A dissatisfied NRO-nik here in Dallas

writes to complain that he went to see the film The Secret Lives of Dentists because I raved about it in The Corner. He complains that the

movie exemplifies “feminist family values,” because the husband does almost

all of the work around the house, and he is cuckolded by his wife — and

suffers it, for the most part, in silence. I think the reader should examine

the film more closely. It’s a portrait of a marriage falling apart. Things

are out of balance. All the work of caring for the couple’s three children

has fallen on the husband, while the wife busies herself pining away for a

life of romantic adventure. When the husband gets evidence that she’s

cheating on him, he is sorely tempted to throw her out, over and over again.

I won’t tell you how the film ends, but I will say that for at least a

while, you may despise him for what looks like weakness. But then you come

to understand that this man, who is so intimately involved in the lives of

their three little girls, is thinking about how much breaking up the family

would hurt them. It’s a film about grace and self-sacrifice within marriage,

and ultimately a testimony to the primary importance of children to the

marital bond. How the reader got a “feminist” message out of this is beyond

me.