‘The total amount of undesired sex
endured by women is probably greater in
marriage than prostitution.’
— Bertrand Russell,
Marriage and Morals
The woman enters the holy matrimony with a song in her heart, and the man enters the holy matrimony with a spring in his step. She is awash in romance, waiting to be annihilated by love, and he looks for physical comfort and loads of sex and the honeymoon begins—it is blissful. They both heave a sigh of relief at having found their soulmate and return to live their happily ever after, the extension of their honeymoon.
All the man ever seems to want is sex, no prelude, no foreplay; sometimes he doesn’t even bother to take the clothes off. Eventually, the woman starts to feel like an object. She keeps awaiting tenderness from him, but all he does is roll over and fall asleep. Can any human take another human so much for granted especially when it involves such intimacy?
She wakes up to the fact that he feels about as much emotion towards her as one would have towards their piece of property. She feels like she is owned by him, and he makes sure that this boundary is not violated. She craves for romance and sweet nothings, all of which, for him, ended the day he had ‘acquired’ her.
Years pass by and she becomes the mother of his children. She tries to make peace with her banal existence, but his indifference to her presence gnaws at her. How could he do this to her? How ordinary could he make her feel? Anybody else would have felt lucky to have someone like her by his side! She tries out new lingerie, hairdos, wardrobe, recipes—anything that will get him to notice her. But he continues to be preoccupied with everything except her.
They are as far apart as two people can ever imagine to be, living in different spheres of existence. Their usual conversation mostly includes exchange of information, list of things to be taken care of, and monosyllabic responses. The complaints revolve around duties or emergencies not looked into or ignored, but they never talk about each other, nor do they even venture to the topics that involve the two of them. Because doing so would be as catastrophic as stepping on land mines—emotional landmines—and they know that. Since the children are now involved in this situation, the surface has to remain calm.
Life seems long, and she doesn’t know till when she will be able to put up with this charade with the stranger in her bed. She wonders why does she let this stranger do things to her than with her? She stares at the ceiling night after night, full of loathing. ‘Where is her prince charming?’ she wonders. Because this stranger in her bed turned into a frog the minute she kissed him!
Then the inevitable happens—she discovers a condom in his wallet, and he discovers a message on her phone from another man professing his undying love.