Susan Maushart: Wifework: What marriage really means for women

By MARGIE THOMSON

"The real challenge," writes Maushart, "lies in figuring out how to be married and female and not pick up the socks."

Statistics continue to show that women, whether employed outside the home or not, still perform an astounding share of the physical, emotional and organisational labour in marriage.

Maushart dubs this "wifework" and, full as it is of her own fresh and often funny insights, and the little stories of her subjects - the man who put his clothes on top of the dirty washing basket, but never inside; toilet-related showdowns ("You can demand an orgasm but you cannot demand that your man cleans the toilet"), it's a zippy read.

Text Publishing

$34.95