words* to ponder

"I hope," said Gloriana warily, "that you are not going to suggest that I marry the American minister because I won't do it.  I've been reading about the Americans in a women's magazine and they're all cruel to their wives." 
"Cruel to their wives?" echoed the count.
"Precisely.  They treat them as equals.  They refuse to make any decisions without consulting them.  They load them up with worries they should keep to themselves.  And when there isn't enough money, they send them out to work instead of earning more by their own efforts.  Some of them even make their wives work so they can go to college.  They are not men at all.  They are men-women.  And their wives are women-men.  If I am to marry, I want a husband who will be a man and let me be a woman.  I'll be able to handle him better that way."

*Leonard Wibberley, "The Mouse that Roared" 

crazy how perspective changes things...
[k]