Source | Yue Yue(ID:yuedu58)
Many people who love each other are separated in marriage, often not because of principle issues such as infidelity, affairs, domestic violence, etc., but because of chickens and dogs in one place...
Perhaps a pair of dirty socks thrown on the sofa is the last straw that crushes the marriage.
Who does your housework?
Have you ever been bothered with housework?
According to 2007 survey data, 62% of people believe that the sharing of household chores between husband and wife is an important factor in the harmony of marriage, second only to mutual trust and harmony in sexual life.
It can be seen that the small matter of housework is crucial to marital happiness.
On Zhihu, I saw a man asking netizens for help: how to communicate with his wife and let her do housework.
The detailed description of the man goes something like this:
I am busy at work, and my wife is much more relaxed, but she rarely does housework and rarely does laundry when she comes home.
My wife rarely cooks, and after cooking, she also lets me wash the dishes, and I don't want to wash them. My wife proposed to hire an hourly worker, which I didn't like, and these were all my wife's responsibilities.
How do I communicate with my wife so that she understands her obligations, so that she can be more diligent and make the family life more fulfilling?
To sum up simply, this man's central idea is two points:
First, doing housework is the wife's duty.
Second, if the wife does all the housework well, the family life will be more harmonious.
Image source: "Love Wife Miyamoto"
This man's idea is by no means an exception, and most men in life have subconsciously tacitly acquiesced to the fact that doing housework is the responsibility of their wives.
Many women also accept this unspoken rule and pay diligently for the family.
The "Report on the Living Conditions of Women in China (2017)" released by the Social Sciences Literature Press shows that:
Chinese women spend 2.6 hours a day on housework; wives are the main contributors to housework with an overwhelming share of 65 percent.
Image source: Xinhua Net
There are also data showing that women spend 22% of their time doing 67% of the housework, while men spend 18% of their time doing 33% of the housework.
Other surveys also show that Chinese women spend the most time doing housework in the world, while men rank fourth from the bottom.
In contrast, the gap between men and women in housework is obvious.
Image source: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
In life, we can often see:
Doing laundry, cooking, washing dishes, cleaning the room, mopping the floor, taking care of the children, caring for the elderly, etc., are all duties of the wife.
If there is one thing that is not done or is not done well, the wife is lazy, unkind, and not responsible.
Some men can be at ease to be a "hand-throwing treasurer": the children are not taken by me, and the housework is not done by me.
Make chalk of one and cheese of the other? double standard?
But why?
One might argue that men earn money to support their families and free up their energy to work, so they don't have time to take care of housework.
In other words, if men work fewer hours and earn less, they will spend more time and do more housework for the family like women?
Is this really the case?
Not really.
A scholar once did a study on the division of labor in the housework, and the results were surprising: some men will be less willing to take on housework when they make less money than their wives.
That is to say, some men may be more reluctant to share more of the housework when they are not the breadwinner of the family.
Image source: "My Husband Is Incompetent at Work"
Some people also say that men are very faceless in doing housework, indicating that their status in the family is low.
On the contrary, nowadays, the more successful men are, the more they take care of their families.
The famous director Ang Lee is an example.
Before Ang Lee became famous, his wife worked outside the home, he studied movie dreams at home, in addition, he took care of all the housework, and every day with the children, he waited for his wife to come home for dinner with great anticipation.
After Ang Lee won the award, someone met him to accompany his wife to buy vegetables, and enviously said to his wife: "You are so good, your husband can still accompany you to buy vegetables!" 」
As a result, his wife replied, "Are you mistaken, I made a special time to accompany him to buy vegetables today."
After Ang Lee won the Academy Award for Best Director for the second time, Ang Lee's wife also sighed: "No matter how many little golden people you hold, you are still the same Ang Lee; home is not the set, you have to do the housework."
As Ang Lee's wife said, home is not the set, and you have to do the housework. Domestic chores have nothing to do with social status and family status, and have nothing to do with gender between men and women.
It represents the division of labor in the family and the love between the family, nothing more.
Long Yingtai once carefully asked his son in "Dear Andrei" whether he would think well and who would do the housework after the marriage in the future.
The son replied without hesitation: Of course, who has the time to do it!
The answer was concise and to the point, but it pointedly illustrated the principle of division of labor in domestic chores, not the obligation of one party, but the flexible responsibility.
If couples think like this, do not rely on anyone, and take the initiative to bear the trivialities of the family, life will be much simpler.
Not taking housework as a task, willingly paying for the lover, is not a kind of happiness.
There is also such a talk on the knowledge: how do you think of men doing housework?
One male respondent replied:
In fact, men do not need too many reasons to do housework, he does housework not because he can't do his job, not to make up for his shortcomings, but because this is his home, is the business he needs to run all his life.
It can be said that it is quite objective.
In fact, a really good husband never helps his wife with housework.
Why?
In the video "I Never Help My Wife", a husband's self-statement gives us the best answer:
A friend came to my house as a guest, and in the interval, I said to him: Wait a minute, I'll go wash the dishes!
The friend said in surprise: I admire that you will help your wife, and I don't help my family much now. Every time I did, she wouldn't thank me. I mopped the floor last week and she didn't say a word of thanks.
The man answered: I never help my wife! I'm not helping anyone with housework, because I'm part of the family!
Again, the male protagonist said that "doing housework is never done for the wife, but the husband should do it".
Many men tend to forget this and feel like they're helping their wives by doing some housework and see it as a gift.
Miss by a mile!
Housework is never the obligation of a single person, but the responsibility that both husband and wife should share, and the efforts of one party should be respected and recognized, and more importantly, they should be encouraged and supported.
Taking the initiative to do housework is originally a matter of duty, and it is never a generous help:
You're not cleaning your wife, because you're also living at home, you should have cleaned;
You're not helping your wife cook, because you also need to eat, so you should do it yourself;
You are not helping your wife take care of the children, because you are the father and you have an obligation to raise the children.
You are not a guest of the family, you are the host.
If your wife deserves everything, then you should pay equally;
If you feel that you are doing great housework, then you should say thank you to your wife who has been paying silently;
If you want to accuse your wife of neglecting your home, you should also reflect on yourself.
Yishu also once said:
What dizzy upside down, Sea Oath Mountain League,
If you are not encouraged, you will disappear,
Who will love who for free for a lifetime.
No one will love a person for free for a lifetime, marriage is a career that the husband and wife will dedicate their lives to, and only when they fall into the tea rice oil and salt, the friendship shared together will heat up.
There's no particular reason to do housework, just because it's your home.
You love your family, you love your lover.
Yang Dai wrote in "The Two of Us":
Our family is very simple; the three of us, very simple.
When we encounter difficulties, we bear them together, and the difficulties are no longer difficult; we accompany each other, no matter what bitter and difficult things, they can become sweet.
Sanmao also said: If love does not fall into the real life of dressing, eating, sleeping, and counting money, it will not last long.
A good marriage is about enjoying the trivialities of life and falling in love with the taste of living together:
You cook, I naturally walk into the kitchen after work, wash and pick vegetables;
You mop the floor, I wipe the furniture while chatting with you to relieve boredom;
You feed your baby and I'm happy to change my baby's diaper.
A marriage full of love can make boring things meaningful, one vegetable and one meal, one breath and one inhalation, every move is intoxicatingly beautiful, and the sweetness is envious of others.
Image source: "I May Not Love You"
The best state of doing housework is:
You're not bored, I'm not alone.
If you take me to heart, how difficult is it to share the chores;
If I have you in my heart, why bother doing more housework?
And the best state of marriage is that because they know each other, they don't care about each other, because they pity each other, they hurt each other, because they love each other, so they understand-
At any time, "me" becomes "we."
Image source: Downton Abbey
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