Lazy husbands? Someone could write a book...

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | The shock of Joshua Coleman's The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) isn't its failure (so far) to surpass Harry Potter VI on the Amazon best-seller list but that the first chapter, "The Perfect Mother," is a mere 18 pages.

Perfect Mother Syndrome, the PMS for the new millennium, discovered by some cranky yet perceptive women after a not-inconsiderable number of gin gimlets, affects 6 out of 10 women and makes life miserable not only for their husbands but also for less-than-perfect mothers everywhere. For exemplary PMS specimens see Cross, Marcia, in Desperate Housewives and Bening, Annette, in American Beauty.

Coleman's book, which just arrived in bookstores, is not without humor, an invaluable resource in the self-help field as well as in marriage and most other matters. Indeed, if the entire cleaning industry and its attendant products adopted a more comedic approach to life, we might not be in this mess.

Psychologist Coleman addresses his observations to a female audience because "I prefer to write books that will be read." He understands his readership and the sorry state of domestic affairs, noting that if men pitched in more, "you wouldn't be spending your precious time reading The Lazy Husband, you'd be reading something a lot more fun." Like Kierkegaard.

Indeed, a married mother of two recently took a copy of Coleman's book to bed - not me, mind you, but a dear friend. She can attest that The Lazy Husband is not only an intimacy killer but can induce a considerable number of moans and sighs, and not in a good way.

Coleman, who should get a MacArthur Prize or something, observes that a woman who does all the work is stressed. When the husband helps out, her stress levels go down, she feels more cared for, affectionate, and, gee, becomes happier and less of a harridan.

Of course, I know one woman who, when angry with her husband for doing little around the house, withholds clean socks (and other laundry), not sex, "because I don't want to punish both of us."

For the Freudians out there, it will come as little surprise that the cleaning trade imbalance may be rooted in our parents. Getting mad at your in-laws, though, has never done anything to reduce the dirt.

Coleman, like many psychologists, is a huge advocate of affirmation, cognitive therapy, and shifting of priorities. He's into heaping copious amounts of praise on men, which some women might see as lying, but what the heck. If the guy will vacuum, everything's open for negotiation.

Women complain too much, mostly to girlfriends but often to husbands. As has been noted, this activity can have hugely restorative powers, not quite up there with chocolate or buying shoes but close.

However, the pleasure of complaining, like those activities, is often fleeting, while the lasting effect on husbands is both indelible yet largely counterproductive. If a woman can get her partner to read the book, Coleman has kindly reduced a husband's participation to a sole chapter beginning with the attention-getting "Housework and Sex."

Frankly, he should have named the book that in the first place. Then, there wouldn't have been any question of hopping over wan Harry on the best-seller list.

Indeed, Coleman quotes some genius named John Gottman who discovered that women are more interested in conjugal relations with men who do housework. This is true. If men did laundry, there might be no need for roses and Godiva. Bounce would be the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Karen Heller is a columnist for Philadelphia Inquirer. Comment by clicking here.

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