Marriage a constant battle

The Free Press

June 05, 2009 09:30 pm

— Here’s a multiple-choice question: Which of the following is the longest-running battle in American history?
A) The battle at the Alamo
B) The Battle of Bunker Hill
C) Texas high school player Eddie Battle, whose 99-yard touchdown run last year made him a long-running battle in anyone’s book.
D) The marital battle over household chores.
Correct answer: D.
According to historians, this battle has raged since the Stone Age, when cohabitants of cliff dwellings hassled over whose turn it was to take the mastodon bones to the curb.
The onset of two-career households further defined the battle lines.
Where I live, household-chore dialogues have always been reduced to questions answered with questions:
“Don’t you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
And:
“Where did all this crud come from?”
“What crud?”
And:
“Did you give the kids their baths?”
“What kids?”
Endless, useless polls abound on the subject of household chores, as if statistics will somehow shame men into sprinting for the Spray ’n Wash.
One poll I came across sought to determine the depth of couples’ feelings by asking some strange questions.
Women were asked this: Would you prefer to watch a man wash dishes or dance naked?
A mere 24 percent said they’d prefer the latter. The majority of respondents said they’d prefer to watch a guy elbow-deep in soapsuds.
If men were asked the same question, 98 percent would say they’d prefer to eyeball some nude dancing. And the other 2 percent would say dancing wasn’t necessary, as long as the woman was naked.
The poll also asked questions of men, such as: Have you ever botched chores to get out of doing them again?
Fourteen percent admitted they had screwed something up on purpose.
That’s not a high figure. But if you stop to consider that the other 86 percent have probably screwed something up without even trying, you have yet another entry point for marital strife over chores.
An endless battle in an endless war.

Brian Ojanpa is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6316 or e-mail bojanpa@mankatofreepress.com .

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