…you think a little lying to your husband, wife or sweetheart will do no harm. You become more self-centred, more reluctant to deny yourself anything and justify it as ‘I owe it to myself.’
Words of wisdom appear in the oddest of places. The following I found inscribed on a wall of a urinal of the transit lounge of Los Angeles airport during one of my travels many years back: ‘Love is basically give and take – as much as you can give and as much as I can take.’
I pondered over them while emptying my bladder. Surely this means love is dead – love is giving all you have without expecting anything in return. Love is its own reward. No longer true. No sooner is love institutionalized into marriage or turned into a lover-mistress relationship than it is devalued into a contract between the two parties. Spouses and lovers become partners as in business and thereafter business mores govern their relationship. Each tries to extract as much as he or she can and give as little in return as possible. They develop what is aptly described as a ‘ledger psychology’ balancing what they’ve given against what they have received with a view to making a net profit for themselves. Innumerable examples of how what was once a relationship based on love degenerated into a business association are available, the most scandalous being from the United States. Years back, Rita, wife of the-then Congressman John Jenrette, when their marriage broke down, sold intimate details of their love life to Playboy magazine and a television network. Not to be outdone, her husband filed a suit asking for a share of the money his ex-wife made out of the exposure of what had once been their joint love life. Marilyn Barnett, longtime lesbian partner of the tennis champion Billie Jean King, sued Billie for ‘galimony’ when Billie let her down by marrying a man. Having failed in her suit Marilyn offered Billie’s love letters to her for sale.
Psychologists believe that love has fallen victim to the changed values of society. It was based on trust and now no one trusts anyone any more. Distrust is so widespread that love has withered to lifelessness. Why has trust become so scarce? A society in which corruption is rampant generates a climate of pervasive deception. When you hear of the millions made by politicians and blackmarketeers, you don’t feel uneasy fiddling your tax returns, indulging in a little cheating with the customs and smuggle in a an extra bottle of whisky. Soon this cheating mentality transfers itself to personal relationships and you think a little lying to your husband, wife or sweetheart will do no harm. You become more self-centred, more reluctant to deny yourself anything and justify it as ‘I owe it to myself.’
Distrust is learnt from experience. When somebody you have trusted lets you down, you begin to distrust everyone else. In America it is a kind of personalized Pearl Harbour experience. All of us have experienced Pearl Harbours in our lives. Unless we overcome these baneful effects, we become suspicious of professions of affection and prefer fleeting intimacies wherever we can find them without any intention of getting involved. It can be established that most adulterous affairs take place not because the marriage is unhappy but because a safe opportunity to commit adultery becomes irresistible. When an opportunity to have a fling with little danger of discovery presents itself, the vast majority of adults, male and female, will avail of it. The choice before them at the time is between a transitory sense of guilt and letting go of the opportunity that may not come again, and feeling stupid afterwards. Most people prefer not to feel stupid.
What profound thoughts a full bladder can produce!