Ask yourself honestly, are you using your wife as a convenient excuse? Or would you be wearing a helmet now anyway? :-) I'd go with civilized over emasculated.

I think the awareness campaigns of the 80's, as well as generally "growing up", in addition to quite a few near-deadly accidents, have changed my (in hindsight, ridiculously stupid) viewpoint on helmets.

In the last 12 months two friends have broken helmets, but survived. If they weren't wearing them, who knows...