To paraphrase a song, Are you doing it more, but enjoying it less?

An ongoing debate has it, that women, according to men, are choosing to be harder and harder to please; complaining of more headaches than ever before; and taking in their stride any tokens of affection offered by men. Oh, sure, they will add, a woman might play the part of a responsive partner before she gets the wedding ring, but once the legal contract is in her hot little hand, its, Stop pestering me. I do have a life of my own, you know!

Poor old Valentino, that heart throb of days gone by, found this to be only too true.

On the very first night of his honeymoon, before getting a chance to show his prowess, the new Mrs. Valentino locked him out of her bedroom and kept him out till the formal dissolution of their marriage came through.

What her problem was is hard to determine. But seeing some of the grooms finishing the wedding reception under the bridal table, one cant help feeling that grooms sometimes show a tremendous lack of common sense. Even if he wakes up in time to go to the honeymoon suite, the bride is unlikely to welcome him with open arms, despite his blustering that alcohol doesnt affect him at all.

On their side, women have it, that despite the knee-jerking to the emergence of the new sensitive guy, men never see women as anything but bed playmates selfish, self-centred brutes that they are.

Trouble seems to be that almost everything we do is in response to what we have learned from the past.

Take the idea that presenting her with a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolate is going to make a woman go weak at the knees. This might have been the case when access to either was not available to everyone. Today, when for a few dollars anyone can go out and buy both, such gifts are beginning to seem very much token gifts.

In the end, wishing to please a wife is less about gifts, than the husband's need to find out who his wife is.

Im reminded of that famous, often copied beach scene from From Here to Eternity with waves crashing over the half-naked bodies of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, and all that it implied.

How did he manage to overcome the scruples of a woman whose body and mind had been scarred by a brute of a husband, and who viewed men very much like a fox views a blood-hound?

By extraordinary gentleness and kindness that probably the man himself didnt know he possessed, but had intuited by his genuine feelings for her.