The title of the blog itself may raise many eye brows. Let me start with the history of marriage where people used to rely on polygyny and polyandry form of partners before it comes to monogamy. Now we are in the trend of monogamy form of choosing partner but the instinct of polygyny and polyandry still remain within all human being somewhere. This is why many couple have extra marital affairs. Couple get married and start living together with the hope of raising a happy and good family. Now the question here how many couples are really happy in their married life? if not what is going wrong between them?
I have personally experience talking to many Indian married men and women who goes through terrible time in their married life. Let me first start with the statement given by married men. The common reply from the married men on their broken marriage was that they were not happy sexually with their wives. Another group of married men said they were not happy of their wife because they are less skilled, less educated and not updated. Some other men said they were not happy with their wife interference in their life. Some said they were not happy with their wives as they were not sensible and balanced enough to manage professional and marriage life. The key words what I gathered was sexually not happy, less education, interferences, jealousy, less sensible, not balance, abusive. Now when I talked to women they said they were not happy because their husband do not give much time to them and spend more time outside home. Another group said they doubt their husband having many affairs outside marriage. Some said they were not happy because they were miss treat by their husband and in-laws. Some said they were sexually abused and raped by their husband. The key words here are not giving much time to the family, having affairs, miss treat, sexually abused, rape..
Being an Anthropologist I always tend to think of going deeper into the root and finding cause of the human problem. Marriage is a long term affair for life, if a single knot loosen then the entire rope tying the marriage get shattered. I truly feel an healthy communication between couples, healthy sex life and honesty with each other will let the relationship grow stronger. I was once asked by a married woman in a chat room 'What will I do when I am not happy sexually with my husband, my answer to her was to communicate with her husband about it and resolve it in the best possible ways' than cheating on him by having extra marital affair. I have seen married men having extra marital affairs in maximum rates than the female counter part, this is not because they do not trust their wife rather they miss the companionship, free will in life and good sex life. After interacting with many Indian married men and women, I feel the root cause of many married couple not happy sexually was because they not been able to express their sexual desire and fantasises to their partners.
Indian women are usually forbidden not to share her sexual desires. This remind me of a scene from a Hindi film Aastha where Rekha's husband find her wife to be sexually active and fairly good on bed. He enquired about her enchanting love making skills when she said she learned from blue films. He reluctantly said not to watch it again. The Indian married couples are less expressive sexually and lacks healthy communication about the problem they have with each other. Perhaps the ancestral ways of living a married life that instil upon couples that a wife should treat her husband as god and a husband should act as godly figure in the family. I feel family has bigger role to play here its high time parents should not inject myths and superstitious believes in couples mind.
I see many broken Indian marriages today but their is always a way out to live a happy and peaceful married life than falling for lust and spoiling marriage for good. Their is a lovely saying 'The difference between an ordinary marriage and an extraordinary marriage is in giving just a little ‘extra’ every day, as often as possible, for as long as we both shall live.”-Fawn Weaver
An interesting talk by Esther Perel on 'Rethinking infidelity ... a talk for anyone who has ever loved ' (click the link bellow)
