So I hired someone to keep house for me. I put an ad on Craigslist and had 10 or so responses within a day. One woman was particularly persistent; she e-mailed twice, called once, and showed up on time to meet me. She has six children, so I figured she knew the territory.

I explained the job to her: clean, tidy, launder, generally organize our lives. She asked if I would like her to cook, too, to which I responded, “Hell, yes!” Then she said: “I get it; you need a wife.”

I had to literally bite my tongue to keep from lecturing her on the dangers of internalizing the sex-roles handed down by the patriarchy. I’m all radicalized from my blog-reading, now; I was sorely tempted. In the end I decided I’d rather hire her than liberate her.

Later, when I was recounting the story to Husband, I was not self-controlled enough to refrain from remarking that, had I a husband who was willing to pick up a soiled sock or dirty dish every now and again, I wouldn’t need a “wife.” This witty sally did not have the devastating effect I intended. Husband and I were recently visited by a friend who favorably compared Husband to her spouse, who has not changed a diaper or cleaned a room in several years. Now whenever I break out the big guns of spousal dissatisfaction, he says, “But I’m the best husband you know!”

This is true; he is the best. He cooks and he takes care of the kids. But he still doesn’t do housework.

The good thing about Husband is that, although he won’t do housework, he doesn’t necessarily assume that it’s my job to do it, just because I am Woman. He’d be quite happy to leave it all undone for months until we couldn’t stand it anymore and had to move. He’s not sexist, just lazy.

I know someone whose husband not only assumed that the housework was his wife’s responsibility, he was critical of how she did it. He once described to me how he would place a piece of lint somewhere in the house before leaving in the morning, then check to see if his wife had vacuumed there when he returned home at night. If the lint was still there, he would confront her with it.

If my husband ever did anything like that, I wouldn’t just divorce him; I’d take a hit out on him.