Alison Morris

Test Your Readiness for Marriage with a Comic Book Quiz

Gareth and I are currently less than one month away from wedded bliss. But, golly, am I READY for marriage? How's a girl to know??

DC Comics to the rescue! This morning I stumbled (quite accidentally) on the perfect blog post for a gal in my position -- circa 1970, that is -- on Lady, That's My Skull. The focus here is a 20-question quiz called "Are You Ready for Marriage?" that appeared in issue number #147 of Girls' Romances (a comic book series), published in March of 1970 by DC Comics.

This quiz is a doozy. For starters, the questions are surprisingly unromantic and very serious, which is to say that they really ARE designed to get you thinking about whether or not you're ready for marriage. (How incredibly UNfun for the poor girls who read this comic book!) As if that's not enough buzzkill, they are also a rather painful combination of forward-thinking feminism and suggestions that a woman's first job is still to take care of her man. If anyone doubts that the '70's were a transitional time for women, they need only read this quiz.

I'm not going to steal the blogging thunder of Lady, That's My Skull by posting the comics pages here. Just pop over to his blog to see them for yourselves and "Test Yourself to See if You're Headed for Happiness or Heartache"! I will, though, paste a couple of quiz questions here, so that you can see what I'm talking about.

The first few questions on the quiz focus on the financial stability of your (the quiz-taker's) relationship, and from the very first question the quiz-makers presume that you, the lady taking this quiz, have an income, which implies that you might very well have a job.

Question 1: "If he can't support you, do you both earn enough to live comfortably without either family's help?" (According to the answer key, a "correct" answer here would be YES.)

Question 6: Are you sacrificing anything for marriage -- school, a career, giving up certain friends? (A "correct" answer here would be NO. Very forward-thinking, I say.)

From there we move into the territory of reciprocity (Have you given up certain things because you dislike them, and has he done likewise?), which positively screams Equal Rights Amendment, doesn't it -- especially when you consider that, according to the answer key, your answer to this question should be YES.

But then we move on to the subject of compatibility, which is where the quiz starts to fall apart a bit, and by question 12 ("Do you give up your friends that he dislikes?", for which the "correct" answer would be YES) things begin a noticeable backward slide for the young working woman who thought maybe the DC Comics definition of marriage might be freeing. By the 21st question ("Can you prepare all of his favorite dishes?"), all hope is lost, as the questions continue in this vein:

 22. "Do you retain leftovers from your meals, know how to prepare them attractively?"

23. "Can you sew his socks, iron his shirts, press his trousers, mind ferrying his clothes back and forth from the tailor and laundry, his shoes from the cobbler?"

24. "Have you ever decorated and furnished a room?"

27. "Are you willing to get up every morning to prepare his breakfast and see him off to work as well as taking care of yourself before going to business or school?"

According to the answer key, I should be saying YES to all of these before I tie the knot with my own comics creator. Instead I called him and said "Listen to this quiz from 1970," and when he laughed in all the right places, I knew all of my marriage questions had been answered.

Posted by Alison Morris on August 14, 2009 | Comments (8)