by A. J. Jacobs
In the Middle Ages, rural villages had a charming ritual called charivaris for those who didn’t discipline their wives: “A henpecked man might be strapped to a cart or ridden around backward on a mule, to be booed and ridiculed for his inversion of the accepted marital hierarchy.”
Coontz makes clear what I already suspected: For most of history, marriage was wildly undemocratic. Husband and wife were like czar and peasant, chairman of the board and receptionist.
In fact, wifely obedience was pretty much synonymous with marriage. Confucius defined a wife as “one who submits to another.” Coontz writes that ancient Romans opposed gay marriage not because of homosexuality, which they had no problem with, but because “no real man would ever agree to play the subordinate role demanded of a Roman wife.”
Throughout most of history, I’d be seen as a traitor to my gender. I should instead learn some marital tips from, say, Scottish poet Robert Burns. In his 1788 poem “The Henpecked Husband,” he writes:
Curs’d be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
The crouching vassal to a tyrant wife!
Who has no will but by her high permission,
Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
Who must to he, his dear friend’s secrets tell,
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I’d break her spirit or I’d break her heart;
I’d charm her with the magic of a switch,
I’d kiss her maids, and kick the perverse bitch.
Lovely, right?
I call Coontz to see if she knows of any cultures—past or present—in which women reigned supreme. The short answer: no. There’s never been a true matriarchal society, not counting the legendary single-nippled Amazons. There have been matrilineal societies—in southern India, among Native Americans in New Jersey—where descent is traced through the woman. Coontz is partial to such societies, but they are very rare. “Matrilineal societies tend to be more peaceful and inclusive,” she says.
I tell Julie about my research and read her the Robert Burns poem.
“See? You’re very lucky you weren’t Robert Burns’s wife.”
“Yes. Very lucky. But you’re not allowed to do that this month.”
“What?”
“Compare yourself to other husbands.”
It’s true. I’m a shameless comparer. It’s a reflex born of insecurity. Any time I hear about a husband behaving badly, I can hardly wait to tell Julie. See? You’re lucky I don’t have affairs with my coworkers. See? You’re lucky I don’t work till eleven every night. See? You’re lucky I don’t lock our kids in the basement and create a second secret family like that Austrian guy.
Julie put such comparisons on her thou-shalt-not list, though she sometimes breaks the rule herself. Last week, she sent me an e-mail that said “YOU are lucky” followed by the Fox News headline WOMAN SHOOTS BOYFRIEND FOR NOT LETTING HER SLEEP. Julie, you might have guessed, loves her sleep.
IT IS BETTER TO GIVE
One of Julie’s guidelines for Project Ideal Husband is, naturally, for me to buy her flowers. I object that we’re in the middle of a fierce recession (I know—not very obedient of me). Flowers in New York are so astonishingly expensive, I can only surmise that they are kept hydrated with water drawn from the fjords of Norway by specially trained geologists.
“It doesn’t have to be flowers,” Julie says. “Gifts of any kind will do.”
When we started dating, I was a decent gift giver. I gave Julie books and soaps and cinnamon-scented candles. Then the presents slowly trailed off. Maybe my gift-giving deficiency is genetic. My dad is still living down the gift he gave my mom for their first Valentine’s together: nothing.
The reasoning: If he got my mom something fancy, and then one year down the road, he forgot to get her anything, she’d think he loved her less. He didn’t want her to think that. So the best way to prevent that situation was not to get her anything at all.
Which is actually quite rational, in its own way.
Going against family tradition, I’ve started to bring Julie a gift a day. Mostly, no-foam lattes. But also DVDs and soaps and books.
I’m starting to plan these gifts days in advance. I look forward to seeing Julie’s smile when I set them on her desk. I haven’t gotten any jumping for joy again, but she did rub her hands with glee when I gave her the autobiography of Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady before descending into cocaine addiction (Julie’s a fan of the Bradys and addiction memoirs).
The Bible’s “it’s better to give than receive” was not the raving of a lunatic. It goes back to a recurring theme I’ve found in almost all my experiments: behavior shapes your thoughts.
My brain sees me giving a gift to Julie.
My brain concludes I must really love her.
I love her all the more. Which means I’m happier in my relationship, if a bit poorer.
MR. MOM, THE SEQUEL
I rented Mr. Mom the other day, the early 1980s movie. It’s the one with Michael Keaton getting fired and having to stay at home with the kids (best line from Keaton: “I’m a regular Phil Donahue!”). Every joke has the exact same premise: man attempts to use household appliance, household appliance goes berserk and sends off sparks. The domicile is a foreign and scary land to the 1983 male.
But things must be better in our enlightened twenty-first century, right? Actually, no. According to a recent New York Times Magazine cover story, women on average still do twice as much housework as men, about 31 hours to 14 hours. And here’s the strange part: that ratio holds mostly true even if both spouses have full-time jobs. Even worse for women is the child-care ratio. Moms do an average of five times as much with the kids as dads. (Working moms do a measly 3.7 times as much.) This is the same ratio as ninety years ago.
It wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, housecleaning was seen as macho. Or at least it wasn’t unmanly. Back in the Middle Ages, when the husband and wife both worked at home making candles and barrels and whatnot, “domesticity was a virtue shared by males and females, a shorthand term for thrift, hard work and order,” writes Coontz. Then in the Industrial Revolution, men went to work outside the home, and “domesticity tumbled out of the constellation of masculine virtues.” Women’s work became devalued, “seen as an act of love, rather than a contribution to survival.”
If we’re looking at it with cold Spock-like rationality, then, as the Times says, “gender should not determine the division of labor” in the home.
I’d always figured I was a regular Phil Donahue. I did my fair share of housework—or at least more than the average guy. But just to make sure, I asked Julie to list all the household chores she does.
“I clean up the kids’ rooms. I set up playdates for our kids. I take them to doctor’s appointments. I pay the bills. I get the baby gifts for my friends. . .”
If this were a movie, it would show clock hands spinning around, maybe calendar days flipping by. What I’m saying is, it’s a long freakin’ list.
“I fill the liquid soap dispensers. I wash our placemats. I get new toner for the printer.”
Julie paused. “This exercise may cause a lot of trouble for you.”
I was thinking the same thing. She does chores I didn’t even know existed.
“I’ll do everything in the house for the month,” I said.
“I can’t let you do that,” she says. Our apartment would look like Grey Gardens within two weeks.
The Times Magazine talked about something called Equal Parenting, also known as Peer Marriage or Symmetrical Marriage. It’s a movement started by a feminist writer named Alix Kates Shulman in 1969, who drew up a famous twenty-two-point Marriage Agreement that split the duties (“Nighttime: Husband does Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Wife does Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. . .. wife strips beds, husband remakes them.”). Shulman and her husband later got divorced.
But our marriage can
handle it, right? Just give me a bunch of tasks and I’ll check them off.
The next morning, Julie says, “Okay, call the pediatrician and schedule Zane’s—you know what? I’ll just do it. It’s faster.”
This is the problem. Julie’s just more competent at a lot of these tasks. Or all of them. She’s the single most organized person in the world, a woman who not only subscribes to Real Simple magazine, but also fills the pages with color-coded tabs and labels and then archives them, next to her old TV Guides.
Maybe that’s why women do more housework. They’re better at it. They were born with the tidiness gene. I call Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who specializes in genetic gender differences hoping she’ll confirm my hunch. No luck. She tells me I can’t blame my laziness on my Y chromosome.
Okay, then. If Michael Keaton can tame a vacuum cleaner, then I can master this domestic stuff, too. I’ve decided the key is to be aggressive, “proactive” as they used to say in business meetings. I have to be an alpha househusband.
My friend Albert e-mails. He works on a cable TV drama starring Timothy Hutton, and his first episode is airing in two weeks.
I type an e-mail to Julie: “Should we record it?”
Before I press SEND, I pause.
The “we” in that sentence? It’s actually “Julie.” The true meaning of my e-mail: “Julie, would you record it?”
I delete the e-mail. I schlep into the living room and program the TiVo myself.
Yeah, I know. I’m a hero. But there are dozens, hundreds of little chores calling out to be done. I’m overwhelmed. I spend two hours writing and the rest of the day reattaching knobs to cabinets and putting stray CDs in containers. To paraphrase the title of a bestselling book about modern-day women, I don’t know how the hell does Julie do it.
THE PERILS OF NICENESS
I’m suffering from a disease. At least if you believe Seattle-based therapist Robert Glover. He thinks millions of American men are afflicted with something called Nice Guy Syndrome. And he’s here to cure us.
He talks to me from his parked car in Bellevue, Washington. The obvious question: What’s wrong with being a nice guy? Well, his definition of a nice guy is being a yes-man to your wife. “First, it’s inherently dishonest,” he says. “Your wife doesn’t really know what you think, feel, or want.”
Second, Nice Guys might seem nice, but eventually the resentment builds up. “They give and give and give and eventually they’ll explode and all the stuff will come out. I call it the Victim Puke.”
Third, women don’t really like it. As the saying goes, if you behave like a doormat, you’ll get treated like a doormat.
A former evangelical preacher, Glover left the church following his divorce. His life shattered, he reinvented himself: he ingested the writings of Robert Bly and others, started workshops for men, and penned a book called No More Mr. Nice Guy.
According to Glover, Nice Guy Syndrome is reaching epidemic proportions. “Every generation of young men is becoming less masculine, and more passive and pleasing. Hell, I just think we have more estrogen in our drinking water.”
So what’s the alternative?
Be a man. “The metaphor is being the lead on the dance floor. Being clear and firm, making her look good and feel good. I grew up in the sixties and seventies, so when I say this, I still expect pink lightning to hit me, but women are security-seeking creatures. They want to trust. And if you mess with a woman’s sense of trust, she’ll never get wet.”
If I continue to be the Nicest Guy in the World, he warns, I’ll disappear as a human.
“I’ve seen this happen. Men forget what they like. I put a legal pad in front of them and say, ‘What do you like to do,’ and they literally just stare at this legal pad. They’ve forgotten to ask themselves, ‘What would make you happy.’”
But Dr. Glover actually thinks my strategy is good. I’ll overdose on Niceness. It’s like when you’re on a diet and you force six pieces of cheesecake down your maw until you’re fully nauseated and won’t crave cheesecake for a long, long time. I’ll leave behind my cocoon of wussiness and emerge a man.
Oh, and Julie will get sick of me, too. “If you leave it all up to the woman, they get tired of that. They feel burdened. If a man leads, has a plan, and says, firmly, but with love, ‘Let’s go out and have pizza,’ she can say, ‘I don’t want pizza. How about Mexican?’ It gets the conversational ball rolling.…Women don’t like people who kiss their ass.”
After I hang up, I go into our bedroom and tell Julie that Dr. Glover says she’ll get bored of being in total charge.
“Does he know me?”
SATISFYING THE WIFE’S APPETITES
In the 1780s, protofeminist Judith Sargent Murray made the radical suggestion: that men should help prepare meals, since men do at least half of the eating.
I know. The gall!
I’ve decided to implement Murray’s crazy notion. I’m making Julie some chicken piccata—chicken with lemon juice, olive oil, and white wine. Julie comes into the kitchen when she hears the baffling sound of me pounding the chicken breasts with a rolling pin.
She looks surprised. Then skeptical.
“Is this going to be more work for me?” she asks.
“That’s what you say to me when I’m making you dinner?”
“You’re right,” she says. “Thank you for making me dinner.”
Since our twins were born, Julie rarely cooks aside from microwaved hot dogs and mac ’n’ cheese. We adults in the family rely mostly on her color-coded binder of order-in menus.
My dinner does not result in any Mr. Mom wackiness. The rice pilaf doesn’t explode all over the kitchen walls. The chicken breasts don’t send us to the hospital with botulism.
I light the candles, pour the wine, serve the chicken.
“No napkin over your arm?” asks Julie.
“Sorry.”
Aside from the napkin oversight, I’d go so far as to say it’s a little romantic.
“If you cook for me every night, we could have sex every night,” Julie says.
“I don’t want to have sex every night.”
“I thought all men did.”
“All men who are seventeen.”
Which brings up a question. How often should the ideal husband have sex with his wife? The average married couple has sex just about twice a week, according to several recent surveys (a statistic probably skewed by the randy just-married twenty-two-year-olds).
Is that what the woman wants? Or is it some compromise? It’s not clear.
I know from my biblical year that Jews consider it a husband’s obligation to satisfy his wife. The Talmud has startlingly specific instructions on frequency. Namely:
A man of independent wealth is “obligated” to have sex with his wife every day
A donkey driver once a week
A camel driver once a month
A sailor once every six months
A scholar once a week, on the Sabbath
It’s not clear whether the sages consulted women when drawing up this list.
I may not be an official scholar, but the once-a-week schedule sounds good. Especially for an unofficial scholar with three very loud children.
“How often is ideal for you?” I ask.
“Once a week sounds good, too.” She pauses. “Please don’t put that in the book.”
“You’ll read it and see how it looks on the page.”
Incidentally, I recently read that Madonna had a “marriage contract” that ordered Guy Ritchie to devote time to the couple’s “sexual expressiveness.” He was also given words to say during an argument, including “I understand that my actions have upset you; please work with me to resolve this.” Madonna allegedly taped the contract to the fridge, and if Guy broke the rules, she’d chide him, “Contract, contract!”
Like Madonna and Alix Kates Shulman, I’m not opposed to writing down some mutual guidelines for a partnership. But maybe including “sexual expressiveness�
�� in there isn’t the path to marital bliss.
EVERYBODY LOVES JULIE
We’re late for a dinner date with her friends. I’m scouring the closet for my wool hat.
“Step it up,” says Julie.
“Great idea!” I say, all chipper.
“We’re late.”
“Thanks for the motivation!”
That’s my new strategy—exaggerated enthusiasm.
“I actually don’t like this new ‘great!’ and ‘super!’ thing.”
“Great! I’ll have to work on that.”
Calvin Trillin, in his wonderful tribute to his late wife, Alice, said that every writer portrays his or her family somewhere on the spectrum between sitcom and Lifetime movie. Julie’s and mine is firmly in the sitcom genre. She’s the sensible one, the straight man to my wacky schemes. She makes the realistic decisions, and I do what she says.
Our real marriage is like the one portrayed in my books, and yet it isn’t. I overrepresent the conflict, for one thing. It’s not that the conflict doesn’t exist. The fights happen. But I don’t write about the hours of peaceful, contented coexistence.
But here’s the weird thing—I think the reality is starting to catch up with the writing. We’re starting to act more and more like our characters from my books. We do the bantering with more frequency. She rolls her eyes more often at my antics.
I think this happens in every relationship, not just writers’. Each partner gets a label—the messy one, the neurotic one, the forgetful one—and then they start to live up to that label. That’s what I’ve noticed in my experiments: almost everything in life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Probably even believing in self-fulfilling prophecies is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
