Why do women insist on remaking our mates? I recently received an email from a girlfriend that got me thinking…
She began, “So, the question really is: how much trouble am I going to be in?” She went on to explain that her husband was going on a two-day office retreat and that she’d asked him what people wore to such events. “He mentioned golf shirts and khaki pants,” she said. “But after he packed and went to bed, I had a look through his suitcase and was shocked to find an old pair of Dockers that I've never seen and a ratty Montreal Canadians golf shirt. I'm sure I have spent at least $1500 in clothes for him over the past year, and this is what he comes up with? He also had some $5 bathing suit in there (after I bought him a nice one at Tommy Hilfiger for Christmas). The shirt on top was nice and could stay, but I calmly removed all the clothing underneath and repacked him right down to the fun Calvin Klein underwear I bought him last week. So, I am waiting to see what happens when he gets home.”
While my friend was more creative than many of us, in both
her approach and her description, women restyling and remaking their men is par
for the course. When I met my husband he was a bit of a clothes horse, with a
well-developed style and an eye for fashion. Yet 33 years of marriage and
raising two daughters has changed things. After dressing for nearly any event
the poor guy can’t come out of the bedroom without three women reacting in
horror about what he is wearing. He gets a tsunami of advice and is accused of
dressing to the lowest common denominator. He then hangs his head and skulks
back into the closet to try again. Where he once threw on clothes with abandon,
he now checks with everyone that things match and look good. Sadly, our over-nurturing
has resulted in a man who has become a fashion mouse!
An article in the March 4th edition of The Economist made me think about why we do this. It reviewed a study about how female dung beetles will be just as aggressive as males, but to a different end, concluding that “males compete because the more females they inseminate, the more genes they leave behind. Females mainly let the males get on with this, and pick the winners. They increase their genetic contribution not by promiscuity, but by nurturing.”
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