1930s Marriage Scoresheet Explains How To Be A Good Spouse

From this alternately amusing and disturbing “marital rating scale,” we get a snapshot of what was expected of husbands and wives in the 1930s. The charts were posted by Thought Catalog, which says they were written based on surveys of men and women by the Scientific Marriage Foundation.

Some items, particularly those on the husband’s chart, still apply today. Really, no one’s thrilled about a partner who criticizes them in public, shows up late without calling, or “belches without apology.”

Things get creepier with the wife’s chart. A woman is expected to maintain her looks at all times, and can get demerits for wearing scruffy clothes around the house, going to bed with too much cream on her face, or wearing red nail polish. Supposedly the point of the checklists was to give spouses a way to provide each other with constructive feedback, but it must have been difficult for wives to focus on self-improvement while spending the whole day making sure their seams weren’t crooked.