My husband reads the newspaper every morning and often yells out little tidbits while I'm getting changed or taking a shower.

Recently, an editorial in our local paper inspired him to rush to the bathroom to read it to me in entirety.

He found, he thought, justification for slacking on household chores in a recent study that is creating a lot of buzz.

"It says here," he said officially and proudly, "if you lower your expectations of me housework wise, you'll be much happier,"

At least that's how he interprets the recent study exploring what makes married women happy. University of Virginia sociologists Bradford Wilcox and Steven Nock based their findings (.pdf) on data from 5,000 couples in the National Survey of Families and Households conducted in the 1990s.

As Jack translated it, wives who expect less from their husbands when it comes to dividing the housework believe they have better marriages. These wives are also reportedly most content when their men are emotionally involved and expressive, housework or not.

The tricky part of the findings is they suggest that the more we wives complain about housework being unfairly shared, the less likely our husbands are to be emotionally involved -- or even spend quality time with us -- like we most want them to be. So I can infer, as Jack so aptly encouraged me to do, that I should expect less from him around the house, therefore complain less and consequently improve my overall marriage mood.

Since Jack has the sharing-his-feelings stuff up to my standards, I wonder if I should accept his notion that I have it great, despite his shortcomings with a broom and dustpan.

Should I stop grumbling over his inability -- or unwillingness -- to put his clean clothes away? Should I vacuum with gusto and never nag when he again refuses to replace the old trash bag with a new one? Should I celebrate the amount he does contribute and keep my mouth shut about the rest?

Certain feminist principles have been ingrained in me, and I shudder at the thought of accepting my role as primary dust-sweeper. If I give in on this, will I never get control of the elusive remote in my lifetime or ever find him taking a trip to the grocery store without my prompting?

My mother always complained, "Your father never does anything around the house," as she struggled to haul the dirty laundry provided by three kids and one husband up and down the stairs in our split-level.

My favorite TV wives had full-time jobs and children, while managing to forego any visible housework. Did Maggie Seaver and Claire Huxtable ever throw on rubber gloves and scrub the bathtub?

To the disappointment of my "we share all dirty work" logic, I often fall back into a more traditional wife role by doing most of it. I do the grocery shopping, the laundry (unless he's feeling frisky), the vacuuming and dusting, the cooking and the list never ends.

Jack tells me -- half kiddingly -- that I should cook and clean more than he does because I'm so gosh darn good at it. While I take pride in my casserole concoctions, that doesn't mean I have to prove my skills repeatedly.

I don't see him rushing to mix ingredients to show me he can't really cook. And deep down I just know he would be happiest if I ran the house the hands-on way his mother did.

Despite myself, I enjoy some of this often mindless work, because it's a break from my full-time job and makes me feel like I'm improving our house. What I don't enjoy is realizing that if I didn't do it, no one would. The stray dog hairs would reach eye level and we would never eat a home-cooked meal.

Choosing my battles carefully, I roll with my traditional Hazel the Housekeeper role a bit, thinking if I'm positive about it maybe he'll help me out more.

The positive vibe lasted a few moments, until I made the costly mistake of providing a honey-do list for him like I imagined June Cleaver would do. Jack treated it as a honey-don't-do-a-thing list and instead laid on the couch learning about the latest serial killer featured on the cold case files program.

Since then I have tried to ask for help with one task at a time, rather than a whole list. I do feel pathetic to suggest the obvious, such as the house will look nicer if he hangs up his shirts rather than letting them pile up on the floor. But the important thing is that the shirts get hung.

As I work on strengthening Jack's housekeeping skills, I always take time to appreciate all that he does contribute to our relationship and our life together in the many ways that don't require an apron or protective mask.

I hope he realizes that the more he helps with the household chores the happier this wife will be, no matter what some study suggests.

A honey-do is always better than a honey-don't.