You don’t have to go to Sunday afternoon tea with your grandma once a week to know that the 1950s were a very, very different time.
Color TV had only recently been invented.
The king of Rock & Roll had just released his first single – and at the time, his dance moves were beyond scandalous.
And did we mention that poodle skirts were all the rage? (That’s almost enough to make you miss the early aughts, when Paris & pup Tinkerbell were regular tabloid fixtures).
But weirdest of all, teens weren’t even considered a separate demographic yet.
…Which helps to explain why girls as young as twelve were already being groomed to be consummate wives.
Yea, that sounds creepy already, but just wait until you hear the specifics.
Here are some of the most horribly misguided ideas that were being passed off as “dating advice” in the 1950s.
1. “A social service meeting, an afternoon tea, a matinee, a whatnot, is no excuse for there being no dinner ready when a husband comes home from a hard day’s work.”
– Sex Satisfaction and Happy Marriage by Reverend Alfred Henry Tyrer
2. “A man may stand [nagging] for a long time, but the chances are against his standing it permanently. If he needs peace to make life bearable, he will have to look for it elsewhere than his own house. And it is quite likely that he will look.”
– Sex Satisfaction and Happy Marriage by Reverend Alfred Henry Tyrer
3. That the underwear should be spotlessly clean goes without saying, but every woman should wear the best quality underwear that she can afford. And the color should be preferably pink. And lace and ruffles, I am sorry to say, add to the attractiveness of underwear, and are liked by the average man.”
– Dr. William Josephus Robinson
