An Ideal Husband

We have spent an awful lot of time studying Oscar Wilde's satirical comedy "The Importance of Being Ernest" here recently. All that is over now as the exams are done and ds is awaiting results in August.
There is a scene in which Gwendolyn essentially tells Ernest/Jack that he needs to get on with proposing to her. In a somewhat fumbling manner he manages to do so. Wilde writes a similar set up in An Ideal Husband where Mabel informs Tommy it is about time he proposed.

In modern times it has become increasingly excepted that women can do the proposing. In fact leap year is supposed to be the time she does this. But I have to wonder, what kind of man waits for the woman to ask him?
I have seen a couple of these proposals done on TV and they are supposed to be all very romantic-but frankly they don't come across like that at all. I find myself looking at him and thinking - perhaps somewhat uncharitably- 'what a big girl's blouse!'

St John Chrysostom the Golden Mouth taught from Ephesians 5 that a man needs to truly love his wife, as Christ does the Church and be willing to suffer and die for her as Christ did for His Bride, the Church.
I have to wonder, if a man does not even have the guts to propose-how will he sacrifice for his bride?