"I love the idea of my wife"

The Onion gives us "I love the idea of my wife", which includes this

On the one hand, of course I love her. Don't get me wrong—we're talking about my wife. This is the mother of my children, the woman I plan to grow old with, the woman for whom I purchased a fine and beautiful home. But then again, if she happened to be some other, similar woman, it probably wouldn't be that much different. We'd still live in the same type of neighborhood, own the same cars, and have the same children. Well, they'd be genetically different children by 50 percent, but they'd probably serve basically the same function in my life.

I don't think this would be quite as funny with the genders reversed. It would still make sense, but it wouldn't be quite as funny, which says something about gender roles in our society.