You don’t need perfectly pressed pillow cases for a happy marriage

Marriage is an institution, said the late comedian Les Dawson — because if you stay together, that’s where you’ll both end up.

it was Les who used to joke, with a sour grimace, that he always knew when his wife’s mother was coming to visit...the mice would start throwing themselves on the traps.

That gallows humour lurked behind Alone With The In-Laws (BBC2), a psychological experiment based on the traditional folk wisdom that we all turn into our parents eventually.

if you want to know who a bride will become, have a look at her mother.

engaged couple Chris and Stacey from Bristol took that advice to heart as they were sent to live with each other’s families for a week. Both 28, the couple had known each other since their teens but, while Chris was besotted from first sight, his fiancee had never been quite so sure. and she still wasn’t.

‘To settle down with you,’ she warned him earnestly, ‘means letting go of my identity. and i have a really big issue with that.’

Stacey wasn’t just sounding a warning bell, she was letting off klaxons. She was terrified of losing her independence, and we only had to look at her mother to understand why — divorced after 20 years, mum angela now preferred to live on her own.

Chris’s parents, on the other hand, were devoted. Their marriage was faithfully traditional: while dad James went out to work, mum Julie stayed at home — preparing his dinner . . . as well as making sure the bedsheets were freshly ironed each day.

The show wisely refrained from sneering at this couple’s oldfashioned values.

inevitably, Stacey teased her future motherinlaw about her insistence on a crisply pressed pillowcase, but we were left in no doubt about the strength of James and Julie’s affection.

They supported each other, leaning on one another with complete trust.

it was fascinating to see Stacey gradually realise this, because she was understanding for the first time what Chris expected of her — not the laundered bedlinen but the absolute surrender to married life.

Stacey wasn’t even sure that she wanted to take her fiance’s surname. The idea of being dependent on his salary also horrified her.

Much of the enjoyment of this programme lay in psychoanalysing the young couple and reading their thoughts. We were being invited to guess whether their relationship would survive, and it would have been much better if the episode could have ended at the altar, with the pageantry of their wedding.

But i think they’ll be all right. Chris was a stubborn chap. Stacey wasn’t really sure what she wanted. His determination will overcome her uncertainty.

Rich House Poor House (C5) also sent people into each other’s homes to experience their very different worlds. This had nothing to do with their better halves, though — it was just a taste of how the other half lives.

Cleaner and shop assistant angela, who lives in a council house and scrapes by on less than £1,000 a month, took her four teenagers for a week in the £1 million mansion of retired businessman Terry and his family. They ordered takeaways and had spa days. Predictably, they all liked it.

Meanwhile, Terry’s 26yearold daughter Kaylee wasn’t so keen on packet food or counting the pennies. There’s a surprise.

This experiment provided no insights and told us nothing we couldn’t have guessed. it was TV at its shallowest.