Every woman needs one man in her life who is strong and responsible. Given this security, she can proceed to do what she really wants to do-fall in love with men who are weak and irresponsible.

Needham’s line is a sardonic observation about romantic choice framed through a gendered stereotype: the “responsible” man functions as a stabilizing backstop—financially, socially, or emotionally—while desire is imagined to gravitate toward the exciting but unreliable partner. The humor depends on the reversal of the expected moral lesson: security does not lead to prudent love, but enables imprudent love. Read critically, the quote reflects mid‑to‑late 20th‑century anxieties about dependency, masculinity, and the tension between stability and passion in heterosexual relationships. Its bite comes from presenting a cynical, almost economic model of intimacy—one man as infrastructure, others as indulgence.