Intelligent, I was horrified to read about the woman with several children coming home from the hospital and doing all the housework. Where was her husband???? Probably reading the paper, or if so inclined, in the Beis Medrash, for which I am absolutely convinced he got no sachar for learning, when leaving a kimpaturin alone with all those children, and not allowing her the rest she needed and deserved. What good is anyone’s learning, when they do not put the mitzvah of V’ahavta l’rayacha kamocha (and who is more fitting to benefit from that than the woman he married, who is part of the “rayim ahuvim”) into practice? Torah is not an intellectual exercise. It is our guideline for how to live. OK, I do not know the whole story about this couple, maybe he had a very legitimate reason for not being home and doing the work that she was forced to do. But superficially without being dan l’kaf z’chus in this one instance, I have seen this pattern repeated often. It does not make the men look very good, I can tell you. Maybe THAT is a question shadchanim should be asking the mothers of the boys – what is your son’s position on sharing the burden of housework with his wife, especially after she gives birth? How important is it to him to be both physically and emotionally there for her?
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