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What Women Really Want
By Mark Schwed
My wife digs me.
Really. She does.
Here's why: I work hard at the office, and she stays home with the kids. (She's the perfect mom. I tell her all of the time.)
There's more: When I get home to our McMansion on the McOcean, I whip up dinner, wash the dishes, help the kids with their homework, then lavish her with me.
I light candles. Rub her feet. Spread rose petals on the bed (which I will clean up later). I tell her she's fantastic. And I really, really listen.
In short, I am the ideal husband.
And I am a complete fantasy.
Unfortunately for men, though, this is the kind of guy who seems to make women weak in the knees, according to a slew of research recently published about what women need and want to make them happy.
The Latest Findings
Show her the money: Forget all that stuff you've heard over the last 40 years about women finding their own way in life and entering the work force as a recipe for marital bliss: 52 percent of wives who don't work outside the home report they were very happy with their marriages, compared with 41 percent of wives in the work force, according to results of a study published in a recent issue of the journal Social Forces.
Even self-described feminists report being happier with husbands who are the sole breadwinner. As for those women who do work, more were happier when their husbands brought in the lion's share of the income, regardless of the size of the paycheck.
These are the conclusions of University of Virginia researchers Bradford Wilcox and Steven Nock, who analyzed a survey of 5,000 couples to come up with the rather startling conclusions that fly in the face of conventional wisdom about modern women.
He cooks, he cleans, he scores!
Woman at home. Man at work. Happy marriage. If only things were so simple. Other studies show that it's not nearly enough for a man to bring home the bacon. He must also shop for it, cook it, and clean up afterward. Or -- and this is key -- make the woman think he does.
Since man speared his first mastodon and ordered his cave woman to fire it up on the barbecue, men and women have haggled over the division of labor. The griping about slacker husbands became more shrill as more women entered the workplace and were forced to swim with corporate sharks by day and scrub the toilet at night.
A study by sociology professors Yun-Suk Lee of the University of Seoul, South Korea, and Linda Waite of the University of Chicago, published in the scholarly Journal of Marriage and Families, found that women do 61 percent of the housework (although they believe they do much more) and men do 39 percent (although women believe men do much less).
But does it matter? According to the University of Virginia researchers, even for working wives, the key to a happy marriage isn't splitting chores and child-rearing down the middle. Rather, it is an affectionate and appreciative husband who talks to his wife, is understanding, supportive, romantic and sensitive.
The happiest wives in the study were the ones who believed that housework was divided fairly -- even if it really wasn't. The research seems to suggest that a man who lets his wife know how much he appreciates her -- I can't quit you, honey! -- will be buying himself more time kicking back in that reclining chair or on the links.
It's far more important than who does the dishes and folds the laundry, Wilcox says. He and Nock call it "emotion work."
