I looked out the window early this morning and saw Maria dismantling the pasture gate, which was tilting and would soon be impossible to open. Zinnia was next to her, observing closely. I came outside, wondering if I should call Mike, our handyman, it seemed like a demanding job, and she was not looking happy.

And it was cold and early in the morning.

Maria loves doing chores as long as no man asks or expects her do them. She agrees to fix some things and passes on others. Her art always comes first, but she loves working on the farm.

.I never ask her to do physical work, but she almost always wants to do it. When I arrived at the gate this morning, she struggled to move the latch; the screws were too deeply embedded in the wood. She was looking frustrated.

“Can I help?” I asked.

“What could you do?” she said, somewhat snappishly, fiddling with the latch.

“I can take a picture!” I said and went back into the house to get my camera.

Before I got a chance, she was at the back door apologizing for what she said. “It didn’t come out right,” she said, “I’m sorry, it’s something my father might have said, and I don’t want to be anything like my father.”

No sweat, I said. “You get to do what you like, and I get to do what I like to do.”

And, I added, you are nothing like your father.

I did feel a little twinge when she said it, but I know she didn’t mean it in a harmful way. She was just focused on the gate, and the truth was, there was nothing I could do to help. So I took a photo, and here it is.

We drove to the hardware store so she could get some nails that worked, and then she got a hacksaw out and released the latch. It took her about five minutes, and the gate worked perfectly. I admit to thinking that if I called Mike, I’d get at least a $$100 bill at the end of the month.

When she was finished, she was beaming. “That felt so good,” she said, “it makes all the difference if it’s something I want to do.” Maria loves making art, making love, and making repairs, even making soup. I married wisely and well.

I think any man who doesn’t see the upside of feminism for men is missing out and is short-sighted. It seemed a miracle to me to have a wife who could go out and fix a fence gate on a cold winter morning.

It isn’t that other women couldn’t do it; they do it all the time; it’s that I know it does not threaten me or challenge me or undercut my masculinity in any way. Real men want their spouses to be happy, not weak or subservient.

Maria is a miracle to me, and I but grateful to her and admiring. She can do many things I never could and can’t do now.

Maria felt terrible that she said that, but I know what she meant, and I’m not made of crystal.