I say, it's fine for an Italian man, especially if he doesn't marry an Italian woman, to say that he loves a particular dish the way his mother makes it and if the family has dinner with his mother once a week, he can look forward to it, or for any man who likes a particular meal that his mother makes, but his wife is not his mother and nor is she a substitute for her.

Men have to learn that, yes, there's the old saying that a daughter is a daughter for life, a son is a son until he takes a wife, but that does NOT mean that a man is entitled to expect to wake up at 6:30am and find his wife is not in bed beside him, but there's a clean, ironed shirt on the doorknob of the bathroom door, a neatly folded singlet, pair of underpants and pair of socks arranged on the vanity unit, and to shave, shave, shower and dress and come out to find his breakfast on the table waiting for him, and his lunch packed on the kitchen benchtop. Then to come home at 5:45pm and expect to change out of his clothes and have his beer on the table and his meal placed in front of him at 6pm on the dot.

I remember, I used to iron the handkerchiefs when I was eight, and my mother told me that I couldn't iron my grandfather's because when he was younger, if she did them, he would send them back to my grandmother for her to do them again. I then learnt how to iron shirts and trousers, but my mother wouldn't let me do the ironing as she thought that I took too long to do them. While my mother was having and recovering from a hysterectomy, I had to do the ironing for the family.