21st Century Hypocrisy

Several years ago, I’d ghost-written an analysis of Shashi Deshpande’s books. When I first took it up, it was because I needed the money, but as I read on, it began to make me very unsure of a lot of things in my life. Her books though are fiction, cut to the bone. They deal with subjects like rape within marriage, domestic violence, and abuse from the point of view of the woman. I realized that a lot of literature is actually male centric, and waters down the woman’s point of view. I began to see the patterns of some of her characters in the world around me. I admit that I could have been imagining things, but many things seemed to fit in place perfectly- being in the conservative South, I began to see even cities like Bangalore wearing nothing but a veneer of liberalism. It was only a few days ago that this struck really close to home.

I was talking with a friend whom I had met after a long time. For a while we had the usual guy-talk, and then the topics turned to ones more common among those his age, relationships, marriage, etc. Now, I do consider myself to be a practicing Christian, but my Christian perspective to life is limited to my and only my life- so much so that that some of my expat associates joke about me being a closet Jew. We had started out debating over arranged and love marriages. I intend to marry late, and I told him that a late marriage for love would be better than an early arranged marriage, considering that financial security and emotional maturity would make it easier for two people to get along. He then started to interrogate me on the qualities that I wanted in my future mate (I’m sorry ladies- :) that is beyond the scope of this article). Soon after I was done, he asked me a question that made me want to howl with laughter:

“Will you insist that your wife be a virgin before marriage?”

Now I’ve heard that hypocrites like this exist, but I never thought I’d find one in my drawing room, drinking my beer.

When I answered in the negative, stating that I would only ask for fidelity from the wedding day forward, he launched into a harangue about me being “trapped” by the BPO lifestyle (The Indian media has portrayed the BPO sector as a hotbed of sex, drugs and other vices- that’s another rant). After chastising him for falling prey to media sensationalism, I shot the question back at him. He replied in the affirmative.

This conversation had now begun to sicken me.

This is a person with a reasonably colourful past. Oft have I sat, listening to him detail his sordid escapades, detail by grimy detail, while just wishing that some kind soul would dash to my bathroom cabinet, grab my straight razor and slit my throat! And yes, you know that someone’s really lost it when they think that “paid service” is something to be proud about! And you know that they’re really ‘round the bend when they think that it’s something extraordinary, like climbing Everest! So considering his history, he effectively disqualifies himself from being suitable to marry by his own standards!

Unfortunately, this appears to be the state of most of the men in this country, some go to fine engineering schools, get jobs working for large multinational corporations, watch HBO and CNN, but still hold these old misogynistic values!

I can understand a celibate demanding such a condition. It is acceptable for one to ask for a mate with similar views on subjects that form the core of a marriage, like sex, household finance, children etc, but with something like this where a different moral standard applies to the person you share your life with, it fails to constitute a marriage, and begins to be a master-slave relationship.

Wait, there’s more.

And in some cases, the people responsible for this are the women themselves! Though we live in an economy where a college degree is nearly a guarantee of employment, and good communication skills and a professional qualification is a speedway to the Good Life, lots of women fail to break free of the bonds and willingly submit themselves to this abuse. I’ve known many cases of women giving up careers and promising relationships to enter this obsolete, misogynistic, and often abusive system. They refuse to take responsibility for their own lives. The worst part is that they look down on those who do.

In India, women are smarter than men! It’s true! If you look at the statistics for the past several years, the mean marks scored by female students in high school are several percent higher than male students. Maybe it’s about time we saw a little less whining and a little more moxie.

We have a legal system that guarantees the right to free will after the age of 18 to any citizen of this country. We also have legislation that protects women from violent family members. “Men are the breadwinners” and “Men are physically stronger than us” are no longer valid excuses. What Indian women need to do is drop the persona of the mute sacrificial lamb and change the system. It is happening, but not fast enough.

And as for my “friend”, I wish he gets married to a hopeless prude who will nag him to suicide.