YES, TRUE LOVE’S A MANY-SPLENDOURED THING

Spanish law to rule out sexism (Emma-Kate Symons, The Australian, July 1st, 2005)

Spanish men will be required to scrub toilets and change nappies as often as their harried wives under revolutionary reforms aimed at shattering the traditionally macho Latin nation's patriarchal division of labour in the home.

Changes to the marriage contract supported by the Socialist Government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, along with conservative Catholic and right-wing politicians, will force men and women to promise not only fidelity but equal shares of housework, childrearing and care of the elderly until death they do part.

As Australia grapples with Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward's report calling on men to do their fair share of household chores, Spain has used the force of law to propel lazy husbands off their couches and marital beds and into the historically female territory of the kitchen, bathroom and nursery. [...]

The Spanish MP who championed the reform, the Basque Nationalist Party's Margaret Uria, said it was fundamentally a symbolic gesture that nonetheless "sends a message" to Spanish men who are notoriously allergic to household chores.

The reforms were something "feminists have been wanting for a long time" because the "idea of equality within marriage always stumbles over the problem of work in the house and caring for dependent people".

"We Spanish women are too clean, and we aren't good enough at moaning," Ms Uria said.