I had a king...

Another semester of teaching is over and I'm home for the summer. Long days with nothing to do but read, write, lay in the sun, decorate, cook and plan parties. I'm starting to sound like a doctor's wife.

I've never really been much of a wife, in the old-fashioned sense. I've always worked hard and never had the option of staying home with my kids. I usually made more than my husband, which in some ways made me feel powerful. It was all an illusion. What I really wanted was to be an old-fashioned wife, even for a few weeks. This time is different. My husband doesn't care if I work or play. He just wants me to do what makes me happy. A lot of things make me happy, but being able to play wife for the summer is a new experience.

He left for the hospital Sunday morning and I began preparing a zucchini and mushroom frittata, tomatoes and fresh mozzerella, strawberries and creme friache and Campari cocktails. I lit candles, picked roses from the garden, and set a book of Shakepeare sonnets on his plate. He walked in with the usual ear-to-ear grin on his face. "Give me a camera," he said. "This is too beautiful to not photograph."

I make him feel like a king. Why? Because he is a king, at least in my eyes and in this house. In turn, he makes me feel like a queen. For all you skeptics out there, this isn't work; it comes natural. For every wonderful thing I do for him, he returns it tenfold. And for all the women out there who think this sort of behavior is anti-feminist, don't knock it until you've tried it. I work and always will work. I'm an advocate for womens rights and I do my best to empower young women. But I'm also an advocate for men; good men, like the one I married.

Every man wants to feel like a king. He wants to feel respected and loved, and most importantly, he wants to feel like a man. As women, we long to be taken care of, emotionally and physically. But how can we expect this kind of treatment if we beat a man down to the point that his manhood is taken away? We nag and bitch and moan and complain that our boyfriends and husbands are not romantic so we demand in the way of bitching that they become romantic. It's hard to feel romantic toward someone who is always complaining. If we're so unhappy with our significant others, why not just leave instead of making their life miserable, or even worse, thinking they're going to change? If the romance that was once there left, you have to wonder, why? Did we simply marry the wrong people or did we have something to do with the way things turned out? Or do we just become lazy?

We all want Romeos who walk in the door, sweep us up into strong arms and take us to bed. But how can a man feel like Romeo if we act like Roseanne Barr? I know that men are not without fault and that many men are just plain assholes. If this is the case, leave. But if you are lucky enough to marry a nice guy and then you change from Sophia Loren to Hitler, can you really sit around wondering why romance no longer exists in your relationship? Try a little tenderness.

"Much of what modern American women feel is missing in their men...flourishes when men are sure of their authority." -Ann Marlowe (from "The Book of Trouble: A Romance")