Parity begins at home

No doubt about it, the past few weeks have pulled wives down a peg or two. First, we read about those unfortunate Austrian males whose wives had no idea how to run a marriage. One refused to use her husband's preferred brand of washing-up liquid. The other took on a part-time job which meant the husband's dinner wasn't ready at the same time every day. Well, what's a chap to do? They headed for the divorce courts, of course - with the men getting the full backing of the law. Then there was the South African wife who had a fling with the philandering Earl Spencer, thereby depriving her husband of her "services" among other things. The husband sued the Earl and settled for a miserable £22,000. That showed her.

Then again, there was the tale of the American wife, Lorna Wendt, who provided every service imaginable for her husband - from being a darling partner, supporting him through college to being the perfect corporate wife who never allowed anything to deflect him from his work. But Gary Wendt, wealthy chairman of General Electric, still divorced her. His grounds? Her refusal to play golf, which he cited as a reason for his "loneliness" in the marriage.

Then up popped the story of the pitiable Israeli male who sued for divorce because - he complained to a religious court - his wife stayed out till all hours of the morning. "But he is sleeping with other women," protested the wife. Well, yes, that too was "insufferable", conceded the rabbis - before coming over all paternal and decreeing that wives must be home by midnight. And that, believe it or not, is now effectively the law in Israel, because even non-religious Jews seeking a legal separation must apply to their local rabbinical court. At this point, a few of us wives were beginning come over all insecure and ask ourselves pathetic questions such as what are wives for and whether - like the tragic women victims of the Taliban - we'd be forced into burqas and nonsqueaky shoes when the Irish version of rabbinical courts got going. Then a massive dose of re-assurance appeared in the form of a letter to The Irish Times. The Dail and Seanad, the gentleman writer asserted, "are comprised entirely of well-heeled, articulate, feminist supremacists and spineless eunuchs". Better still, The Irish Times is a "male-dominated institution which collaborates with the feminist supremacists . . ."

So we took a new and searching look at Brian Cowan-as-spineless-eunuch and thought . . . nah, wrong profile. Then, while a gang of us feminist supremacists was sprawled across the newsdesk, blowing smoke-rings in the face of our cowering, pussy-whipped editor, one supremacist gasped: "Oh jeez, is that the time . . ."

And away we galloped in our long, white robes and pointy hats to collect the kids from schools in three different counties, grab the clothes off the line before it rained, buy lemons for the pancakes, pick a decent present for the 11-year-old's birthday-friend, appease the adolescent's angst over that poisonous little madam who calls herself a friend, supervise the homework, endure - indeed, encourage - the terrible caterwauling issuing from recorder practice, sort the socks into pairs, do a Mr Sheen on the furniture and a Mr Muscle on the toilets before knocking up a succulent dinner for Mr Right. Aah . . . the sheer outrageous satisfaction of being a feminist supremacist. Only in the dead of night, while crawling back to bed after the younger's third, staggeringly imaginative nightmare does the brassnecked irony of labelling domestic cleaning stuff as "Mr" finally crash in. Since when in recorded history did a Mr have anything to do with cleaning the toilet? Just for a moment this week, even amid the welter of wife-bashing stories, the world was a shinier place. At first reading, it looked as though Austrian men (remember the two we came in with?) were about to get their comeuppance. For one delirious moment, it seemed a man who refused to do the ironing could expect a visit from the household police. Or could be forced to do the washing up and other "services" - by law. Alas, no. The sober truth is that Austrians are only now getting round to overturning old marriage and divorce laws dating from Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938. Under the flag of Nazi family values, a man could divorce his wife if she failed to keep the house tidy or didn't give him his meals on time. (All in all, she had little choice; Hitler further demonstrated his family values and solved Germany's high unemployment at a stroke by barring women from the workplace). The new laws follow a £2 million advertising campaign two years ago which attempted to persuade Austrian men that "Halb Halb" ("Half Half" i.e. sharing chores 50/50) was a good idea. According to Sonja Kato, press secretary to the Ministry of Women's Affairs, the campaign became "excitable" - "with, you know, men saying `We will never do it'." So "excitable", in fact, that former women's minister, Helga Konrad, had to resign. Still, the new laws are finally in place. Best to give it another millennium or two, though, before trying to persuade a judge that a lazy husband is grounds for divorce.

Hilarious, isn't it, this notion of trying to drag all those Austrian Andy Capps into the real world? But what about the Irish ones? Well, our constitution (framed around the same time as the Austrian annexation) makes specific mention of the role of women in the home and as mothers. Nowhere in it is the word "father" to be found nor is the role of men in the domestic sphere specifically addressed. That's bad news for the men who believe husbands and fathers to be a greatly abused species on the legal front; good news though for those who interpret it to mean that toilet-cleaning is woman's work.

While there has been some shift in attitudes, according to sociologist, Dr Harry Ferguson, research so far confirms that men have largely failed to share home responsibilities. And it's not because they lack the opportunity. In a paper written by himself and Hugh Arthurs, they note that even in countries such as Sweden and Denmark where paternity leave is available, only half the men who are entitled to it actually take it.

A recent survey by the magazine Top Sante suggested that only 10 per cent of men helped out equally in households. In another survey by Relate, the British counselling service for couples, housework emerged as a major cause of strife. Two thirds of women said their menfolk don't pitch in as much as they should. "Either the problem is that women feel what they do is not appreciated as `work' or that men just don't see what needs doing," a Relate counsellor said.

According to the Henley Centre for Forecasting, a full-time working father has 46 hours of free time a week; a full-time working wife has just 13.5. (Check out your nearest golf course, pub or football ground for visual evidence). Women do five times as much childcare, four times as much housework, three times as much everyday cooking and twice as much grocery shopping. Even unemployed men spend no more time on household chores than those at work. The upshot for women is terminal exhaustion and confusion. In Ireland, which has the largest proportion of "stay-at-home" women in the EU, a Eurostat survey shows that women are twice as likely to be happy if they work outside the home. Yet, a new and unsurprising Daily Mail survey in Britain shows that almost 80 per cent of women want to quit their jobs because of the combined pressures of home and work.

The ridiculous aspect to all this is that the solution is already out there and - as we feminist supremacists are wont to say - is stunningly obvious to anyone with more than a single brain cell. Try it today at the 19th hole. It's easy. As you men raise your G&Ts with ice and slice, instead of "Cheers", say "Halb Halb". Then go home and clean the toilet.