Posted 11/20/2009

MY FAIR LADY

In My Fair Lady, Professor Henry Higgins was an arrogant linguist sporting a formidable wisdom handicap.

He actually wished that women were more like men.

It was the kind of wish that inspires the warning:
“Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.”

Check out the lyrics Higgins sang.

“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
Men are so decent, such regular chaps.
Ready to help you through any mishaps.
Ready to buck you up whenever you are glum.
Why can’t a woman be a chum?”

A major study indicates that Professor Higgins was completely wrong about the sexes.

Research by Seattle’s Cancer Care Alliance found that a man is six times more likely to divorce his wife soon after she is diagnosed with cancer than she would divorce him if he came up with the big C. According to the study, women were almost always the patient in neuro-oncology divorce cases.

How does that square with “Men are so decent, such regular chaps. Ready to help you through any mishaps”?

How does cut-and-run male behavior square with "through sickness and health 'til death does us part"?

How does that square with women remaining loyal to their cancer-stricken husbands while husbands of sick wives run for the door?

Anecdotal evidence abounds about the lack of care-giving orientation of men.

Bill, the husband of a woman with an autistic child, tells me that at meetings and gatherings of the parents of autistic children, there are few men to be seen. Many of the attending mothers have been divorced by their husbands.

While divorce is incredibly stressful to a woman with a healthy child, think what the pressures are when she is divorced while caring for an autistic child. Because of the huge medical costs associated with autism, imagine how much a deserting male magnifies the financial pressure on his wife and child.

Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

If she ever were, tens of millions of sick males would suffer intensely.

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