Category Archives: Marriage

So You Want to Get Married

In honor of my friends Jessica and Nate getting married this weekend, I thought it appropriate to share some much-warranted advice from So! You Want to Get Married! (1947) as shared by The Hairpin.

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So You Want to Get Married 1
First things first. Did he ask your father for your hand in marriage? Did he go straight to the top and ask God? If not, why not? Perhaps you want to rethink marrying such a soulless, father-hating creep.

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So You Want to Get Married 2

This one’s easy: Are you a filthy whore? Check yes or no.

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So You Want to Get Married 4

And finally, there’s the issue of how to keep that ol’ spark alive.

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Personally, I hope never to see the words “love-making” and “sour cream” used together ever again.

Congrats Jessica and Nate! And thanks to Bridget for the link!

Leapin’ for the Altar

Ladies, rev your engines! It’s Leap Day, and you know what that means: It’s the one day out of every four years that you can ask a man to marry you and not seem like a wayward whore. 

In a custom that dates back to 5th-century Ireland, folks thought of Leap Day as a day that was sort of beyond the law. Tradition was out the window, and it became a veritable Wild West of love, ladies and gentlemen. You see, during leap years (but particularly on Leap Day), it was fine for a woman to act the aggressor. As one Irish site put it, “Consequently, women who were concerned about being ‘left on the shelf’ took advantage of this anomaly and proposed to the man they wished to marry.”

Not a love match? Then the fella better prepare to pay up. In 1288, Scottish law was supposedly passed stating that a woman could propose marriage in leap years, but if she was turned down, the man owed her a kiss, a silk gown, or a pair of gloves (take the dress!). In Denmark, scorned ladies came away with a dozen pairs of gloves.

Ladies lying in wait.

Men, it’s time for you to slug back a Leap Year highball, and get ready to grin and bear it. Happy Leap Day!

(Thank you to Bridget for the tip! And happy birthday to Lori!)

American Men: Chumps

“American men have been raised on a fiction: that American women are soft, feminine and alluring. They forsake the freedom of single bliss and the grubby affairs in motels and automobile back seats for the fantasy that is held up on all sides of soft female flesh, partially hidden by a sheer black negligee; sex on silken sheets with a perpetually young and sylphlike wife with red lips and nails by Revlon and hair always in place by Toni. They dream of gay, perfumed nights of love courtesy of Sortilege.

Even before the honeymoon is over, the sucker discovers that in marrying an American woman, he sold himself into bondage to a domineering, sexless individual who regards marriage as a contest with a husband to see who is going to be the boss. And the poor chump always loses.”

–Women Confidential

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Them’s the breaks.

By the by, I had to look up Sortilege — while the author is probably talking about having a gay time (ahem) with the Canadian brand of whiskey/maple syrup liqueur, I’m choosing to believe he meant the ’80s French heavy metal band.

Spankings All Around!

“Women have been freed from the cookstove and the nursery. But they cannot be freed from the physical facts of life. Careers are only for the few who are career-minded and career-able. At that, many a career woman would gladly chuck it all for a man with guts enough to lift her over his knee and spank her roundly on the buttocks.”

–Women Confidential

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.Sounds like a dare to me.

Now, Where Did I Leave My Femininity?

“While women have always been the aggressors — in a highly hidden non-aggressive way — the shortage of males now makes it even more necessary for them to become more predatory in seeking males on the make. Her entire role in life is to snare him into marriage or otherwise — failing which she becomes a career woman. Many women who have successfully snared also become career women after discovering that what they’ve snared isn’t a man. Many who begin as career women also get married, hoping to become women again. Usually they don’t.”

–Women Confidential

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Okay, let me break this down for you:

1. Women are passive-aggressive predators.

2. Women trap men and force them into marriage.

3. Failing this, she will get a job.

4. If she succeeds, she gets to retain her womanly status and is saved from facing the cruel working world by her manly husband.

5. Unless he’s a total gay.

6. Women who are married AND also have a career have somehow misplaced their femininity.

7. Probably while shopping. Ha ha! Women, amiright??

No, Trust Me, You’re Miserable

“As for happiness, those who think they can best attain it outside the gentle yoke of matrimony are quite as wide of the mark. Their selfish and solitary pleasures do not gratify them. With all the resources of clubs, billiard-rooms, saloons, narcotics, and stimulants, single men make but a mock show of satisfaction. At heart every one of them envies his married friends. How much more monotonous and more readily exhausted are the resources of woman’s single life! No matter what “sphere” she is in, no matter in what “circle” she moves, no matter what “mission” she invents, it will soon pall on her.

Would you see the result? … Some of them are sad stories, and this is one of the saddest: Of those unfortunates who, out of despair and disgust of the world, jump from bridges, or take arsenic, or hang themselves, or in other ways rush unbidden and unprepared before the great Judge of all, nearly two-thirds are unmarried, and in some years nearly three-fourths. And of those other sad cases — dead, yet living — who people the madhouses and asylums, what of them? Driven crazy by their brutal husbands, do you suggest? Not at all!”

–The Physical Life of Woman

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Bachelors and bachelorettes! We know you are miserable! STOP PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY!

Oh God.

“Whether or not the virginal membrane has been dealt with by a doctor, the prospective bride should stretch the opening to the vagina for a head start on marital adjustment. Instead of ordinary lubrication, she should generally apply a moderately thick layer of Surfacaine ointment to the area and wait three to five minutes for the deadening action of that ointment to take effect. She should then lubricate one finger (preferably one with a short, well-filed fingernail) with more ointment and insert it slowly into the vagina. If long fingernails create a risk of injury or if modesty prevents direct finger contact, a rubber stall can be used. Usually one to five minutes every day devoted to widening the vaginal opening results in proper stretching and relaxation in four to six weeks.”

–The Marriage Art

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There’s no unreading that, folks. Sorry.

(Also, the instructions actually go on. So I really did you a service by stopping early.)

Give Grudgingly

Caveat: The book this information is taken from is a reprint, and thus may not be authentic. Even so, these are very wise words to live by. Take heed!


Sex Tips For Husbands and Wives from 1894

• The wise bride will permit two brief sexual experiences weekly — and as time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency.

• Give little, give seldom and above all give grudgingly. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.

• Men obtain a major portion of sexual satisfaction from peaceful exhaustion immediately after the act. Thus the wife must ensure that there is no peace for him. Otherwise he might be encouraged to try again.

• Many women find it useful to have thick cotton nightgowns for themselves and pyjamas for their husbands — they need not be removed during the act.

• Lie still as bodily motion could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband.

• When it cannot be prevented, sex should be practised in total darkness.

• Remain absolutely silent while he is huffing and puffing away – and never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in progress.

• By the tenth anniversary many wives have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating sexual contact. Social pressure will hold the husband in the home.

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(From the learned ladies at Writing Women’s History.)