London - Caroline Lakeman, 39, has had a tough day. A successful barrister from Manchester, she’s barely had time to eat since breakfast and longs to just collapse in front of the TV with a ready meal.
Instead, the moment she arrives home, she showers, changes into a pretty dress and makes sure the wine is chilling and a casserole is bubbling in the oven before her husband James, 40, arrives home from the office.
If he wants sex later, she’ll happily comply. They won’t discuss her day. Instead, Caroline will listen supportively while James recounts the details of what he did at work.
Caroline is suffering from what has been dubbed Perfect Wife Syndrome. She is one of a growing number of intelligent women in their 30s and 40s who put a man’s needs at the top of their priority list.
However successful their own well-paid careers, these women embrace centuries-old marital values, employing man-pleasing methods that include having sex when they don’t feel like it, allowing their man to make all the decisions and ensuring they look their best at all times.
After decades of their peers smashing glass ceilings and championing equality, the Perfect Wives are happy to play second fiddle.
Increasingly, even female celebrities are throwing themselves into the Perfect Wife role, regardless of their own success. Queen of them is Nancy Dell’Olio. “My priority is to please my man and that gives me more pleasure than anything else,” she has said.
“I would describe myself more like a geisha than the one wearing the trousers. I’m not a feminist, I’m feminine,” she shrugs.
She’s not alone. TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp - never afraid to take co-presenter Phil down a notch - apparently leaves her feistiness at the door when she returns home to her husband Ben.
“At the weekend, I let Ben choose what we do,” she says. “If you do what your partner prefers, he is happy.”
But she’s been equally Perfect Wife-like when it comes to other issues.
“If I want to talk to Ben about something difficult, I don’t do it when he walks through the door after work. If you want to talk about feelings, make sure they have a full stomach,” she says.
Even upfront TV host Davina McCall admits to Perfect Wife behaviour at home, happily explaining that she “plays second fiddle” to husband Matthew. “What he says goes,” says Davina. “I know that, the kids know that and it works.”
Many of us would recoil from such behaviour, schooled as we are by three generations of women’s rights. But could these apparently subjugated women have a point?
“Many people still have a deep-rooted belief that the man has to be the provider in the relationship,” says dating psychologist Lemarc Thomas. “Successful women can feel vulnerable, fearing their success will emasculate the man - so they ‘allow’ him to play the traditional role.”
“I was brought up believing in total equality,” says Caroline. “But relationship after relationship failed because men felt threatened by me - they usually earned less than I did and they felt they couldn’t live up to my expectations.”
But instead of dumping them and finding a nice beta male who was happy to do the washing-up, Caroline says: “I started dating James, an alpha male, and made a conscious effort to be the Perfect Wife. I praised him, cooked for him and never mentioned my salary. And I made a constant effort to look good.”
They are now married. But she doesn’t feel she’s betrayed women who expect domestic equality. “This was a personal decision and it’s worked brilliantly,” she says. “We never argue, he respects me and our marriage is more successful than my parents’ relationship was.”
But while all this is unthinkable to those of us who expect relationships to be based on equality, the Perfect Wives might have a point, says psychotherapist Jules McClean.
“The Perfect Wife - if her role is agreed by both parties - could work just as well as more independent relationships,” she says.
“Some men require a more nurturing, motherly role from their woman, while the woman feels it is her place to keep him happy in the kitchen and the bedroom - while still earning her own money.”
This could be due to the way they were brought up.
“Perhaps mom was the bedrock of the family and her contribution was highly valued.”
There’s a difference, however, between looking after your family, and subjugating your own needs and feelings to the point of invisibility. Surely that’s what early Sixties feminists were battling - the repressed Betty Draper types whose misery was directly related to society’s prioritisation of men’s needs and desires?
“A healthy relationship is one that seems to be right for both parties and works well,” says Jules. “Where it becomes unhealthy is if the Perfect Wife is trying too hard to be everything she imagines he wants - successful, articulate and beautiful - but is also neurotically insecure and worried he may stray if she doesn’t cater to his every whim.
“She may feel she’s not good enough, so instead she tries to be ‘perfect’.”
This is certainly the case for Tania Moore, 35, from London. “I have always felt the need to be faultless in every area,” she says.
“I got a First at university and a great job in publishing, but when I met Robert three years ago, I wanted to be a perfect wife, too.
“I always try to look groomed, cook him three-course dinners and I have sex whenever he wants, even when I’m tired, because it makes him happy.”
But what about her feelings?
“I wasn’t brought up to think they were a priority,” she says. “Besides, Robert is a great husband and I don’t want to risk losing him.”
And while a Perfect Wife might sleep in her make-up so she’s never seen bare-faced and makes sure every inch is waxed to perfection, if she’s only doing it to please him, it’s a thankless task, says Lemarc Thomas.
“Believing that she must always be beautiful usually means that she does not feel safe in the relationship,” he says. “She’s scared that if she takes off the mask, she might lose him.”
Yet whatever he may have done, a true Perfect Wife will still serve her man. While in the past, Perfect Wife behaviour made economic sense - a woman without a man might struggle for a roof over her head - now, it’s far less understandable why any successful woman would place her (usually quite ordinary) husband on a pedestal and pander to his every whim.
So perhaps the reason for the rise of the Perfect Wife is simply a practical response to the ever-present threat of male infidelity.
“Some women believe, for example, they should always have great sex with their man before a business trip so he doesn’t stray,” says Jules.
“But this is demeaning. Healthy relationships work on honesty, trust and friendship, not pressure to perform in a bid to keep a man.”
Perfect Wives seem to believe that sex on demand is the key to keeping their partner happy. Yet it is a strategy that doesn’t always pay dividends.
Jerry Hall - former Perfect Wife to Mick Jagger and Bryan Ferry - famously said that a woman should be “a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom.” Yet, as she later learned, Mick strayed anyway.
“It’s also too simplistic to assume that being content at home will stop every man straying,” says Jules. “It may work for some, but for others it can be down to any number of factors, including the thrill of the chase, power or just opportunity.”
As Demi Moore has discovered, it doesn’t matter how perfect you look or how publicly you adore your spouse: if he’s not happy, he’ll stray anyway.
So just what do these modern Perfect Wives get out of catering to their men’s every whim without asking for anything in return?
“Through my work I speak to some of the world’s most successful women about relationships,” says Lemarc. “I often hear how, in the boardroom, they have to be powerful, but when they come home, they just want to be a traditional (that is, subservient) woman.”
Deborah Goodwin, 44, a company manager, agrees. “I feel much more comfortable worrying about Tim’s needs than my own,” she says.
“I know he loves it when I look good, and he’s appreciative of the things I do for him.
“Knowing I’m so important to somebody else is far more satisfying than making my own demands. It works for us.”
And Tim certainly isn’t complaining.
Nevertheless, warns Jules: “There may come a point in the relationship where the Perfect Wife approach simply becomes boring and manifests itself as neediness - which is never attractive in the long term.”
And whatever a Perfect Wife gains from her subservient behaviour, it may not compensate for all she risks.
“It smacks of losing her identity, which is often exactly what made her the woman her partner fell in love with in the first place,” says Jules.
“Once you’ve given that up, it can be hard to find it again.” - Daily Mail
* Some names have been changed.