I thought I’d never write this. It’s just too politically incorrect. But when I saw it written by a woman, I can’t let it pass. Minette Marin says that “Rule number one for a wife is to forget about equal rights and entitlements.” She claims that it’s not possible for a couple to have a good relationship while maintaining two careers and caring for children, and that it’s the wife who has to give.

One hard fact a would-be wife has to face — and I was absolutely horrified to realise this myself — is that it’s not possible for a married couple to have two demanding jobs and children and a good relationship. Something has to give. If the relationship has to be neglected, then the marriage will fail, which will be very bad for the children. If the children are neglected, then the marriage is worthless anyway.

So something must give on the work front and this is probably, for many women, the price of being a good wife and having a good marriage. Unless a couple are extremely well paid, and have plenty of domestic help, her brilliant career will have to be less brilliant for a while; she will have to spend some time in the Mummy lane.

It could, of course, be the other way round. But another harsh truth is that alpha males won’t stay at home in the Daddy lane and nor will plenty of other males of all descriptions; they refuse to be ersatz housewives. They would rather not get married, and as the figures show, increasingly they aren’t, and increasingly, if they are, they move out. So rule number one for a wife is to forget about equal rights and entitlements. Think instead about motivation.

Source: The good wife is an old fashioned realist
Related: Stay-at-home-Dads Tripled in Ten Years