I remember having dinner with my roommate and her brother and some other friends. He looked at us ladies and said something along the lines of "It's no wonder you girls aren't married. You can do everything yourselves. You don't need a husband." More recently, I was helping to set up for a party at the church and was carrying a bunch of stuff in from my car. A brother came in behind me and made some sort of joking comment about getting the door for me, after I had already opened it myself despite both hands and arms being very full.
I think about these things, and I think, to some extent, they are right - I can do, and do do, a lot of things by myself. Because if I didn't do them, who would? When I come back from grocery shopping, there is no one around to help me carry in the groceries, or to open the door while I carry them in. And since I'm too lazy to make multiple trips, I usually have my hands and arms pretty full when I come in from the car, but I still manage to open the door without putting anything down (I like to think of it as an art form that I have perfected over many years of practice). There is no-one else to change the light bulb when it burns out (this is unfortunate, as my last light bulb changing attempt was actually a failure - it's not that I couldn't get the old bulb out and the new bulb in, apparently I bought the wrong kind of bulb, so even though the new bulb looks right, it doesn't give any light. Good thing it's a two-bulb fixture so I'm not completely in the dark.)
But does that mean I don't need a husband? Of course not. I used to think that one of the (many) great things about having a husband would be that I could get him to take out the garbage and take care of the car and kill the spiders and basically do all of the jobs I don't like doing. Then I realized that's not very fair to him, if he doesn't like any of those jobs either, and it would actually have to be a more equitable distribution of work. But there would be a distribution of work, so neither of us would have to do everything, and I expect that will be very nice.
However, I have recently realized (or maybe re-realized) another reason having a husband would be great. You have a built in friend, someone to talk to and do things with. The importance of this factor was brought home to me in the Tale of Two Holidays. Last fall I took a lovely holiday to Europe by myself, and I did not love it. It was nice, I saw some cool things, but I was bored with myself and really wanted someone to talk to and to share my interesting discoveries with and to discuss the neat things I was seeing. or the bad driving, or crazy people. I also realized that I am more adventurous when I am with someone else.
I recently got back from the second of the two holidays. This time I went to visit a friend, and got to stay with her family for the entire vacation. It was great to have someone to spend time with, to talk to, ask questions of, get opinions from, etc. The comparison between my two holidays and the way I felt while away confirmed for me the truth of the saying "no man (or woman) is an island" (although I was on an island when I realized this, greatly enjoying the beach and the sunshine). It doesn't matter whether I can take care of myself all by myself, or whether my future husband can do the same (I really hope he can, by this stage in life). Our lives will be more enjoyable together.
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