It's a sign, no doubt, of gross immaturity (or vengeful feminist bitchery, depending on your mindset today) but the latest bout of hilarity to grip the females in our little household was triggered by a car sticker: "Grow your own dope. Plant a man". Well, we think it's funny. Gotta have a sense of humour, guys. You had it your way for long enough.
I speak as a gross underachiever in school exams due to intensive scrutiny of the male-female socio-romantic dynamic as demonstrated by Mills & Boon in their 64-page romances. By this account, the man was the boss. Always. The Great He. The chiseljawed, sardonic, laconic authority figure. (Lairds were big, as were country doctors, mysteriously).
Women, on the other hand, fell into two categories: simpering, blushing nannies or beautiful, vengeful witches. The nanny and the laird always struck up a worldclass misunderstanding while the Witch got to stalk around in big hair, severely arched eyebrows and prototype Wonderbras, concocting mischief between them. But the nanny always got her man - usually around page 62, after the Witch had been melodion'd in her own wickedly racy motor while trying to demolish the nanny. Typically, this happened amid an unseasonal hurricane while the misunderstanding was at a peak. This gave the laird/doctor a chance to stride dementedly across the glens/moors to swoop upon the nanny - inexplicably comatose across a bale of hay - whence he'd scoop her quivering body into his strong, brown arms, keening the sardonic/laconic version of sweet nothings:
"You silly, little fool . . . silly, stupid, no-brain little fool . . . Have you no idea, no idea, how much I . . ."
Upon which her long, silky lashes and cupid's-bow lips would flicker to life: "Can you mean . . . could you possibly mean that you . . . Why did you never . . .?" They probably had sex eventually but not, Heaven forbid, before the nuptials. In any event, that would be after page 64 and therefore strictly in the reader's imagination. But a long, swoony life surely beckoned, wherein the nanny would settle gratefully, sweetly, unsweatily, into her laird's taut muscles and money and would never know the meaning of having to earn a living, never mind her "presidential kneepads".
Vengeful feminist bitches worth their salt probably shouldn't say this sort of thing out loud, but sometimes one has to sympathise with men in their modern angst. On a simple reading (well, there's no other kind) of those old Mills & Boons, the ideal man was rich and rugged, moody, macho and sensitive - and all at the same time. Women twittered in pretty cardigans and costumes and never snarled about toilet-scrubbing rosters. A sick-making scenario, on the whole and yet, these books were written mostly by women, for women, and sold by the million. Clearly, we liked the concept of rich, muscle-bound lairds, so nothing new or particularly embarrassing there. But equally, huge numbers of women (of dismayingly mature years, too) were buying into the single-brain-celled-helpless-female tosh as well. Poor, poor women; what a self-image to take through life. Poor, poor men; given Mr Rugged-Rich-Laconic-Sardonic as the definition of romance, what chance did any of them have? Clearly, Mr Rugged-Rich-etc was a dysfunctional thug, yet - and here's the dilemma for the poor, decent male - hopelessly attractive to women. (My own, comforting theory at 13 - which hasn't altered - was that the money had a lot to do with it). But what's new? Men still claim that they haven't a chance of being properly appreciated by women - either because the women don't know what they want or know too well what they want. Only now, the same men say it louder and more viciously.
Women, meanwhile, look at men and see them panting after monuments to silicone such as Pamela Anderson or sloughing off loyal wives to marry babes in arms. Young girls are lambasted for their predatory approach to boys on the one hand and for their determination to fling them aside and go it alone as single mothers on the other. Commentators gaze on the Clintons and magisterially pronounce the end of romantic love in favour of calculated, ceremonial alliances between politically potent partners.
No doubt about it, by this reckoning the prognosis for romantic love is certainly grim. With odd-shaped genitalia, "stained" tissues, DNA-trimmed dresses and debates about whether oral sex counts as an "improper relationship" dominating everyday headlines, the old Mills & Boon scenario suddenly seems seductive. The formula was simple but ingenious; best not to know what happened next, after that first, feverish embrace. The problem is that we do know or can venture a reasonable guess.
And the real miracle of St Valentine's Day is that in spite of that, tens of millions of people around the world will exchange love tokens this morning. As I write - jokes about "dopes" and "men" notwithstanding - the two smaller females of the household are laboriously cutting out hearts, pushing them hurriedly out of sight when an adult appears. The adult male will probably return the compliment by despatching exquisitely mysterious "Guess Who?" cards to them and continue the 200-year-old tradition of presenting roses to this elderly female. And the elderly female will make appropriate gestures in return. As that old romantic Bill Clinton knows well - remember the dress, the brooch, the poems? - love, in all its unlikely guises, is a cause for celebration.