If you want to know how your girl will treat you after marriage, just listen to her talking to her little brother.

Levenson’s line is a comic, slightly barbed piece of courtship advice: everyday behavior in low-stakes family settings can reveal more about a person’s habitual temperament than their polished “dating” persona. By pointing to how a young woman speaks to a younger brother—someone she may feel superior to, impatient with, or responsible for—the quip suggests that patterns of condescension, kindness, teasing, or respect will likely carry into marriage once novelty and performance fade. The humor depends on a gendered assumption (wife-to-husband dynamics) typical of mid‑20th‑century American stand-up and newspaper humor, but its broader point is about character showing itself in unguarded interactions.