A husband needs a wife

A husband needs a wife
The West Australian
Ros Thomas
Published: Saturday July 14 11, 2012
Section: Opinion

My husband doesn’t want to get married. He says he doesn’t believe in it. Secretly, I worry he might be saving himself for someone else.

As ‘Papa’ to the two smallest members of the house, (and son number one, the cherished gift from my first marriage), he is the father I dreamed of giving my children. Which matters all the more because I didn’t have one myself. He’s also very good at being a husband. Because that’s what I like to call him, even though we are not married, and probably never will be.

But I am his wife when I call his office and speak to the secretary. Sometimes I mix it up for kicks: ‘Can I tell him who’s calling?’ ‘Yes, it’s his lover’. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’ ‘Tell him it’s the Minister for War’.

I like being a wife because I think it gives the job some much needed prestige, some matrimonial gravitas. I’m just not sure I want to be called one. But I can’t be over 40 and still be his girlfriend. Not after all this time. Girlfriend sounds transient, like a bit of fluff he’s still toying with. I’m not the apprentice, I’m fully trained. A wife is permanent, and I am fiscally, emotionally and socially responsible for a family, and for the smooth running of the train wreck we call our home.

I don’t really like the term partner either. It sounds so ambiguous. And romantically detached. I’ve always thought de facto was just plain ugly. It’s Latin for ‘existing, but not necessarily legally ordained.’ That’s about as dull as it gets. I’ll stick with wife thanks, even if I’m not legally ordained. Because really, I am a wife in every sense of the word.  Except THE word. I am mother to his children. I am loyally and totally committed to him, and only him. I live with him, I share everything I have with him. (Except  this column.) I hope we grow old and senile together and I live out my wifely delusions in the twin-bedded bliss of a nursing home.

It must be all those Jane Austen fantasies I still harbour about being a member of the genteel classes. But in 1816 Miss Austen wrote in a letter that ‘single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.’  And you only have to look to the insufferable Mrs Bennett in Pride and Prejudice to understand why she is so desperate to marry off her five daughters. No doubt they were happy to escape her aswell, but marriage was for most, the only way of breaking free from the confines of family. Whether or not it was a favourable alternative, it was almost always preferable to being an old maid. And Jane Austen should know – she was 39 and never married when she published her last novel, two years before she died.

In these most modern of times, being married remains a very obvious marker of identity for society at large. They don’t call it marital status for nothing. Perhaps that’s why weddings are often a showy affair. I think weddings are the greatest collections of joyous people you’ll ever meet. (not forgetting maternity hospitals.) But I’m not sure I need another one, or would want to part with our savings to have one. If only I was immune to the lure of a pretty dress – for me, that goes way back to my girlish rhapsodies raiding the dress-up box to emerge as a shining bride

That said, a marriage gives couples a starting point, a day in amongst all the other days in the great curveball of our relationships that belongs only to them. A marriage is about the promise of happiness, the hope for a healthy satisfying cozy togetherness. Yes, it’s rose-tinted to look at it that way, but when you’re living in sin, there seems to be no sense of occasion to celebrate – which day do you choose? – the day you met? Your first date? Your first kiss? Moving in together?

I’ll be clear now that I’ve never wantonly sought to be a Mrs. Not even during my first marriage. I just wanted to be me. And that’s what I was. No prefix.  What is it about Mrs that to me, sounds so antiquated ? Maybe I still don’t feel old enough to be one. Mrs is what I called my friends’  mothers because I wasn’t mature enough to refer to them by christian name. I wonder if it will become  as obsolete as all the other colloquial terms for wife that have gone by the wayside over the years – spouse, missus, better half and the awful old lady-  because they all signal ownership, and a derogatory sense of ownership at that. It’s all about whether we’re connected to a man. He is a Mr. whether he’s a husband or not. And the absence of a ring on his left finger doesn’t give it away either. Men get to keep their mystery. We don’t.

You’re publicly ‘off the shelf’ when you’re a Mrs. There’s no point being coquettish about it. You are by prefix the solid dependable type. On the other hand, Miss. is sweet, until you turn 35 and then it’s condescending and you sound like an old spinster who has been passed over. Good on the French deciding recently that Mademoiselle (Miss) was outdated. Now you’re a Madame whatever your marital status and you can’t be judged on it by society or bureaucracy. French feminists have hailed it as a symbolic win for gender equality and I agree with them. Language shapes our attitudes and cultures and as a woman, and an individual, I would like to be addressed however I wish. And I don’t wish to be the cheese and kisses.

Ms. at least measures up to Mr.

In doctors’ waiting rooms you can fill out the clipboard as Ms. knowing you’re in safely ambiguous territory no matter what’s wrong with you. The only way they’ll work out if your better half is responsible for your ailment is if they spy a wedding ring.

Which brings me back to why I still like the idea of being a wife. Everyone knows we’re a couple committed to each other and the children. But perhaps because I’m not constitutionally a wife, my soft pink, slightly insecure underbelly wonders how the man I love can really be so opposed to  marriage. Well, not opposed to marriage per se, (he’s a very modern man) but opposed to the idea of marrying me. Maybe it’s the legacy of growing up female – all those fairytale happy endings that were read to us. That Cinderella has a lot to answer for.

My paramour has joked that if ever we’re in Vegas, we can hire Elvis and Priscilla costumes and get married at the Little White Chapel. I only half believe him. Though if we ever do plan a holiday to the States, I’ll make sure I pack a pretty frock, just in case. And I’ll make sure I cross out Mrs. on the paperwork.