MAN CAVES!!

In what is surely the biggest interior design craze to sweep the nation since the breakfast nook, the MAN CAVE (best written in all caps, and preferably yelled aloud by the host of Spike TV's MANswers) has officially entered the pop culture lexicon, popping up in movies, on TV, and allll over the internet (google it!). But what is a MAN CAVE exactly??

according to wikipedia:
"A man cave is loosely a male-only space to retreat to, watch sports matches, or play video games."

the Man Cave TV show on the DIY network:
"An exclusive space to hang out in men's homes -- a refuge where they can enjoy what they love"

and of course, from I Love You, Man:
"There's no women allowed in here...This is where I jerk off."

What I find most intriguing here is the implication that a man need's his own space because the woman has claimed the entire rest of the home for herself. No sports, no video games, no loud music, no beer in the woman's territory. Is this how most marriages really work? I certainly hope not. My girlfriend, at least, is a die-hard Packers fan (I don't watch any football), she can drink most men I know under the table, and she can kick my ass at Mario Kart. I guess my question is: if a couple has such disparate interests that they need to spend significant amounts of time apart on a regular basis, can their marriage really be happy at all?

This article blows my mind:
"When Vicki and Brian Meldrum bought their first home four years ago in Cleveland, they made a pact: She could decorate and furnish the rest of the 1,110-square-foot house however she wanted, but the 15-by-10-foot finished basement was his."

Really?? Maybe I'm just being naive, but why wouldn't a married couple want their home to be a representation of both of them? Isn't the creation of such a distinct division between the husband's and wife's territory just begging for marital disaster? Apparently not, according to the psychologists interviewed in the article. Oy, and we wonder why the divorce rate among American's is so high. Sorry if I sound glib, but that's just my $.02.