Um. I work eight to five, and then I come home and do most of the housework. I do this even though I have no children and would whether I were married or not.

Sorry, but the person who pointed out that unless the mother has a chauffeur's license, a degree from a professional cooking school, a CPA license, and a certification in early childhood education, she's an amateur. Perhaps a skilled amateur, as I hope I am in the cooking department, but an amateur nonetheless. I certainly wouldn't pretend to be anything else.

You know, if everything she does should have some kind of monetary compensation attached, then to take it to the logical end you should argue that her servicing her husband in bed and bearing his children would mean she was performing the duties of a high-class concubine. Just saying.

I think the school was perfectly within its rights to make the girls come to school that day or go with their fathers to work. Especially in that part of the country. Not everyone has the luxury of choosing to be a homemaker. For some women, it's still the only acceptable option.

I did this. Graduated in June, married in December. No regrets, almost 20 years later, even though I still can't get him to do the dishes.

Would I recommend it to my nieces? I don't know. Depends on a lot of things. Are they daydreaming about the dress, the ring, the cake, the first dance? Are they worried because all their friends are hitched? Or did they meet someone and, like us, not even bother with a proposal and acceptance? (Somewhere an engagement ring was given and formalities took place, but we both just kind of assumed six weeks after starting to date that we couldn't live without each other and had to get married as soon as possible.)

Can you see not just growing old, but growing *up* with your spouse? Because that's what you'll do. It's not for everybody. Looking back, though, I would never have spent my twenties without him. And, yes, it is cheaper than maintaining two separate households. Some friends of ours just lived together for a while before eventually marrying, but we figured, why wait, and avoid the stress of scandalizing our parents?

So I read that article with very mixed feelings. I got the sense that he was arguing (and we've all heard this before) that women have a sell-by date. To that I say, Or what? There's no sell-by date for happiness. If the only thing that's keeping you from marrying is principle, you're sacrificing something priceless. Likewise, if you can take or leave the guy, no, don't do it, no matter what some well-meaning paternalistic armchair sociologist tells you, no matter what your biological clock is screaming. If you're not happy marrying at 21, you won't be happy as an old married woman of forty. There's no science involved here; only self-knowledge.

This past spring I observed that I have been with Dr. Trench exactly half my life. It feels like yesterday.

you're going to offend Terry Eagleton and all the other pomo Christian apologist zombies who will indignantly insist that you simply don't understand God.

Oh, please. What about the child, indeed. And what *about* the poor adulterous poverty-stricken wife? Sounds like she got what she deserved (as did the erring older husband), and the child got a stable, healthy, loving set of parents. There have to be consequences. I'm not sure what Quetico Loon was trying to say other than to whine about what he perceives as the unfair advantages given to women in divorce (and women, of course, are all scheming after men's wallets), but, having seen firsthand what my father's midlife crisis and exit affair did to my mother, I agree that the cheater in these situations doesn't get punished enough, and that our moral code has collapsed in this regard, leaving many to confuse respect, love, and responsibility with sexual puritanism.

I'm just surprised the polyamorists haven't shown up to deplore how unenlightened Gerd and Dina were and to try to claim that everything would have been better if they'd agreed to be a foursome, as the two cheating spouses would have had it.

Huh? Am I missing something? Everyone seems to assume the LW is male (and some have even suggested that "he" wants to "check out of his responsibilities"--isn't that just like a man?). Y'know, there are women contemplatives in many different religions.

Jeez, remind me never to send an exploratory kind of question in to a Salon advice columnist, because all the personal anxieties that commenters project onto the most innocuous-sounding life choices of others (i.e., whether or not to get an air conditioner) will make it too loud in here to think.

It's enough to make one want to withdraw into a contemplative life.

...that was hilarious and much-needed. I have to say, it's the kind of slam that hurts me the most as a childfree woman, and I suspect that my compatriots who didn't get the joke have just been bashed that way one too many times and wrote you off as another genuinely patronizing new parent. I hope they come to recognize the satire.