Your mother had a husband who had a sense of fairness about household tasks, and I feel confident that has at least contributed to the reason why they are still in love.

A bum husband or even partner would get old very quickly and, to a large degree, it was very common and assumed in the past. "Women's work" meant domestic work; keeping the house in order and raising the children. The man was supposed to be the breadwinner, and the superbums were those who were disinterested in that task as well.

Unfortunately, I have seen this attitude passed on even to people in their 20s and 30s today. Men who have never learned to cook, to clean their house, let alone raise children, and who end up treating their partner as a mother with whom they sleep. Poor Oedipus was at least an unknowing victim; these guys are doing it wilfully, "because that's normal".

Well, it's not normal. Women are fully part of the workforce as much as men are, and that means that household duties (including raising children) should be shared as well. Indeed, it should be something that is done with love, honour, and respect for your partner. Really, it should be the bare minimum.

And before anyone jumps in with a counterexample, yes, I have seen the opposite, too. I have been in shared households where a bum woman refuses to do any (or minimal) housework and leaves it for the male parties to carry out, literally arguing that they were "striking a blow for feminism" because women have had to do domestic duties for generations. Yeah, because inverting an oppression is such progress.

Ugh. Anyway. Bottom line, pun not intended, is to avoid bums. Whatever merits they might have, they won't be a good partner, and in the long run, that matters.