But once, to my surprise, when I said this to a friend she reacted with a startled What on earth do you mean?
Oh you know – dinner on the table, slippers by the fire when I get home. Clean shirt hanging in the wardrobe
You’re not talking about a wife – you need a mother, she shot back.
Three things this past week brought that exchange back to mind.
The first was a clash between Michael Morpugo & Sara Maitland on Radio 4’s A Good Read. The book was the memoir of her life with poet Edward Thomas by his widow, Helen, & the disagreement was over the respect to be accorded to woman’s role as devoted long-suffering wife to a man of genius.
The second was an admiring description, in his obituary, of the wife of a respected academic:
Her devotion, & her gifts for taking charge of practicalities, made it possible for him to dedicate his life to philosophy.Some women are lucky enough to have a mother living close enough to provide affordable & often unstinting support & help, especially with childcare. Yvette Cooper was quoted (again) as saying that she couldn’t manage her busy political life without the help of her mother, & Cherie Blair too relied heavily on hers. And Samantha Cameron, although she has cut back on her work commitments, relies on a network of sisters, mother & old school friends, as well as the Nepalese nanny, to help her cope with the practicalities of looking after children, organising the Downing Street flat & all her other duties as wife of the prime minister.
These days of course a man is expected to help out with housework & childcare, but it is less likely that he will be expected to do much in the way of personal care for his wife – washing & ironing her clothes for example, or even making the bed.
But nor does remaining resolutely single & childfree solve the problem - unless you are rich enough to pay for all that domestic help.
