Newly married, I have been so busy being happy that I almost lost touch with most of my friends and acquaintances. Out of guilty conscience I invited all my close female friends to my Shoshur bari (in laws house) to show them my new found happiness. As usual after the regular laughs and giggles we went into girl talk. Some latest gossips about people we were not very fond of, shopping, celebrity gossips and some happenings of our lives.
Together Forever ? Photo Courtesy Nazia Hussein
Together Forever ? Photo Courtesy Nazia Hussein

Few ideas have fascinated me as much as one of the topics we discussed that day. One of my friends who have always been the prettiest in the group, doing fairly well academically told me that she was suspicious of her husband’s loyalty. Her husband, a popular personality in the media has gone abroad and will be staying there for a while and she was suspecting he might break the golden rule of any marriage. This was a love marriage were both of them knew each other for several years before the wedding and still is deeply in love with each other. Surprised I pondered on the topic and found out that another friend of mine also had the same feeling, that given the opportunity they think any man will cheat on his wife even if he is in love with the wife, possibly a one night’s stand I proposed. Unfortunately my friends disagreed, their claim was that every man wishes to have an extra marital affair, not all of them get a chance to do it but those who do will definitely go for it for an extended time even. Then my 1st friend lets me know she was skeptical about it even before she married her husband that he might at some point get involved with another woman romantically/physically and she sort of has thought of the steps she will take when such a thing occurs.

I was further informed by some other friends that they think most men never want to actually leave their wives, but they still fantasize about getting involved with another woman secretly and plan to come back to their wives after their little love affair without any strings attached. No matter how much you try to keep your husband and in laws happy this apparently is something inevitable! I was shocked to learn such an alarming concern lied in many middle class, upper middle class and upper class married women’s minds in such a modern time. Or was it because the time is too modern to have any principles left in our minds?

What I had noticed before in all classes of married women in Dhaka is the need to keep their husbands and in laws satisfied even if by doing things they wouldn’t otherwise. Most women being financially dependent on their husbands in the past it made sense for them to want to keep them happy as it is extremely difficult for any woman to maintain a decent and secure life in the city without an earning source. Even today’s modern women seem to be quite concerned about their husband’s satisfaction, all out of love or for some other reasons? As long as both the partners in a marriage are looking after each other’s needs and wants it is fine, but do we the women often give up on our wants just to maintain our spouse’s?

The issue of pleasing the male counterpart probably is an age old system but now I wonder was suspicions of disloyalty also there from long before? Did women want to keep their husbands happy only to assure that they won’t go outside for some romantic escape?