"As a female partner of a man, I was the 'ball-and-chain'." Photo: Stocksy

It's Saturday night and I'm at a gig with my boyfriend and his mates. As I scan the venue for the bar whilst dodging a stampede of partygoers, one of the boys gives me a playful nudge.

"I haven't seen your man out clubbing in a while," he jeers. "You've got to let him come out more!"

It took me a few seconds of vacant blinking to realise what he was talking about.

For a blissful moment, I'd forgotten the character that I played in the grand narrative of our romance. As a female partner of a man, I was the 'ball-and-chain'. The nag, the brandisher of rolling pins in stern defiance of the pleasures of men.


I was the obstacle that stood in the way of my boyfriend and the wonderful life that awaited him beyond the prison of my restrictive love.

Casual reminders of my 'burdensome' female existence are constant. As my boyfriend and I guide guests through our new apartment, they glance over at our shared study. 'Ah, that must be the man-cave' they nod knowingly.

The 'man-cave' has been popularised as a much-needed space for men to take refuge from the stresses of women and married life. It is a safe place for men to do 'manly things', and escape the things that oppress them, like the presence of women, or shared responsibilities in the household.

Women are not assigned caves, as marriage is known to be her refuge; the entire house her domain. Her husband, being neither tiresome nor shrill, is a welcome companion at all times.

Love and marriage are culturally approached as a sort of 'death' for men, a dreadful compromise flung upon him by an overeager woman. If he himself is eager, then he is joked to have fallen into a deadly trap against his better judgment.

Recently, a 20-year-old man from Wales made headlines as he was thrown an elaborate surprise 'funeral' by 50 of his mates. Complete with a coffin, a hearse and a fake vicar, the boys mourned the 'loss' of their friend to his new girlfriend, with whom he was "spending too much time". (It is unknown how many whip-cracking sounds and jokes about lost gonads were made during the event).

The concept of men viewing women as their captors is quite bizarre, as few men are actually forced into relationships and marriages. Meanwhile, forced marriage is an issue that affects tens of millions of women each year, 14 million of whom are underage girls, some as young as 10 years old. That's 39 000 new child brides every day, scores of whom lose their lives soon after marriage due to internal injuries caused by rape, underage pregnancy and childbirth.

Death by marriage is also a real issue, and one that - you guessed it - overwhelmingly affects women. In Australia, more than two women are murdered each week, and over 75 per cent of those deaths are a result of intimate partner violence. Survivors of domestic violence are often quite literally trapped in relationships with their abusers, for fear of further violence or death.

There are tremendous discrepancies in the levels of choice, safety and human rights that different genders can expect from relationships and marriage (if they can expect it at all), and it's safe to say that straight men come up on top.

Which is why the image we see here is odd. We see men donning the walls of their man-caves with plasma screen TVs in bold defiance of marriage – an institution created by men, in favour of men, to benefit men. We see men jeering at their friends for loving women. We see women demonised for engaging in relationships with consenting (some might say enthusiastic) adult men.

The narrative of the married man 'entrapped by default' is deeply problematic. It reduces women to sexist tropes, cements gender roles within the home, nourishes a culture of misogyny and trivialises the overwhelming amount of violence and oppression experienced by girls and women in relationships and marriages worldwide.

The taboo of men admitting to finding a woman's company genuinely fulfilling and enjoyable – maybe even more so than that of his mates' – finds its roots in deep-seated misogyny, and a culture of disrespect and belittlement of girls and women.

So next time you're dealing with a whipped mate or a classic ball-and-chain girlfriend, you should take a step back to reassess the situation. If in doubt, ask yourself: is she holding him back or am I just sexist? The answer might surprise you.