Vintage Bafflement

Spousery

By Emily Hahn and Eric Hatch

Franklin Watts Inc. 1956

First edition/first printing

Condition: Good. Original DJ is faded.

I am quite fond of marital advice books from the past so I pick them up whenever I see them. This particular gem, “Spousery”, from the heart of the Leave It To Beaver era, is less a book than a marketing gimmick. “Spousery” can be begun starting with either cover, see. It’s two books in one, see. It’s got a gender neutral title because it’s for Him and Her, see.

Yes—there is a pink side and a blue side. The blue side is for him to read (obvs) and the pink side is for her to read. To make this even more confusing: the “his” side, which is blue, is written by a woman—whereas the “her” side, which is pink, is written by a man. The idea of being, I suppose, that men need to tell women how to be good wives and women need to tell men how to be good husbands or something.

The contents are pretty useless. Basically it’s a whole bunch of made-up stories about hypothetical, stereotyped spouses engaged in light conflict. (Think “Family Circus” more than “The Kinsey Report.”) Basic sitcom fare: doofus husband can’t get a break; sensitive wife has needs of some kind.

I’m not gonna say I read the whole thing because (a) it did not deliver on its promise of “powerful marital self help” and (b) the co-authors were not nearly as “droll” or “witty” as I imagine they thought they were. I have no idea who the authors were and it gives exactly zero information on why they were qualified to basically phone in their halves of this book.

Weirdly—the typeface used in both halves is the same, but the “His” side (written by a woman, don’t forget!) is all boldface. ???

Required Vintage Bafflement

Every printed artifact from the 1950s always has to have something baffling in it.

In Spousery, it is the chapter about “the alluring spouse”. Marianne, the (fictional I guess) wife in question, sleeps in what is called a “morning nightgown” because her husband doesn’t approve of “slumber wear” in bed. I have no idea what either of those things are.

(To be fair the Marianne of this chapter sounds literally insane. For one thing she gets up two hours before her husband; does her full face makeup; and then goes back to bed so that when he wakes up, she looks perfect. This isn’t an amusing (fictional?) anecdote. It’s a Freudian case history.)