I am coming across a common phenomenon in separation cases: the fact that most couples today work full-time and how men are not geared for the effects that this is having on relationships. We expect married women to work and at the same time we are not expecting anything in return from their spouses.
It is a pity that the advertising being carried out is lame and one-sided to the extent that it has now become almost shameful for women to stay at home and normality has now come to mean that women who work. It is lame and one-sided because we are only selling the notion without selling the responsibilities that such notions carry with them. The department or commission responsibility for equality should live up to its name, and not ignore the responsibilities of the other partner.

What we are witnessing now is that working women are finding it very hard to cope with the work, the family, the home, and the partner, whereas the partner cannot accept the fact he can no longer come back home from work and expect to find everything ready and not lift a finger in the house. If he comes tired from work, so does his wife. But men still expect the wife to be fresh as a daisy when they come home, to find dinner ready, to find the house spotlessly clean and it does not cross their mind that now they have the additional duty to contribute towards the upkeep of the house and the family by helping in the house and with the children.
So women, thanks to the modern definition of “emancipation”, have taken one step backwards because although they have gained financial independence, they have lost precious time for themselves and for the relationship. Now, they are still expected to fulfill their triple role of housewife, mother and wife with the same diligence over and above their day’s work.

No wonder that women have to juggle to try to find a balance between all these four roles in one day and no wonder that they end up exhausted so that they find little time for themselves and feel belittled when confronted with any situation in a relationship.
Men are not eager to change the way of life they have been brought up with at home: they stupidly think that if they help their woman in the house they are losing their masculinity. They still go with the same flow as if they were still around their mother’s skirt finding everything ready because they were brought up believing that housework is for women, ignoring the fact that housework is for housewives and not for working housewives.
What is therefore happening? Are men experiencing a culture shock when they enter into marriage or into any relationship for all that matters? They are still not being shown that helping in the house is not a sign of inferiority, that sharing the work at home is a must nowadays and it is vital in any relationship. Unfortunately, we do not witness any programmes or any advertisements or publicity teaching men about their responsibilities when their woman is working full-time. As I have said, the government is only selling the idea of how good it is for the mother to go out and work.

Needless to say, mothers play a very important role in all this. They must stop grumbling that boys and men do not help in the house and at the same time fail to train their sons to help in the house. Mothers must stop the discrimination between sons and daughters in that the latter are expected to roll up their sleeves and do the housework whereas their brothers are pardoned for the sake of their sex.

Mothers must be trained too: they must be made aware that the majority of women when their children come of age, will not be at home full-time, and therefore both boys and girls must be taught from when they are young that they all have duties to fulfill in the house.

The traditional picture of the family: of the husband going out for work, and the wife and children waving him goodbye, is gone. It has now been replaced by a frenetic race against time: time to prepare the children for school, time to get ready for work, time for shopping, time for cooking, time to clean the house, time for homework, time at work, etc etc. Now you tell me how much time remains for the relationship and how we are gearing our families to prioritise time for each other on time for payment of house loans.

I am not familiar with the contents of marriage preparation programmes at present and this is not a question of whether the Church or the State should go into. It is immaterial who takes the initiative to address this state of affairs. We cannot allow our families to continue to fragment because they do not how to cope with stress. We cannot allow our families to fragment because the wife cannot cope with all that is expected from her in this relationship.

Believe it or not, in my profession I am coming across cases where women are ready to give up custody of their children for the sake of finding some time for themselves. This is something that was unheard of until some time ago but nowadays, we are coming across women who are ready to allow their children to live with the father because they say that they cannot cope anymore.

Mothers and men must change their attitude and this comes with training. The long traditional culture of men and boys being the family favourite because they are the ones who provide the daily bread for the family must change because what used to be their responsibility has now been shared , if not taken up, by women without the latter obliging the men to share in the women’s traditional role in the house.

And the sooner the mothers and the men learn this, the better.