When you see what some girls marry, you realize how they must be hating to work for a living.

My dear Billy,

I really don’t know if any one among our honourable representatives at the National Assembly is in the process of launching a matrimonial agency, or already is in the marriage business, but it would seem that the question of the wedding of one of our honourable members has turned into a matter of state. It would also appear that one of our MPs – the Leader of the Opposition in person, no less – is quite eager to play the agwa. (If you don’t know what that means, ask News On Sunday editor Sobhanund Seeparsad for a free translation.)

In fact Paul Bérenger evoked the single status of MP Nita Deerpalsing and looked quite worried about her state of spinsterhood. In his utter concern, he appealed to the Prime Minister to remedy the sad situation. According to some reporters he had said, “To pa kapav fer enn démarche maryé li?” (Can’t you help her get married?) According to others, the Opposition Leader had said, “Rod enn mari pou li” (Get her a husband.)

Now, which is which? Paul Bérenger had made only one statement. How is it that this one statement has been differently reported by different people? Something must be wrong with the acoustics of the National Assembly.

But the whole nation is profoundly touched by the paternalistic love and concern that Bérenger has shown for Nita Deerpalsing. A few, on the contrary, believe that it very much was akin to an insult which affected the dignity of all women by its sexist hue. The Women’s Wing of Nita’s Labour Party even managed to wring out apologies from the author of the diversely reported unfortunate line.

Be that as it may, we all know that for millennia it has been the responsibility of fathers to get their daughters married. The sooner, the better, among the Hindus. Maybe Bérenger was only showing a fatherly concern, especially as his own daughter was getting married in two days’ time.

But if Bérenger thinks that marriage is going to tame Nita and that a husband is going to gag her, he’s got ano-ther think coming. It would seem that in the process of getting a “mari” for Nita, he’s got one for himself. And that’s more than he had bargained for.

As to marriage or celibacy, whatever course a woman takes, she is almost sure to repent. “Wise is the woman who is always thinking of taking a husband and never takes one, because marriage is the end of woman”,
they say. On the other hand, when a girl gets married, she exchanges the attentions of many men for the inattention of one. If a man marries and gets a bad wife, he becomes a philosopher; if a woman marries and gets a bad husband, she becomes a wreck. If they both turn out to be bad, it means that they amply deserve each other.

You see, my dear Billy, the trouble with marriage is that while every woman is at heart a mother, every man is at heart a bachelor of hearts and a boy for ever. Before marriage, a man will lie awake all night thinking about something she said; after marriage, he’ll fall asleep long before she finishes saying it. Then, some men think that being married to a woman means merely seeing her in the mornings instead of in the evenings. It’s harder getting a man to stay at home after he’s married than it was to get him to go home before he was married. Anton Chekov it was who advised young girls, “If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.”

Maybe we can understand the Mar­quise de Sévigné when she says, “The more I see of men, the more I admire dogs.” Believe me, my dear Billy, men are no longer worth it. Like Johnson, I consider myself to be among the best of the species, and I know how bad I am.

On the other hand, the Hindu concept of “Pati Parmeshwar” – your husband is your god – has long gone into obsolescence. Husbands today are made of an opposite stuff. And I am not even talking of the wife beaters, the child batterers, the callous brutes, the shameless sadists who make their wives and families suffer endless tortures.

Those are the large exceptions. The remaining few are not so bad. Even if you go to the Hindu scriptures, you’ll find that two of the greatest men who have trodden the pages of the great epics, have had no consideration, or respect, for their own wives. Rama of the Ramayana, was more apt to give credence to street gossips than to the word of his wife, Sita, who had even come out of the sacrificial fire unscathed. He banished her to the forests. Yudhishthir, of the Mahabharat, found nothing better than to put his wife Draupadi at stake on the gambling table, and lost her to his worst enemy.

I am not going to talk of the husbands in the other faiths because I don’t want to feed them with grapes of wrath. Bérenger must have learned by now that looking for a husband for a girl is no longer the in thing to do. As for Nita, if ever she gets tempted by a matrimonial experience, she would do well not to go in for a man with short legs – brains too near bottoms.

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