About a week earlier, a national daily had a depressing, front-page headline, “Short-lived marriages on the rise” according to which divorces have doubled within a year in Nepal. Many of those marriages lasted less than two years. One anthropologist remarked, “The divorce rate is up because it has become socially acceptable. The wave of women empowerment and economic independence are other factors.”
To these “progressive” factors, I’d like to add another—sexual promiscuity. A Nepali columnist, perched in his Canadian “nest”, shocked me once by advocating that moral constraints shouldn’t determine our sexual behavior. No doubt, the “free sex” he had witnessed in some sections of Canada had influenced him. There are many loyal, life-long Canadian couples too; but he didn’t see them!
However, some Nepali writers here too express similar sentiments. One author recently down-sized all “moral custodians” by putting up a question, “Who has the authority to point out what is moral and immoral?” I ended up agreeing with a lot of things this writer had advocated but for different reasons. Surely, the brothels in Thamel deserve legality. If they don’t exist, sexual perverts may attack our mothers and sisters walking on the streets. Certainly, “sex workers” by making themselves available prevent rapes and forced prostitution, and the government should recognize their sad profession. However, I can hardly agree that advocates of sexual purity are “moral crooks”. Though every society has hypocrites who preach one thing but practice another, we still need moral custodians to preserve our community from totally falling apart.
Read a book of “progressive” Nepali short stories. Most authors treat women as if they were no more than baby-producing machines. Life-lasting, husband-wife relationship and fidelity don’t receive priority. Their characters glory in the “taste and see” philosophy the authors themselves advocate.
I can hardly agree that advocates of sexual purity are “moral crooks”. Though every society has hypocrites who preach one thing but practice another, we still need moral custodians to preserve our community from totally falling apart.
Foreign “progressive” writers have become a model to many Nepali authors. Let’s take Salman Rushdie at some length. He uses the four lettered English word frequently. We’d call that obscene, he probably regards it as “progress”. His most famous novel, the Satanic Verses, relates the story of two Bombay-reared Muslim men who pursue their personal utopias in England and, having failed miserably, return to their home-city. The youth Saladin Chamcha stays on in the UK after his studies, takes up acting, marries the British Pamela Lovelace, but dosen’t succeed in giving her a child. Gibreel Farishta, of a humble Bombay family, initially gets minor roles in religious Hindi films, becomes famous, and makes love to his female fans. Rekha Merchant, the wife of an industrial magnate, commits suicide because Gibreel leaves her for a Jewish-English beauty, Alleluia Cone. Both actors Farishta and Chamcha meet in Bombay, both board the London-bound Flight AI 420. Hijackers blow up the airplane Bostan over the English coast. Both, survive miraculously because they fell into water, ending up in Rosa Diamond’s house close to the sea.
Phoning his wife Pamela Lovelace, Chamcha finds that she, thinking (perhaps wishing) that her husband is dead, sleeps with someone else for the coveted child. Farishta manages to locate Alleluia, but the memory of Rekha haunts him crazy; and after a stormy relationship, both separate. Farishta tries acting to make ends meet, but British producers exploit him. Meanwhile, refused employment by his previous boss and dependent on charity, Chamcha lands in the attic of his own house in the UK through his wife’s lover, who happens to be his former friend. A telegram indicating that his father is on his deathbed induces Chamcha to return to Bombay. Farishta does the same to act for a film, but finds that Rekha’s husband wants him arrested for his wife’s suicide. After pushing Alleluia, who has followed her estranged lover to Bombay, to her death, Farishta comes to Chamcha’s parental home; and ends his own life with a pistol.
After reading through the Satanic Verses, I couldn’t help thinking, “How similar to Salman Rushdie’s own life!” The Bombay incidents could reflect the author’s (mis)adventures. Rushdie still lives in the UK, and hasn’t committed suicide yet. In his books (Midnight’s Children too), he idolizes the one-man-one-wife principle; but in real life Rushdie has had sexual relationships with one woman after another. Thus when he gets really old, he can hardly expect the marital bliss of the five Golden Couples República recently portrayed.
I return to the question, “Who has the authority to out point what is moral and immoral?” The answer is: God, the Supreme Moral Being. The atheist may not believe in him, but God continues to exist anyway. He gives moral guidelines which will ensure their keepers a blissful life. Breaking those moral rules just means misery and heart-breaks, as our divorcing Nepali couples have shown.
To a Christian, the Bible points out what’s moral and immoral. Long ago, a Hindu cousin came to his Christian relative to ask his “blessing” for the second marriage the former had contemplated. No way! When intellectual reasoning proved useless, the latter opened the Nepali Bible and made him read the section where Jesus pronounces someone having a wife but marrying a second woman an “adulterer”. He told him that the Bible holds to one-man-one-woman ideal. Successfully, he could dissuade his Hindu cousin against taking another wife. Now, he thanks his Christian relative for the marital blessings he has experienced, especially when he sees his step-brother trying hopelessly to keep his three quarreling wives at peace.
The United States of America, one of the sexually most “progressive” countries in the world, has a sorry marital record. During the late 1990s, one in three couples there divorced. Now, statistics say 50 percent of first marriages, 67 percent of the second, and 74 percent of the third marriages end up in a divorce. This multiplies the broken homes, the confused children, the loneliness, and the sheer misery. One spouse-separated Canadian lad (during 1998) remarked to me that divorce was worse than the death of his partner. His slow-healing, mental wounds became raw each time he passed his former wife on the street or in the super-market.
So, on movie screens promiscuity may appear “progressive”; but in real life it creates mistrust and mangled families. Even films end up punishing the promiscuous. For example, in the American Beauty, the wife who cheats on her husband and causes great distress to her only daughter ends up shooting him, and thus landing herself in prison. The moral is clear—only life-long loyalty to one’s partner brings marital bliss. From testimonies, such happiness becomes more tangible after the age of 50. So, couples disloyal to each other in youth haven’t lived together long enough to experience this joy. So, what should be the post-Valentine’s Day message for couples? Promiscuity isn’t “progress”!
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