None of this is really new in popular culture. If you watch the old comedy movies you find this same sentiment is frequently displayed in the "hen-pecked" husband. I remember an old movie (though I don't remember which one) in which a wife explains how it works. She is telling another woman (who is preparing to get married) that men get to make the important decisions, like whether we go to war with China. Women get to make all the unimportant decisions and then goes on to list a few major family issues. The bottom line was that men deal with international politics and women control the home.
The same was true in the 1960s television shows as well. There's an old Hogan's Heros episode in which the general's wife brings his sister to see Col. Klink. She is an overbearing battle-axe. But, in this episode, she brings her fiance and Klink is relieved. The man hardly speaks because she says something and then asks (and answers), "Right?....Right!!" The fiance meekly smiles weakly and nods his head.
Even now, we hear such as what was said at the wedding. And even now it is still thought to be a light-hearted stab at humor.
What is different today (and I think began in the 1980s) is that many people are taking this traditionally humorous gag seriously. The idea was popularized, I think, by crude comedians who attributed all power to women because they control intimate relations between the sexes and men are absolutely overpowered with one, and only one, instinct. I think this is sufficiently clear for this forum. (And, yes, I was one who thought this kind of humor was great back then--but I was mostly pagan in those days of which I have long repented and will probably spend to the Last Day in purgatory.) I've seen commercials for those half-hour television comedies (which no longer seem funny to me) and it appears that this is largely the same sentiment today, except that what used to be meant for "adult" audiences only is now considered family fare.
I would guess that at the wedding, these comments were followed by some slight nervous chuckles as many men anxiously glanced at their wives to see if they had permission to laugh. The best man was trying to lighten to mood. But it is also clear in the way it was reported here, that many people took this to be a serious commentary of the relationship between husband and wife.
The problem today is that many people seem to think that if a husband doesn't give in to everything a wife wants he's being overbearing and controlling. What used to be almost gallows humor has become popular culture's reality.
Topic: At a recent wedding (Read 1586 times)