Shropshire husbands looking to earn a few brownie points were today advised to forget the flowers and get ironing instead. And our columnists seem to agree.

A survey has revealed that while surprise candlelit dinners and chocolates are seen as the traditional means to add a little sparkle to a marriage there is a much better way to win over the wife.

Half of the women questioned said they would be more impressed if their partner did the ironing than if he arranged a weekend away or a candlelit dinner.

Psychologist Cary Cooper, a professor at the University of Lancaster, said: “This shows that quite a lot of women still think that men don’t pull their weight at home.”

Here, two Shropshire Star writers offer their opinions:

Tracey O’Sullivan: ‘The bulk of childcare and household chores still falls to women’

It’s Sunday morning. It’s 5.30am. I hear our youngest stir, clamber up to stand in his cot and hear that inevitable “mummy”. It gets louder and I know I have all of ten minutes before it develops into a heart-broken cry at the thought of being abandoned.

Wearily I start to heave myself off the pillow and throw back the duvet in acceptance that my slumber is over.

Then that moment – a hand on my shoulder insisting I stay exactly where I am. When my husband takes the initiative to take over at this point I would give him the world. And I mean the world.

I am notoriously better in the mornings than my hubbie so the bulk of the early starts do fall to me. And I can hand-on-heart say that a lie-in is by far a bigger earner in our house when it comes to brownie points than any bunch of flowers – even those expensive hand-tied efforts. I normally start dozing again while promising I will say yes without batting an eyelid when he announces he is playing golf for the third time that week.

Now I have to come clean here on the household set-up. My husband is fairly domesticated and he does all the cooking, knows how to load a washing machine and even takes care of his ironing – although that last one is only because the last time I did his shirts I started with the collar which is apparently the ultimate no-no. Is there such a thing as ironing etiquette?

So I don’t have too much to complain about but I still have to agree with today’s survey.

The bulk of childcare and household chores still falls to women and when their other half – half being the key word here – steps up to share in it they do impress more than when they bring home that box of chocolates. Just a guilt buy all round if you ask me, from the giving to the consuming of said chocolates.

However I might just stop short of saying that taking the bin out is more crucial to me than a weekend away, but making sure the dishes are all done when I get home from work comes pretty close.

Then again, why settle, girls? I’m thinking that maybe the best advice to give all those husbands out there is to do both.

I mean, would it really kill you guys to arrive home with a bunch of flowers and then take over the children’s bath-time and bedtime routine.

Your nearest and dearest are worth it surely, and if not the pay-off definitely could be.

***

Ben Bentley: ‘Nothing romantic comes when I give a blouse the once-over with a Morphy Richards’

So, now us chaps know the tools of the trade. Forget Ann Summers vouchers and a boxes of Black Magic – all we need is a dustpan and brush and a way with an iron.

Saying that men doing housework is the way to a woman’s heart, however, is probably over-stating the case a tad.

In my experience it probably goes some way to keeping a relationship on an even keel and staves off full-blown rows about “who does what around this place”.

Ah, we’ve all had one of those. Haven’t we?

Hands up who’s said sorry by taking the bins out.

But at the risk of this sounding like an AA meeting for obsessive-compulsive domestics, I’m a bloke who doesn’t mind ironing. And when it comes to vacuuming, I can show Freddie Mercury a thing or two. (Am I the only one who watched the video for I Want to Break Free and said ‘You’ve missed a bit there. . .’?)

My wife won’t thank me for saying this, but I once ironed a pair of her lacy knickers – and singed ‘em so badly they ended up looking more like a sumo’s thong. Mind you, she never asked me to iron them again, so some positives to take there. . .

In our house, domestic duties are an expectation rather than a gift to our other half, although I do admit I could do more. The nagging tells me that!

I don’t know if it’s the way to a woman’s affections, however. The incentive is more the other way round – if I don’t pull my weight I’m in the dog house (which, by the way, I notice could do with a bit of spring clean).

Blokes shouldn’t get the wrong end of the stick with this whole route to a woman’s heart thing. The only time I’ve swept my wife off her feet while doing housework was that time in the utility when I tripped her over with a broom.

Nothing romantic has ever come as a direct result of me giving a blouse the once-over with a Morphy Richards.

Apart from being handed another blouse that needs ironing. . .