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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented twenty twelve Camri. It's ready.

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Speaker 1: Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you? From

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Speaker 1: houstuff works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Molly. Got a little fact

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Speaker 1: about myself to share with you. Add to my trading

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Speaker 1: card collection. I know its collection has grown far too large,

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Speaker 1: but here's another one. Okay, So in terms of my

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Speaker 1: knowledge of movies, contemporary movies, I got some gaps. I

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Speaker 1: have noticed that I had some big gaps in there,

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Speaker 1: all right. One time I said ten points to Griffindor

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Speaker 1: and Kristin had no idea what I was talking about.

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Speaker 1: All right, you know what, Harry Potter, that's another that's

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Speaker 1: just a side note. Nay, I just got that reference

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Speaker 1: right now. So maybe I'm not so behind the times

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Speaker 1: as you think I am. But if you were to

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Speaker 1: rewind and give me some kind of oh, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, a musical number, something, you can bust it out.

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Speaker 1: I can bust it out. So you're saying old movies,

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Speaker 1: old movie is where it's at. What I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: say to you, Mollie, is that I grew up watching

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Speaker 1: a lot of old movies, one of which was The

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Speaker 1: Seven Year Itch starring Marilyn Monroe, of course and Tom Mule,

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Speaker 1: And it's about this guy whose family leaves town for

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Speaker 1: the summer and he stays in the city. I guess

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Speaker 1: to work. I haven't seen it in a while. And

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Speaker 1: he has this super super foxy neighbor, Miss Marilyn Monroe.

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Speaker 1: This is also the movie with the famous scene where

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Speaker 1: she's standing over the subway grate, right, the wind blows

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Speaker 1: up her her dress, and he's very tempted to have

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Speaker 1: an affair with her because she's Marilyn Monroe, so of

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Speaker 1: course you would want to hence the whole The Seven

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Speaker 1: Year Itch, right. I think the work he's doing is

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Speaker 1: he's editing a book by some crazy doctor and the psychiatrist,

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Speaker 1: and the psychiatrists has a theory that men are tempted

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Speaker 1: to stray after exactly seven years. So at the very

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Speaker 1: time he's dealing with this super foxy neighbor, to use

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Speaker 1: Kristen's words, he's got this book in front of him

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Speaker 1: which says, oh, this is natural. You should feel this way. Now.

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Speaker 1: Let me tell you though, when you are maybe I

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Speaker 1: don't know, eight or nine years old watching this movie.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this movie went straight over my head. I

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Speaker 1: remember thinking that it was like, I don't really know

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Speaker 1: what the buzz about this, about this new Tommy ele

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Speaker 1: movie is as I said, drinking my tea, Oh that

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Speaker 1: little vision of little Kristin not understanding so classic. How

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Speaker 1: many stars would you give it? Uh? You know, but again,

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Speaker 1: well it's been a long time since I've seen it.

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Speaker 1: But of your memories, of my memories, out of five stars, sure, okay,

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Speaker 1: little Kristin would probably give it. I'd probably give it

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Speaker 1: three stars because I did really like Marilyn Monroe movies

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Speaker 1: and it was in color. Yeah, it has some good

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Speaker 1: good costume me. So when you're when your little kid

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Speaker 1: complaying black and white to color pictures, do colors always

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Speaker 1: get an extra star? Yeah? And technicolor gets a star

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Speaker 1: and a half. Okay. Anyway, so I didn't get seven

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Speaker 1: year itch back then, but today today you're all grown

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Speaker 1: up where I'm all grown up. I get the innu

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Speaker 1: windows finally, and we know so much about the seven

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Speaker 1: year itch. We're gonna we're gonna talk about whether or

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Speaker 1: not this really exists, right, because I think you see

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Speaker 1: it all the time in the newspapers. I mean they've

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Speaker 1: used it for baseball players who are leaving teams after

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Speaker 1: seven years. They use it when marriages break up. It's

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Speaker 1: become just this very common term in the lexicon, the

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Speaker 1: seven year itch. After seven years, you've got to move along.

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Speaker 1: And the reason you've got to start with this movie

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Speaker 1: is because the whole reason this phrase is in our

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Speaker 1: vocabulary is because of the movie. Originally, when the play

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Speaker 1: started to play, when the guy was riding the play,

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Speaker 1: the main character been married for ten years, and it

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Speaker 1: was only because he used to work as a joke

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Speaker 1: writer for this hillbilly comedian who used to say something like,

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Speaker 1: I know the girl's over twenty one because she's had

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Speaker 1: the seven year itch four times seven year itch meaning

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Speaker 1: some weird skin disease, which was its common usage before

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. When this play came out, he just

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Speaker 1: borrowed the term from the comedian and changed the character's

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Speaker 1: marriage from ten years to seven. Yeah, so we have

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Speaker 1: George Axelrod to thank for that. The play right, the

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Speaker 1: play right. But William Sapphire In the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: the linguists tried to go back and see where Axelrod

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Speaker 1: even got that seven year itch, and he goes all

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Speaker 1: the way back to I think the earliest date that

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Speaker 1: he gets is eighteen fifty four with Henry David Thurreau,

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Speaker 1: who writes these maybe but the spring months in the

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Speaker 1: life of the race, if we have had the seven

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Speaker 1: years itch, we have not seen the seventeen year locus yet.

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Speaker 1: In concude that is I think my favorite Henry David

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Speaker 1: Threau impression of her. I really wish you'd been around

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Speaker 1: when I read that book in college. It is very authentic.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, but Throaw doesn't really explain with that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we got nothing from that. With most things that Threau

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Speaker 1: tries to explain, I don't know why I've got such

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Speaker 1: a hang up on Thureau. But yeah, he traces it

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Speaker 1: through some other usages in the early nineteen hundreds, and

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Speaker 1: it always sort of means this unidentifiable illness. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: liked this one. This is from Carl Sandberg in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six poem The People Yes, and the line

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Speaker 1: is may you have the seven year itch? Was answered,

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Speaker 1: I hope your wife eats crackers in bed. So it's

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Speaker 1: something annoying, it's a little pest it's a pest. And

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Speaker 1: it's only because seven is used so often biblically and

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Speaker 1: in uh you know, repetition, and this comedian picked it up,

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Speaker 1: used in the joke, and inspired Axel Rod the playwright.

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Speaker 1: So I really have the comedian Henry David Thereau and

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Speaker 1: the playwright to thank for this common phrase and all

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Speaker 1: rooted in the Bible exactly, going back to the Bible's

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Speaker 1: obsession with the number seven and uh you know. The

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Speaker 1: question then becomes did they hit on something accidentally? Is

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Speaker 1: it actually a real phenomenon, particularly in a relationship, because

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Speaker 1: here we go, people get ready. In the United States,

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Speaker 1: the median length of a marriage is roughly seven years.

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. It's like all those people were just

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Speaker 1: It's like Henry David thureau knew something was about sitting

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Speaker 1: alone in a cabin. He was like, if I were married,

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Speaker 1: I bet it well the last for seven years, I'm

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Speaker 1: just gonna hang out by myself on this pond. And

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Speaker 1: the row was onto something that pay my taxes. Now,

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Speaker 1: if a marriage does cross that seven year, all right,

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Speaker 1: sofa we get Let's say we get to ten years.

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Speaker 1: Research has also shown that you will have already gone

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Speaker 1: through two major slumps, one of which does happen at

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Speaker 1: seven years. Yes, so they're saying that people who stay

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Speaker 1: married for that decade they have to weather that slump.

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Speaker 1: But the first slump comes it around four years. That's

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Speaker 1: when the honeymoon effect is gone, right, and they're really

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Speaker 1: surprised to find this slump that, you know, after four years,

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Speaker 1: only four years. Yeah, it's kind of disappointing. You haven't

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Speaker 1: even used your china a whole bunch yet, I know.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, after four years,

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Speaker 1: there's this big slump, and it may be because you know,

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Speaker 1: you're getting used to your roles, maybe marriage is lost,

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Speaker 1: it's luster, maybe you've started to have children. So in

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Speaker 1: this first slump at four years, they're saying that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the passion might have dimmed a little bit. You can't

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Speaker 1: maintain that level of passion forever. So we've talked about

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Speaker 1: you're getting used to your new roles. Maybe now you're

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Speaker 1: getting a little bored. That's the first slump, and then

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Speaker 1: it might pick back up as you start to have children,

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Speaker 1: as you start to you know, get in your groove,

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Speaker 1: and then again it's going to go down at seven Yeah,

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Speaker 1: those are the two main hurdles that a newly married

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Speaker 1: couple has looked forward to. Now, backing up this idea

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Speaker 1: of that four year slump, we have one of our

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Speaker 1: favorite women in the world, noted anthropologists Helen Fisher, right,

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Speaker 1: and it did not surprise Helen Fisher that these researchers

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety nine found those four and seven year slumps.

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Speaker 1: She would argue that instead of the seven yearch we

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Speaker 1: should call it the four year itch, which again is

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Speaker 1: not very enchanting to think about when you're getting married.

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Speaker 1: But she has looked at a bunch of societies, collected

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Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty societies, and in all of these societies,

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Speaker 1: marriage is valued. You know, they all are getting married

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Speaker 1: and they part around four years. That's when divorces peak.

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Speaker 1: And so you know, while we said the median of

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Speaker 1: American marriages is seven, there are a lot of these

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Speaker 1: marriages they're saying where the parachute doesn't open. To borrow

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Speaker 1: one phrase from one of these articles, and she's saying,

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Speaker 1: Helen Fisher is saying that there's a reason why that

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Speaker 1: four years is significant, and it goes back to one

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Speaker 1: of our favorite topics of discussion evolution and our early

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Speaker 1: human ancestors. And Fisher points out that in the olden

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Speaker 1: days we go back in time a little bit, that

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Speaker 1: a woman and a man would have a child, that

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Speaker 1: the child being a human baby is sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: subject to the elements. It takes a lot of parenting

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Speaker 1: to get a kid to be a toddler, especially back

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Speaker 1: then when survival rates were scarce and human births were

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Speaker 1: spaced out four years apart. Because the woman would have

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Speaker 1: the child, she'd breastfeed, they would get it to become

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Speaker 1: a toddler, a little bit more self sufficient, not really,

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Speaker 1: but you know, it had a better chance of survival. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And then she's saying that to ensure genetic diversity among

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Speaker 1: your children, to give all your chilln the best chance

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Speaker 1: at survival, you wouldn't want to just have another baby

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Speaker 1: with that that same gene pool, right, You'd want to

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Speaker 1: try a different gene pool because maybe that could be

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Speaker 1: even stronger and cooler, and even you'd want to mix

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Speaker 1: up the major histoic compatibility complexes clearly exactly. I mean,

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Speaker 1: so what they would do is at four years the

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Speaker 1: kid could probably be taken care of by you know,

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Speaker 1: the village you know, he wouldn't need just his mother

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Speaker 1: and his father anymore. So four years the mother and

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Speaker 1: the father might go have a child with someone else. Sure,

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Speaker 1: So she's saying that what's been passed down to us

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Speaker 1: is this desire to have a child with someone new

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Speaker 1: every four years, and a lot of times these divorces

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Speaker 1: will happen at the height of our reproductive years. So

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Speaker 1: Fisher thinks that we are just biologically driven to wanna

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Speaker 1: maybe split up, maybe see somebody a new after a

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Speaker 1: handful of years. I mean, think about how many things

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Speaker 1: we've talked about on this podcast, Christ that are driven

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Speaker 1: by some subconscious desire to give our child the best

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Speaker 1: genetic makeup it could possibly have. I mean, we've talked

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Speaker 1: about how to smell, as you talked about with the MHCs.

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Speaker 1: It drives, it drives our attraction to other people. So

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Speaker 1: she's saying that this four year mark, somehow, subconsciously in

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Speaker 1: our body, we know that's the time in which we've

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Speaker 1: had a child, got it to the age of four

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Speaker 1: or five, where it can be taken care of by

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Speaker 1: relatives and friends, and then it's time to move on, right.

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Speaker 1: And you know, if we think that four years is

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Speaker 1: a short amount of time to start getting the cold feet.

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Speaker 1: There was another article from two thousand and seven in

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Speaker 1: the New York Times that covered research on a three

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Speaker 1: year itch. So the time that we're going to be happy,

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Speaker 1: like really you know, on fire with somebody is getting

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Speaker 1: the window is getting smaller and smaller, Molly. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I think that that three year itch is particularly American phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: It's very US centric and we're talking about marriages. The

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Speaker 1: one thing that a lot of this research leaves out

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Speaker 1: is the idea of cohabitating couples who are not married,

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Speaker 1: may not even plan to get married right, and they

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Speaker 1: don't show up in this research because what the researchers

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Speaker 1: are always looking at is demographic data about when the

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Speaker 1: marriage is actually go to divorce court. And Fisher herself

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Speaker 1: points out that in the US, we tend to divorce

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Speaker 1: a year earlier than the four year ritch, in about

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Speaker 1: two or three years, because chemistry, if you look at

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Speaker 1: our chemistry in her biology, that's when that spark, that

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Speaker 1: romantic spark starts to fade, the sizzle fizzles, And she

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Speaker 1: just says, Americans have gotten really good at jumping that

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Speaker 1: gun of this isn't this isn't as perfect as it

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Speaker 1: was when we started. Let's go ahead and cut line,

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Speaker 1: and we definitely just seem to jump the gun in

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Speaker 1: the US compared to our friends across the pond, because

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Speaker 1: there was an article in the UK Times that looked

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Speaker 1: at data from the Office of National Statistics and found

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Speaker 1: that eleven years is the average time the divorce couples

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Speaker 1: had stayed together before their marriage broke up. Right, You're

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Speaker 1: always seeing articles come out of the UK about the

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Speaker 1: ten or the eleven year itch. So it definitely varies

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Speaker 1: by country. But a lot of these people, no matter

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Speaker 1: what year they come up with, whether it's three years,

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Speaker 1: ten years, eleven years, there's always this question of, you know,

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Speaker 1: should we not have such stigma around divorce, should we

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Speaker 1: just expect couples to divorce at ten or eleven years?

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Speaker 1: And there's always a quote about how you know, it

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Speaker 1: can be a self fulfilling prophecy. I think if you

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Speaker 1: look for reasons to be unhappy at three years, four years,

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Speaker 1: at seven years, at ten years, you can find them.

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Speaker 1: And so what they're saying, you know, relationship experts, economists,

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Speaker 1: everyone is just saying you got to give your marriage

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Speaker 1: more attention at these points in which there might be

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Speaker 1: a slump. You know, that's sort of why the researchers

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Speaker 1: put out that study about the four and the seven

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Speaker 1: years slump. They're saying, pay more attention to the other person.

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Speaker 1: Then maybe it's if it's something you know about, it's

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Speaker 1: something you can get through. And I think we also

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Speaker 1: have to take into account how our longer lifespans are

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Speaker 1: kind of changing the terms of marriage. Because let's say, oh,

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Speaker 1: in the medieval times, couples would stay together forever, but

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Speaker 1: forever meant like eleven, twelve, thirteen years, because there I

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Speaker 1: would just die. Yeah. But today, when we get married,

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Speaker 1: if we stay till death to his part, I mean

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Speaker 1: death is coming later and later, and so we're expected

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Speaker 1: to stay with each other longer than we ever have before.

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Speaker 1: So I mean it's you can look at either way.

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Speaker 1: You can either be sort of, I guess, an excuse

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Speaker 1: to get you out of a bad relationship, like yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, like I'm looking for we're not meant to

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Speaker 1: be together that long. You can look at it as

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Speaker 1: a way to pay attention to relationship and get through

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Speaker 1: what might be a really hard time. You can do

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Speaker 1: what one politician did in Bavaria. Oh, this was great.

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Speaker 1: Her name is Gabrielli Polly and she was wearing for

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Speaker 1: the Christian Social Union Party, which is a very conservative

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Speaker 1: Catholic party, I believe, and I don't think her platform

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Speaker 1: for the party went over that well. And her proposal

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Speaker 1: was that every marriage that takes place in Germany should

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Speaker 1: be limited to seven years. Oh, this was just just

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Speaker 1: civil marriages. If you get married in the church then okay,

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Speaker 1: same rules apply. But if you have a civil marriage,

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Speaker 1: it's seven years. You'll you can either re up basically

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Speaker 1: and get another seven years under your belt, or it's

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Speaker 1: just dissolved and you don't have to just walk away. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to fool with divorce court or anything

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Speaker 1: like that. So, you know, it's I don't think that's

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Speaker 1: something that's gonna fly in in our society where we're

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Speaker 1: big on romance and the the till deathtyp part thing.

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Speaker 1: But again, our marriages don't last that long, so don't

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Speaker 1: really last that long. But one thing that we have

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Speaker 1: not touched on is whether or not kids play a

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Speaker 1: role in this seven year itch. Tom Yules character had children,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe that could have been what was

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Speaker 1: driving him so crazy he was feeling like a dowdy

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Speaker 1: old daddy. Well, you know, in that very first day

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Speaker 1: we talked about the four and the seven year slump.

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Speaker 1: That's what the researchers say that second slump, the seven

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Speaker 1: year slump is about. Is that now you've got like

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Speaker 1: two or three kids running around, you don't get to

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Speaker 1: see your spouse. Is often, but again it's a matter

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Speaker 1: of if you know this is going to be an issue,

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Speaker 1: pay attention to it. And statistically people with more kids

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Speaker 1: are less likely to get divorced, but that might just

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Speaker 1: be because you have more invested in this marriage once

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Speaker 1: you have more children involved, So people stay together for

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Speaker 1: the kids. Whereas Helen Fisher would say if they're over

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Speaker 1: the age of five, I mean helef Micher or herself

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Speaker 1: wouldn't say this, but she's saying our evolutionary ancestors would

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Speaker 1: have said, if they're five, they can make themselves a

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Speaker 1: beta Brnjeli sandwich. He'll be fine, fine, resilient. They're not

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Speaker 1: gonna die because they're eaten by a wolf at this age.

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Speaker 1: So when we asked a question of whether the seven

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Speaker 1: year itch is a real thing, I think our answer

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Speaker 1: is yes, absolutely, yes, But it's got like this asterisk

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Speaker 1: at the end of it. And it could also be

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Speaker 1: a three year itch, a four year itch, a ten

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Speaker 1: year itch, an eleven year itch. I think that at

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Speaker 1: any marriage there's going to be some peer where things

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Speaker 1: aren't great. Yeah, and it's the question of whether you

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Speaker 1: stay together or try and work it out, or if

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Speaker 1: you you know, whether you scratch that itch or you

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Speaker 1: ignore it. Ooh, how about that? Was nice? Like that?

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Speaker 1: I like that. I've been working on that one. That's

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Speaker 1: probably good. We got it in one Friends podcast. So

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Speaker 1: let us know your thoughts about the seven year itch.

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Speaker 1: Have you do you have an itch you can't scratch?

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Speaker 1: Let us know it's mom stuff at hellsuffworks dot com.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, I let us read a couple letters.

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Speaker 1: All right, Christin, I've got an email here from Meredith,

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Speaker 1: who writes on our Home Economics podcast, and she says,

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Speaker 1: I had never thought about the origins of this subject

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Speaker 1: and now agree that a condescending perception of the domestic

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Speaker 1: arts is misplaced. I would like to note, however, that

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Speaker 1: not all home at courses have the rigor of those

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Speaker 1: described in the podcast. Perhaps this is the result of

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Speaker 1: the condescension. But learning how to make a friendship bracelet

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Speaker 1: and to find my personal color palette does not a

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Speaker 1: rigorous preparation for anything make. Also, I'm not sure scientific

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Speaker 1: structuring of the home has been a complete good. Yes,

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Speaker 1: teaching women how to maximize their time and how to

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Speaker 1: stave off germs and infections has been wonderful, But the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century scientific boon also created norms and standards in

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Speaker 1: a way of looking at child rearing that led to

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Speaker 1: a lot of emphasis on perfecting one surroundings or parenting style,

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Speaker 1: or following a certain manual and not screwing anything up

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Speaker 1: for fear your child would turn in to the wrong sort. Somehow,

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Speaker 1: the domestic science scene that meant to make life easier

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Speaker 1: for women has added the fairly new notion that mothers

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Speaker 1: and homemakers can mold the perfect minds and create the

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Speaker 1: perfect home. They become obsessed with perfection. As a result,

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Speaker 1: often blame the mother for anything that goes wrong with kids.

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Speaker 1: This idea is the result of many trends, not just

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Speaker 1: in home economics, but scientific approaches to time management, housekeeping,

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Speaker 1: and childbearing have had some unintended repercussions on the American

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Speaker 1: women's psyche. Zarago kind of an interesting point on that. Well.

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Speaker 1: I have an email here from Ariel and she's writing

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Speaker 1: in response to our podcast on nanny's because she used

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Speaker 1: to be a former live in nanny for two years

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Speaker 1: right out of college, and she says women who have

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Speaker 1: nanny's so they can spend their days reading US Weekly, shopping,

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Speaker 1: watching soap operas, and talking on the phone with their

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Speaker 1: friends should most definitely feel guilty. During my two years,

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Speaker 1: I cared for the three kids, cooked, taught the little

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Speaker 1: one his alphabet, potty, trained him read in bedtime stories,

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Speaker 1: and got to experience so many milestones in his life

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Speaker 1: that it almost made me feel guilty. What mother wouldn't

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Speaker 1: want to be watching her child discover the world, especially

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Speaker 1: when she has all the money, time, and resources to

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Speaker 1: do so. She was physically present, but emotionally unavailable to

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Speaker 1: her family. You can pay someone to watch your kids

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Speaker 1: while you're away, make their lunches, help them with their homework. Understandable,

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Speaker 1: but you can't pay someone to be the constant presence

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Speaker 1: in their lives when you can't be there for them.

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Speaker 1: Kids aren't stupid, They're very perceptive. They know what your

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Speaker 1: priorities are, and they do understand that adults have to

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Speaker 1: work and be gone sometimes, but they can also tell

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Speaker 1: if you're more interested in Britney Spears's latest debacle in

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Speaker 1: the A plus they got on their math dest So

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Speaker 1: thank you Ariel for that person perspective again. Our email

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Speaker 1: is mom Stuff at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can also

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Speaker 1: find us on Facebook and Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts.

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Speaker 1: And then also you can check out a blog during

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Speaker 1: the week, It's stuff Mom Never told You, and you

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Speaker 1: can find it on HowStuffWorks dot com. For more on

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Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks dot com.

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Speaker 1: To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast

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Speaker 1: icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The

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Speaker 1: house Stuffworks iPhone app has a ride. Download it today

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Speaker 1: on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented twenty twelve Camra.

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Speaker 1: It's ready, are you