned one merit point.
Interesting on whose terms, we can probably guess.
The chart specifies an instrument like the piano or violin. Learning it only earned women one merit point.
If you swallow your pride and you're always the one to say sorry first, you will earn five merit points.
While she gets dressed, makes breakfast, cleans up, and takes the kids to church, she's also not supposed to make noise so her husband can sleep in.
This is an interesting addition, since the chart largely assumed that a married couple already has children. Anyway, it would cost you five demerit points.
Not many women today know how to do this, but it was expected of a wife in the '30s.
Mind you, she had to look pretty, but if it took too long, it would cost her five demerit points.
Today, this might earn you a squeal and a giggle, but back then it was an offense to your partnership
It's interesting that husbands got five demerits if they flirted specifically in front of their wives, but wives got five demerits for flirting at all.
See also: Bizarre marriage and divorce laws from around the world.
Women typically weren't assumed to be driving, but they also couldn't comment on or criticize the driver's actions and decisions.
It was also assumed that wives would always have meals ready on time.
The second half of that sentence is a little worrisome.
Despite the fact that he will be receiving demerit points for his unexpected guests, the wife is still expected to be a good hostess.
Your partner's friends can still be a tricky topic today, but if the husband was nice to his wife's friends he'd earn a merit point.
This is cruel for any wife to experience, and it would earn husbands five demerit points.
Not much you could do about this one back in the '30s.
Tucking them in earned wives one merit point.
That is to say, if the wife was avoiding that marital congress, she would get a demerit point.
It says "helps with," as it was assumed this was a woman's task.
Unless, perhaps, he's reading it to his wife?
For enjoying sex, or at least looking like she was enjoying sex, she would receive 10 points.
Women would earn a whopping 10 points for this one.
Another five merit points for simple memory!
Red nail polish was clearly the signal of a deeper character flaw that was absolutely unsuitable for a wife.
You had to look beautiful for breakfast the next day, but you also had to be appealing for all that marital congress.
Yes, if the seam in your nylons wasn't running straight down your leg, that was considered part of being a bad wife.
George W. Crane was an author, lecturer, educator, psychologist, and doctor of medicine, who had both an M.D. and a PhD. On top of that, he ran a counseling practice and matchmaking service in the 1930s. All that is to say, he was highly regarded in his time as a relationship expert. His work eventually led to the creation of a marital test, designed to help husbands and wives see how well they or their partner were doing in the marriage, and where they needed to improve.
Naturally, as many things have changed since the etiquette of the 1930s, the standards for married couples was very different back then, and almost laughably so. Click through to see a sample of his extensive test, and find out how well you and your partner would have fared.
How would you score on this 1930s marriage test?
Promptness and courtesy make the most successful romances, apparently...
LIFESTYLE Relationships
George W. Crane was an author, lecturer, educator, psychologist, and doctor of medicine, who had both an M.D. and a PhD. On top of that, he ran a counseling practice and matchmaking service in the 1930s. All that is to say, he was highly regarded in his time as a relationship expert. His work eventually led to the creation of a marital test, designed to help husbands and wives see how well they or their partner were doing in the marriage, and where they needed to improve.
Naturally, as many things have changed since the etiquette of the 1930s, the standards for married couples was very different back then, and almost laughably so. Click through to see a sample of his extensive test, and find out how well you and your partner would have fared.