So I’m watching an "encore presentation" of HBO’s new polygamy-themed hit, "Big Love," last night, when it occurs to me: What a huge number of modern married couples need is an extra wife. No, not for procreative purposes or even to share the burden of household chores (though I don’t know anyone who’d turn down an extra set of laundry-folding hands). But if all the articles, books, and polling about stressed-out women struggling to have-it-all are any indication, many marriages clearly could use someone to fulfill the traditional (perhaps partly apocryphal?) role of the patient, attentive, supportive emotional rock of the family–you know, the kind of wife who greets you at the door each evening with your slippers and a martini, assures you that everything on the homefront is running smoothly, and insists that you tell her all about your hard day at the office.
As it is, in many two-career households in particular, although both spouses strive to be supportive and attentive, often they’re both a little too preoccupied with their own attempts to juggle work and home life to provide adequate comfort. An additional wife–or husband (since limiting this discussion to polygyny would, after all, be inexcusably sexist)–could go a long way toward smoothing out some of those whose-turn-is-it-to-take-the-dog-to-the-vet bumps along the road to domestic bliss. Provided, of course, that the new spouse understood his or her role as domestic cheerleader-in-chief.
Save your disgruntled emails. Obviously I’m not serious about this. But you can’t blame a gal for fantasizing. I do so love a good martini.
—Michelle
The Dish 