A Marriage Of True Minds

In the middle of a perfectly harmless online chat, a journalist friend popped a snap poll question for an article she is writing: "If you had to choose between being bored out of your mind in your marriage and your husband's infidelity, which one would you prefer?" It was a no-brainer. I'd choose the latter option with or without its qualitative comparison with lifelong boredom (which, I'm afraid, is a logical inevitability in any long-term relationship, but especially marriage -- considering the floozy, faulty premise on which it's often based). She was taken aback and I asked her why. "You are the only one who's chosen this option," she said. "Most people I spoke to (and they're all 'people like us'!), are mortified at the mere idea of their spouse's infidelity."

I'm not surprised. Most people grow up with fairy tales that inevitably end in "And they lived happily ever after", watch Hindi films (or their Hollywood equivalents) where the hero and heroine walk into the sunset having overcome all odds against their undying love, read Romeo And Juliet (or Mills and Boon, depending on their literary leanings) and have dreamt of eternal love. They may never actually have seen a perfectly happily married couple (I confess, I haven't, and am beginning to suspect it's merely a fictional concoction), but believe that they have the will, the capacity, and most of all, the patience, to build that one exceptional marriage which makes the rest of us believe fervently in this institution and plunge headlong into it with foolhardy bravado. I did too. But this article isn't a confessional about my relationship (which isn't any better or worse than any other I've seen from close quarters -- which, I might add, is almost a huge relief, considering my own impatient temperament!), but rather about the very nature of marriage and the idea of infidelity.  

It is not, therefore, with cynicism, that I believe monogamous relationships between woman and man (or woman and woman, or man and man) are a mythical idea we are desperately trying to cling to, because of generations of brainwashing and lack of other practically suitable alternatives. As a point of argument, I'd invite anyone who's ever got married (or even been in a long-term relationship) to stand up and declare she/he was never maddeningly attracted to another member of the opposite sex (movie stars and tennis players included, because they're far easier to embed in our fantasies than real people who have the potential to complicate matters), or wistfully imagined being with someone/anyone else, or contemplated the hypothetical possibility of not being in marital bondage and hence free to exercise choice without guilt. Naturally, none of the above has anything to do with eternal love. If anyone were to actually try being in love with another human being with single-minded devotion forever, they wouldn't have the time to do anything else, and would eventually start slipping into boredom. Guaranteed. Remember, Romeo and Juliet died long before they could find out. 

Marriage is a practical option to keep the human race better organised and easier to manage, just as prisons are a sensible way of keeping errant elements isolated from society to minimise their nuisance. So instead of exercising our free will in accordance with our animal instincts and mating without moral inhibition, which in turn may lead to innumerable social inconveniences, we choose to 'settle down' in matrimony, and like all good creatures of habit, soon forget that it's possible to even conceive living any other way. Then we turn this practical necessity into a virtue and swear by its near-religious sanctity like hard-core fanatics. Obviously then, infidelity must seem equivalent to complete blasphemy. We expect our spouses to be utterly 'faithful' (like our friends of the canine variety), no matter what, and can accept almost anything else, but the thought that perhaps we aren't actually entirely equipped to fulfil their needs on a lifelong basis (nor is it our cardinal duty to do so at any cost) and hence, they are well within their right to look elsewhere. Infidelity generally isn't about 'us'. It's about 'them', and their tendency to stray from the straight road, while we continue to trudge along, despite the odds and the temptation -- which also gives us the higher moral ground. Mostly we do it because we're reined in by our upbringing and because it's too much trouble to rock the boat and live with the consequences. 

If there really were an 'ideal' relationship (marital or otherwise), it would be one that has no room for 'ifs' and 'buts'. Where two people didn't live in dread of each other's choices and actually encouraged each other to live to the fullest, irrespective of its impact on their own lives. That would, I suspect, also be the relationship that's truly based on love, where no risk is too high; and not the conditional contract we seem to mistakenly refer to as the real thing.As my beloved Sting aptly put it, "If you love somebody, set them free."