(Strip Number 722, Original Publication Date, 8 October 1984)
Panel 1: We find Elly doing her fifties sitcom evening beauty routine reminding John that Georgia's a wonderful girl and that she and Phil have been an item for a long while.
Panel 2: She can clearly see that they're perfect for one another.
Panel 3: Elly tells John that given all this, there's something that she can't figure out.
Panel 4: As she stands there in her Flannel Nightie of Not-Tonight-I-Have-A-Headache and her hair in the Curlers Of Being Sensibly Married and her face slathered in the Goo Of A Thousand Futile Attempts To Recapture Her Lost Youth watching her horrible children squabble over the very silly nothing of which one of them their parents like better, she asks John why Phil doesn't want to get married.
Summary: The main answer is that he's afraid that his life will become as banal and filled with petty vindictiveness as hers is. The second answer is that he's afraid that if he has children, Georgia will be as inept a mother as Elly. We're going to see five examples of that ineptitude when Mike and Lizzie trade insults and all Elly can do is wring her hands and whine about the end result of her and John's witlessly pitting them against one another. (Of course, left unanswered is the question "Why would Georgia marry the imbecile we see in the strip?")