Why do men pretend that their wives are tyrants?

Masculine insecurity, brought on by feminism, has given rise to a new breed of man who spends his time trying to convince those around him that his wife is ferociously controlling, writes Chas Newkey-Burden

Men like to pretend their wives are battle-axes, even when the opposite is true
Men like to pretend their wives are battle-axes, even when the opposite is true Credit: Photo: The Other Guys

You probably know several of these men, you may even be one of them yourself: the chaps who cannot stop telling the world about how their wife is unreasonable and officious.

They arrive in the office on a Monday morning with a new yarn about how they “got in big trouble with the missus” over the weekend. They tell us that their wife micromanages their every moment, to the extent that when even a simple social engagement is suggested, they sigh and trot out the age-old line: “I’ll have to check with the boss”. Systematically, they paint a portrait of a controlling cow.

Annette Benning appears to rule Kevin Spacey with an iron fist at the start of American Beauty

How different it once was. A generation ago, one of the worst things you could say of a man was that he was under the proverbial thumb at home. Whatever the reality of his domestic power structure, no chap wanted to be seen by his mates and colleagues as anything other than the one who wore the trousers behind closed doors.

True, there would be the odd eye-rolling tut about the "ball and chain", but it was a rare man who wanted to be seen as domestically subservient. Nowadays though, many are desperate for the world to believe they are henpecked in the home.

The typical culprit is the middle-class man who has reached that symbolic moment in life when, full of regret, he consigns his acoustic guitar to the attic. Then, the moment he is in all-male company, out pour the denunciations of his better half.

So relentless is this man's effort to build an image of himself as a hopeless minion, that it cannot be inadvertent. I've been in social scenarios where it's even become competitive: a 'wimp-off' between a group of men, scrapping to mythologise their respective spouses as the bossiest, most possessive and least reasonable nag of them all.

Many of these women remain, like Arthur Daley’s ‘er indoors’, oft-referred-to but unseen characters. And then one meets one of them and – surprise! – they turn out to not be the dreadful despots their husbands had implied

What the hell is this all about?

The knee jerk answer would be that it’s simply resentment. Men are now expected to be more involved in parenthood and domestic chores than they were 20 years ago. The family home is less patriarchal and autonomous. Things have got fairer – and because some men aren’t sure whether they like this, they exaggerate it, like the daft racists who greet increased ethnic equality with a thundering: "It’s political correctness gone mad!"

Note the language: the confident wife is referred to as 'the boss', as in 'bossy'. Linguistic double standards have long bounced between the sexes, and while self-assured men are praised for being assertive, undaunted women are often damned as being bossy, or controlling.

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Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on the chaps. The pace at which things have changed means today’s middle-aged men are a bridging generation between two eras: the patriarchal times of their fathers, and the more liberal era their children will walk into. Those who make their wives into false tyrants are grasping vulnerably for a way to express their sensitivity and modernity, testing out-loud how they feel about their role in this brave new world.

And the ones who get all boastful about it are simply trying to sound wanted. It's the male equivalent of that female archetype who boasts of a fuming, possessive husband: "Ooh, if my Wayne caught another man looking at me there’d be hell to pay!"

But gasps from women that their hubbies are possessive psychos are generally convincing. After all, a fragile male ego combined with excess testosterone often conjures a paranoid, aggressive being.

I can’t help thinking, though, that most men who boast of possessive wives are speaking wishfully. “She won’t let me out of her sight,” says one chap I know of his wife. I’ve met her – she clearly cannot wait for a night to her self.

In other cases, there’s reverse psychology going on. I’m sure that one particular chap that I know keeps saying his wife is dictator behind closed doors in the hope that his words may eventually push her to become the most laissez-faire lady to ever live. Good luck with that one, pal.

So keep an eye and an ear out for these wife-slanderers, they really are great cinema. And although they exaggerate their servility, the fact that they’re considering the feelings of their wives, and taking seriously the responsibilities of fatherhood, can only be a good thing.

It might be more gallant, though, if in time they could express that without it being at the expense of their women who are, I’m sure, very rarely the hissing autocrats that their husbands speak of.