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"Take my wife. Please!" |
A species of Dom Com based on the premise that monogamous marriage is rather like a long, slow, exquisite torture by a sadistic god from whose maleficent clutches escape is impossible. Husbands are child-like buffoons who watch too much football, leave the toilet seat up, ogle hot women, and forget anniversaries. Wives are frigid, nagging, hateful shrews with zero interest in sex. Children destroy your home and what little peace of mind you have left, while waiting their turn to perpetuate the cycle. Obnoxious In-Laws serve to add to the misery. The audience may be left wondering, "Why don't they just get a divorce, if they're so miserable?"
Married... with Children was probably the first time this trope was seen on American television, but it's been a mainstay of British shows since The Fifties.
The name, for those who don't get it, is a reference to the line of the traditional wedding vows, "Lawful wedded life."
Comedy[]
- Too often a source of jokes in stand-up comedy.
Comic Strips[]
- The Lockhorns, though thankfully the eponymous couple apparently doesn't have kids.
- For Better or For Worse since going into reprints/new-runs seems to spend a lot of time dwelling on how John is an insensitive dolt and the children have nothing better to do than make Elly's life harder. Perversely, the strip also implies that anyone who doesn't settle down and live the same kind of life is irresponsible, childish and a bad person.
Live-Action TV[]
- The form reached its pinnacle of perfection in the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.
- The King of Queens
- Mad About You became this in the later years.
- Most couples in Curb Your Enthusiasm.
- The husband is the frigid one, but Married... with Children fits otherwise.
- Home Improvement occasionally slipped into this.
- As did Family Matters.
- Til Death is somewhat of a Deconstruction in that the better you know Joy, the slobbier she seems, and the better a match for Eddie.
- My Family
- Keeping Up Appearances—Poor Richard deserves a sainthood for putting up with Hyacinth for all those years.
- Any time a married couple is seen in The Benny Hill Show, it falls square into this.
- Similar to the Married... with Children example, the Ropers on Three's Company and their own spinoff feature this with a frigid husband and a wife always in the mood.
- Frank and Estelle Costanza in Seinfeld couldn't go for one scene without getting into a screaming match about a nothing issue.
- George spent the seventh season trying to find ways to avoid this trope. Too cowardly to simply admit to Susan that he didn't to get married, he concocted various elaborate schemes to try and get out of it, knowing he'd be miserable and lifeless in his marriage. By dumb luck, he managed to get out of it in "The Invitations".
- Mr. Howard in iCarly mentions that he hates his wife and that the feeling is mutual.
Western Animation[]
- Done in plenty of old cartoons—examples include Porky's Romance, Donald's Diary, and His Bitter Half.
- Family Guy didn't start out this way, but post-cancellation eventually turned into it. Peter is a sociopath, Lois is a bitch, and the only reason they stay together is because their infant son will never grow up and go to college.
- Homer and Marge Simpson just barely manage to avoid this. Homer's a buffoon, but he at least tries to better himself despite his limited intelligence. Marge, meanwhile, is a fussy wet blanket, but she behaves this way out of love and concern as she tries to hold her wild family together.
- Homer's parents had it even worse. Even before Mona ran out on her family, due to Mr. Burns' goons hunting her down, they were neglectful and unfaithful to each other, argued about everything and only stayed together because they had a child.
- Rick and Morty:
- Beth and Jerry. On the surface they're a perfectly ordinary couple, but they're both hiding extremely dark tendencies and constantly play the Never My Fault card whenever their myriad of issues get brought up. A planet whose hat was marriage counselling outright said that their marriage shouldn't exist. They get much better after briefly separating and going to couples counselling. The Season 5 finale reveals that the marriage shouldn't naturally exist. It's being manipulated by Ricks to produce a healthy supply of Mortys. Though after some time apart and Earth-based couples counselling, they begin to grow as people and have a much healthier relationship.
- Across the multiverse, Rick and Diane's marriage was said to be one, Rick arguing with Diane about his super science before outright abandoning Diane and Beth, leading to the abandonment issues that plague her marriage with Jerry. Though it turns out that some Ricks, including Rick C-137, were exception to this multiversal trend.
- The biggest example was Rick Prime and his Diane. Prime hated his wife so much that he not only fled his universe but when he saw that his counterparts actually loved their wife, he was so insulted that began killing alternate Dianes and eventually built a weapon that wiped Diane from existence in every dimension. Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence does not even begin to cover how much he hated Diane.