Roslyn Car­ring­ton

You've got your wed­ding planned out from the ap­pe­tiz­ers to the colour scheme. You own a stack of dog-eared wed­ding mag­a­zines and you've got a girl­friend in Mi­a­mi on alert for clear­ance sales on wed­ding gowns. The on­ly thing miss­ing is the groom.

Well, tech­ni­cal­ly, he's not MISS­ING: the guy in ques­tion sleeps over most week­ends, has a change of clothes in your clos­et, and took you to Mar­gari­ta last East­er, so he's def­i­nite­ly on the scene. The prob­lem is he's stuck in 'boyfriend' mode and doesn't seem ready to lev­el up to 'hus­band'.

If you were a cat, you'd be flick­ing your tail in frus­tra­tion right now. Is it him or is it you? Is it that he's not yet ready to com­mit, or that you're just not what he's look­ing for in a wife? Come to think of it, what DO men look for in a wife? We asked some men, mar­ried and un­mar­ried, and here's what they said:

• At­trac­tive­ness

This is not to sug­gest that guys are as shal­low as a wad­ing pool when it comes to how women look, es­pe­cial­ly not in the long term. Al­though a tight butt rolling by would make any man's neck swiv­el, his ex­pec­ta­tions for a mate are more com­plex. A bar-own­er from the South says, "When I was younger I would nev­er go out with a girl who wasn't ab­solute­ly beau­ti­ful, and be­lieve me, where I work I saw a lot of pret­ty girls. But then I start­ed ask­ing my­self, what's the point of look­ing for per­fec­tion on the out­side when we don't have any­thing in com­mon oth­er­wise?" To bump up your ap­peal, show him you care about your health and ap­pear­ance, with­out be­ing so an­noy­ing­ly fussy that you won't kiss him for fear of muss­ing your hair and make­up.

• Sex­i­ness

No, this isn't a re­peat of #1. The sex­i­ness we're talk­ing about is more a mat­ter of what's go­ing above your neck than be­low it. He wants you to like sex, and es­pe­cial­ly to like hav­ing sex with HIM. You don't need to buy nose-bleed high-heels and a nurse's out­fit to im­press. Keep it nat­ur­al, free and fun.

Some­times you might give in though you're not that in­ter­est­ed...we all do, and most of the times, we get in­to it. But nev­er send the sig­nal that sex with him is just an­oth­er task on your To Do list, right af­ter re-pot­ting the seedlings but be­fore sort­ing out the knick-knack draw­er.

• Sta­bil­i­ty

Can the dra­ma. There are al­ways go­ing to be times when you want to yank your hair out in clumps, but get­ting over­ly emo­tion­al will not on­ly NOT solve the prob­lem, it won't jibe with a man's more log­i­cal ap­proach to prob­lem-solv­ing. He needs to know he can re­ly on you to stand with him when tough times come, and come they will. If you lose it when the dog rips open the garbage, what are you go­ing to do when your fam­i­ly faces a re­al cri­sis?

• In­de­pen­dence

Mil­len­ni­um Man isn't look­ing for an un­paid nurse­maid and house­keep­er. He un­der­stands that you have wants, needs, and ca­reer as­pi­ra­tions of your own, and is look­ing for­ward to sup­port­ing you in them. But in­de­pen­dence has to be in the con­text of your fam­i­ly unit, and take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the chil­dren when they come. In­de­pen­dent doesn't mean self­ish. As one en­gi­neer put it, "I ap­pre­ci­ate a woman who's in­de­pen­dent about her own hap­pi­ness but ap­pre­cia­tive of her part­ner's ef­forts. She's al­so pos­i­tive, lov­ing and for­giv­ing."

Low main­te­nance

Sor­ry, Your High­ness, but the plan­et doesn't, in fact, re­volve around you.

• Re­al­is­tic and ap­pre­cia­tive

Chuck out your Dis­ney­fied ideas about what a re­al man should look like. Maybe he's a lit­tle short­er than you'd like. Maybe he's got in­cred­i­bly hairy toes. Men like women who ap­pre­ci­ate them for who they are, and are grate­ful for the small ges­tures of love which, over time, add up to so much more than a car­riage drawn by en­chant­ed hors­es.

• Love

Men mar­ry women who love, cher­ish and ho­n­our them...and no­tice the word 'obey' nev­er came up. Af­ter all, isn't love what it's all about? Mod­ern men aren't ashamed to ad­mit that they're up for the whole pack­age: ro­mance, home, ba­bies and dog, and are look­ing for women who feel the same. The sweet­est re­sponse we got in our sur­vey was al­so the short­est: "Be­cause she wants to be with you."

Oth­er wife­ly must-haves our guys came up with

• Per­son­al­i­ty

• A sense of hu­mour

• Friend­ship

• Good genes

• A wa­ter-tight pre-nup­tial agree­ment (we hope he was kid­ding)

• Slight­ly less smart than he is (we KNOW he was kid­ding-or bet­ter be!)