I feel like you can track this some in early TV shows. Way back when, you had shows like I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver, featuring loving, largely functional families. Once this became an expected trope, shows like The Honeymooners and The Flintstones subverted that expectation, but became such a hit that they became the formula to emulate - so it became common to joke about marital strife.
Sometimes you’d get a show like The Addams Family, that would again subvert this new expectation; but they didn’t start becoming the norm until much more recently.
You’re probably not in the boomer generation:
They have this ‘I hate my wife’ trope in their humor for some reason.
Don’t mind us X-gen over in the corner. Sometimes it’s better to not be part of the disaster anyway.
Gen X is just slightly less ancient boomers with occasional tattoos tbh
Some of us actually give a shit about other people, just not enough of a shit to do anything about it, but we care…
Shush
I feel like you can track this some in early TV shows. Way back when, you had shows like I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver, featuring loving, largely functional families. Once this became an expected trope, shows like The Honeymooners and The Flintstones subverted that expectation, but became such a hit that they became the formula to emulate - so it became common to joke about marital strife.
Sometimes you’d get a show like The Addams Family, that would again subvert this new expectation; but they didn’t start becoming the norm until much more recently.
Or, slightly earlier, the characterization of Socrates relationship with his wife.