Marriage Advice Metacommentary - It’s not as gay as it sounds

[Berrakh]

So I was thinking about a spate of articles discussing Marriage Advice, specifically from the 1950s. Some just describe the advice and try to make it relevant to a dual-income setting while other articles just cry bloody murder at the suggestion that your husband is put at ease by you smiling.

But it is worth looking at from another point of view, and in my opinion the inability to do so says a lot about how young people approach marriage: if you can’t even fathom doing these things for your man, because it’s asking too much or might go unappreciated, then why are you marrying him?

I think this is a good way to approach big choices in life. To consider what you might be asked to do, that you don’t want to do, and if you can find the will to do it anyway.

Is how I’ve put it a good spin on the advice in your view? Please, tell me.


Examples:

https://www.drnancyoreilly.com/how-to-be-a-good-wife-1950s-style/

https://littlethings.com/lifestyle/marriage-tips-from-the-1950s

This would of course apply in reverse but this was the stimulus.

 

[Otterly]

Some of it isn’t bad advice at all. The difference now that both men and women work. When I was on maternity leave I did used to get dinner ready each night etc. why not? Mr. O took a night or so a week do I got a break. Once back at work the dynamic is different because you both work and so both need to relax when you can. There’s no doing the laundry in the day, it’s on when you get home. You both wrangle the kids and you both cook a few nights.
Pretty much all the advice reflects a time when men went out to work, often in very physical jobs that would leave them exhausted and women were home in the day. If you’re down a mine for twelve hours you want dinner and harmony when you get home, not a pile of housework and the kids squabbling.
Mocking the advice is just daft - it’s a window into a different time and a different dynamic. I have a lovely sewing book from the fifties that talks about not starting u til all the housework is done and making sure you’re put together and fresh before you do. Different world…

 

[Berrakh]

Some of it isn’t bad advice at all. The difference now that both men and women work. When I was on maternity leave I did used to get dinner ready each night etc. why not? Mr. O took a night or so a week do I got a break. Once back at work the dynamic is different because you both work and so both need to relax when you can. There’s no doing the laundry in the day, it’s on when you get home. You both wrangle the kids and you both cook a few nights.
Pretty much all the advice reflects a time when men went out to work, often in very physical jobs that would leave them exhausted and women were home in the day. If you’re down a mine for twelve hours you want dinner and harmony when you get home, not a pile of housework and the kids squabbling.
Mocking the advice is just daft - it’s a window into a different time and a different dynamic. I have a lovely sewing book from the fifties that talks about not starting u til all the housework is done and making sure you’re put together and fresh before you do. Different world…

And also, people aren’t robots. They can adjust the advice to their situation. And doing so, mutually, will be a good sign about the health of the marriage— how compatible are your lifestyles really? It’s a good way to find out.

 

[Foghotten]

[...] But it is worth looking at from another point of view, and in my opinion the inability to do so says a lot about how young people approach marriage: if you can’t even fathom doing these things for your man, because it’s asking too much or might go unappreciated, then why are you marrying him? [...]

Life in Current Year is too deeply de-humanizing for basic relationship advice to compute for younger people. It's weird, but if they don't directly avoid the subject, young people believe marriage is that one thing desperate people with no hopes of finding anybody else or idiots asking to lose it all in court in a few years do.

"Why care about good relationship advice when I and the people who surround me don't believe in long-term bonds?" Every time you see somebody scoff at common sense personal advice, you better bet good money they're implicitly asking this question.