The latest New Yorker magazine has a fun article on marriage therapy and one of its early promoters, who also was an advocate of eugenics. Jill Lepore, one of my favorite New Yorker writers, picks out some choice quotes from Paul Popenoe:
“Many a college girl of the finest innate qualities, who sincerely desires to enter matrimony, is unable to find a husband of her own class, simply because she has been rendered so cold and unattractive, so overstuffed intellectually and starved emotionally, that a typical man does not desire to spend the rest of his life in her company.” (Popenoe was, at the time, unmarried. Two years later, at the age of thirty-two, he married a nineteen-year-old dancer.)
Marriage therapy does seem to be premised on the questionable assumption that it is possible to live with another human being, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, decade after decade, without them getting on one’s nerves.
Couples therapy advice (for dudes) – Read about the German occupation of Czechoslovakia during WWII and pretend you’re Czechoslovakia. Conceding to therapy is like giving up Suedetenland (1938)
Couples therapy advice (for ladies) – Have you considered the possibility… that you don’t even like or want Czechoslovakia anymore, but you can’t part with it because maybe you just want a little border security? A crazy idea, I know…
My wife and I just celebrated 25 years of marriage last week. I believe we achieved this milestone because we never fell out of love with each other – at the same time.
This pretty much sums it up:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/2807/saturday-night-live-zagats-2
I belong to Bridegrooms Anonymous. Whenever I feel like getting married, they send over a lady in a housecoat and hair curlers to burn my toast for me.
— Dick Martin