PHOTO: Maynard G. Krebs (played by the actor Bob Denver, right) holds up a "marriage kit" behind the butch character Zelda Gilroy (played by the actor Sheila James Kuehl, who ironically later became an out-of-the-closet lesbian in real life). For years, a running gag on this 1962 TV sitcom show was Zelda chasing after marriage to Dobie Gillis, who had no interest in being married until he heard a lecture by his teacher, Mr. Leander Pomfritt, about the advantages of being married, which made him embrace the "logic of marriage" and decide to marry Zelda. The above still frame is from the 1962 TV sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" episode "The Marriage Counselor," first aired February 20, 1962, imdb.com accessed May 4, 2016 (Watched rerun on Eugene, Oregon over-the-air TV channel KEZI 9.2 and Corvallis Comcast Cable 309, ME Memorable TV).
PHOTO: Dobie Gillis listens to a lecture by his teacher, Mr. Leander Pomfritt, and learns about the logical advantages of being married, which convinces him to get married to Zelda in the 1962 TV sitcom, "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" episode "The Marriage Counselor," first aired February 20, 1962, imdb.com accessed May 4, 2016 (Watched rerun on Eugene, Oregon over-the-air TV channel KEZI 9.2 and Corvallis Comcast Cable 309, ME Memorable TV).
I was amused to recently watch again the above TV show episode because it made me recall a similar lecture about the advantages of marriage told to me by my very analytical father, and my more expressive and emotional thinking mother, after telling them I couldn't see myself ever getting married to a woman. I didn't tell them that my reason was because I thought marriage was restricted to between only a cisgender man and cisgender woman who planned to reproduce and raise their biological or adopted children. It was only a few years after my parents talked to me about the advantages of marriage did I realized that I could legally marry a man, who had been born as a woman, hut had never legally filed a change of gender on the birth certificate record held in the county records where our marriage license was issued. (I have been silent about this "realization" for decades because of the legal ambiguity of same-sex marriage, which is only recently being resolved in the United States of America via court decisions and I have not wanted to hassle the legalities of it.)
I find it significant that many of the analytical reasons given by Dobie's teacher for getting married back then are still valid reasons today, such as the reason of being able to help one another become more independent and happier.
See previous posts:
- Book by Michael McConnell on his marriage to Jack Baker that led to the first Supreme Court case on gay marriage (12/29/15) - includes my book jacket blurb
- Boy kisses boy in 1961 Dobie Gillis TV show (5/11/15)
- Closeted lesbian in 1961 TV show rejected for being too butch by CBS TV executive (3/16/15)
- TV Lesbians in 1961 and grocery delivery rediscovered by Wal-Mart and Amazon (1/9/16)
