HUSBANDRY: SEX, LOVE AND DIRTY LAUNDRY — INSIDE THE MINDS OF MARRIED MEN, by Stephen Fried, Bantam, 177 pages, $18
The subject of what is going on in the mind of a typical husband (if there is one) is a good topic for satire, but it seems unusual that a journalist with Stephen Fried's credentials would do so (he teaches journalism at Columbia University).
In "Husbandry," Fried treats the topic of husbands in a playful, humorous way, but he also deals with most of the issues that fit comfortably into pop culture. He starts out, a little too predictably, with socks, asking whether guys are sloppy about where they leave their socks because they don't care about their wives' feelings, or whether it is because they suffer a brain deterioration that fails to register things like socks.
He says his wife prefers the brain explanation.
Fried goes on to tell of his own addiction to "half-court-midlife" basketball games with a group of male friends 49 or older — and how most women probably like the extra time it gives them to do something more interesting.
He asserts that although men are not famous for expressing emotion, they definitely do if they lose a parent, especially a father. His own father died at 61, and Fried will never forget it. "That's because it's almost impossible to remain stoic once you've been inducted into the Dead Fathers Society."
Fried claims many wives try to "re-potty train their husbands," and he recommends that husbands and wives ought to be entitled to his-and-hers bathrooms. Sharing a bathroom, he contends, "is just not natural."
Virtually every husband seems to snore, which makes getting a good night's sleep for the wife an impossibility. Fried quotes statistics that contend 12 percent of married couples do not sleep in the same room — but he thinks judging by what he knows about his friends, that percentage is really much higher.
He believes the couples who sleep in different rooms — and sometimes "opposite sides of the house" — do so to avoid the "sound that makes a garbage disposal sound musical by comparison."
Fried and his wife, Diane, have other disagreements, i.e., why does he always have to ask her whether the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty or clean?
In spite of how many tools men have in their possession, most husbands, says Fried, are not handy and may trigger a catastrophe in the house if they try to fix something.
Fried disagrees with Diane about why there are so many divorces. He thinks they come "in swarms every 17 years or so like cicadas," brought on by the kids leaving home so that the couple can no longer use the excuse of "when the kids get older."
Diane thinks that relationships are fragile and that there are "windows of seduceability" for either spouse. Fried warns other men about looking at another woman in the presence of their wives vs. "tracking her" as she walks across a room.
This book is worth a look — even if you don't fit into all the stereotypes.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com