The Probulator

A few posts ago I wrote about polygamy and the TV “Big Love”.  It brought up memories of a rather remarkable man named William Marston (1893-1947).  Doctor Marston was a psychology professor, an inventor and a writer.  It is the last two occupations that would have a lasting effect on society.

Doctor Marston’s most famous invention was a systolic blood pressure test.  It wasn’t used for health purposes but was developed into an early form of a lie detector test.  Doctor Marston’s other invention, under the pen name Charles Moulton, was an iconic media character known as Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman herself was a remarkable invention.  In the middle of a World War, during a very conservative period of America absent many of the civil liberties we currently take for granted, comes a self-confident, supremely strong, scantily clad woman, resident of an island inhabited only by women.  Marston made sure to point out these differences from the “modern” woman of the time who was still expected to clean the house, cook dinner and raise the children.   When Wonder Woman first arrives in America and decides to stay awhile, she looks in a shop window and despairs that the clothes have “so much material” while some locals have an astonished reaction to her outfit which is basically a one piece bathing suit and hooker boots.  In a subsequent story where her eternally suffering boyfriend, Steve Trevor, gains greater strength then her in his attempt to make her go truly ga-ga over him, she thinks: Isn’t it more fun to make the man obey.

So what does that make her creator, who wrote for the strip until about two weeks before he died?  One of the first modern feminists.   Doctor Marston believed the female to be superior to the male and that when women finally took over, things like war, greed, poverty, etc… would vanish from the face of the earth.  Doctor Marston’s ideas weren’t the only thing that were unusual.  His personal life was as well.  While in college, Marston met Elizabeth Halloway and eventually the two were married.  Later, while teaching, a student of his, Olive Byrne moved in with the pair.  The relationship was more than friendship.  Marston had children by both women.  The unusual polyamorous arrangement was never a secret, the women were friends to the point that the ladies named their children after each other and Mr. and Mrs. formally adopted Ms. Byrne’s children.  Olive’s son pointed out that: “It was an arrangement where they lived together fairly harmoniously.”

Now to the point of this whole thing.  When people think of polygamy, they conjure images of arranged marriages and assigned child brides.  While, they never called it a marriage, it is an example of a successful polyamorous relationship.  This relationship developed naturally.  In fact, after Marston’s death from lung cancer in 1947, Elizabeth and Olive continued to live together until Olive’s death in the 1980’s.  Elizabeth died fairly recently in 1999 at the age of 100.  It seems fitting considering both women were inspirations for Wonder Woman.  Elizabeth provided the spunky personality while Olive, with her dark hair, blue eyes and large silver bracelets provided the physical model.  Basically, it shows that this type of a relationship can work and perhaps work better than the “traditional family structure”.

There are two unfortunate things here.  First is the early death of Doctor Marston.  In just a few years after his death, Frederic Wertham released his work Seduction of the Innocent accusing comics of causing all sorts of social ills such as juvenile delinquency and homosexuality.  Things went so far as Congressional hearings.  I believe Marston’s defense of comic books in general, an art form he loved, and his own creation specifically would have been fascinating.  Second, there is no decent biography of Doctor Marston available.

Portions of this entry are derived from Les Daniels’ “Wonder Woman, The Complete History” (Chronicle Books, 2000) and Nick Gillespie’s  “William Marston’s Secret Identity” (Reason Magazine, May 2001)

Tags: Authors, Comic Books, Entertainment, Polygamy //