my theory is that in the first season, homer was explicitly written to be abusive, a bad father and a bad husband. the part of the punchline of the first of many save-the-marriage episodes is that homer is incapable of changing, but marge is prevented from finding anything better by her own self-doubt and societal pressure. by the third season, they had realized that audiences would connect with homer no matter what, so they might as well make him a loveable oaf. it's why fan complaints about "jerkass homer" in the post-golden era never really made sense to me. like, he used to strangle his son! it's not subtext, it's just text!