Here in Cameroon, infidelity isn’t considered a good thing, but it’s pretty much expected. Men get more leeway than women (for example, according to the law infidelity is illegal for women, but only for men if it occurs in the marital bed.) Of course, each individual has different opinions and there is a lot of variety.
I live in a muslim area where polygymy is pretty common…I’d say about half of marriages are polygymous in my town. Occassionally people go up to (or beyond) the maximum of four wives and have huge families with dozens of children. Usually, though, there are maybe two wives. They each live independently with their children in seperate households- usually in the same compound but sometimes in different cities.
Anyway, people will talk casually about their experiences with prostitutes or their affairs, even to me. Prostitution carries very little in the way of stigma. This is in part because it’s one of the few livlihoods open to single women. It’s not uncommon for a prostitute to be a nurse, businesswoman, or other major figure in the community. Even in relationships that arn’t prostitution, there is usually some sort of exchange of goods.
Affairs happen. Nobody thinks they are a great thing. I have a friend who married a women in a city where he travels frequently for business because he felt bad about seeing prosititutes every time he went there and wanted to do things the right way. Divorce is pretty common, though usually they get back together in the end.
There is next to no taboo on pre-marital sex (though people may say differently.) I’ve had a lot of quite genuine concern for my well being here because my fiance is not here and people are worried about how happy I’ll be not having sex for two years. There is just a general belief (of course, not one which everyone holds) that sex is a neccessity.
So the general sense I get from reading all these threads is that while infidelity is accepted and expected in many cultures…the wives aren’t happy about it at all. Which, if you look at your culture from a woman’s point of view, means that infidelity is NOT viewed as a positive thing. It’s just that the opinion of the women is not considered important…even by other women. It’s very hard to imagine living in that kind of society…seems almost more hypocritical than American culture, in a way. At least here we try to make the man and “the other woman” feel a little bad for hurting the feelings of the wife, while other cultures seem to be saying “hey, suck it up, bitch, at least he’s supporting you.”
And doesn’t that kind of attitude towards the behavior of men seem a little demeaing to men, too? Doesn’t it sort of say that, if you go out and cheat on your wife that she may be just a little too relieved to get you out of the house? That maybe you aren’t so hot to begin with, and now she can enjoy a little peace and quiet while you go make miserable the life of some other poor girl who just wants some financial security too? And that these minor wives and mistresses aren’t quite so interested in you the man because of your charm and sexual attractiveness and your brains, but merely as someone they will tolerate sleeping with in order to get some financial or social gain?
Can you tell at all that I was a cheated-upon first wife?
Well, it doesn’t sound like too great a set-up to me either. It appears that affairs are often tolerated because the men say they are, and the women just don’t get much of a say. How wonderful for them. I’ll take my culture any day.
A good friend who lives upcountry in a provincial capital, a fellow American, used to rent a house there. (He owns now.) His landlord and the landlord’s wife lived in the same compund. It was a small compound with just the two houses. My friend and his Thai wife and daughters lived there for about 10 years, I guess, so he knew his landlord well. The landlord had a minor wife – “mia noi” is Thai for “minor wife” for you others – in town that he kept in a separate house. He owned a few properties in the area.
My friend met this lady who was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Teaching English in a local school, I think. She rented another house that belonged to this same landlord, only she thought the minor wife was the landlord’s one and only wife. She really liked the couple and prettty much gushed to my friend about how great they were and how good he and his wife had been to her. My friend let drop something like, “Well, that’s not his real wife, just his mia noi.” He immediately regretted it. Said I should have seen the look of horror on her face. “But…but…no. No. That’s his wife.” He said he could have told her, “Well, I’ve known all three of them for a decade now, and I live in the same compound with him and his main wife, and you can come visit us any time and see for yourself,” but he decided not to say anything else. Talk about culture shock! The poor lady was still looking a tad green about the gills and deep in thought when he left, he told me.
BTW, Testy: I lived in the North myself for a while back in the 1980s. Mae Hong Son province, on the Burmese border. I was there during the last uprising in Burma 19 years ago. We had quite a few refugees coming across staying in the temples then, but out of fear of being sent back, they mostly maintained they were just there “visiting” if you asked.
Siam Sam
I love that place. I have a house up in some hills around Phitsanulouk right now and I like it well enough but wish I had built it further North. Someday I’d like to live in Essan, lots of wildlife and all that and still cheap to live.
I got this book from the library and started reading it tonight. I’m only about 33 pages into it but damn, it is really good. I’m already completely fascinated with learning about a city I’ll probably never even go to, for godssakes! (I’m North Indian.) I’ll be back with more updates when I finish it but I really wanted to say thank you for recommending it to me!
Well, let’s see who the men are having affairs with. Since we’re not talking about Hal it not sheep! It must be humans and these guys are having affairs with each other. So help me out here. What sex could it be?
And, of course, America has its share of people who cheat on spouses (both sexes). The lower level of tolerance means that they just have to be more careful.
Utah doesn’t have a great past, with the previously widespread polygamy which
caused quite a few problems in it’s day.
Men and women are both complicit in this tolerance of affairs, but I still think such tolerance is a relic of a patriarchal society where women did not have much choice in the matter. (I can only speak for Korean culture, of course.) Back when having concubines was a social norm, wives who grew jealous of their husband’s other women were castigated for being petty and disloyal. Of course, women who had affairs were shunned as whores.
Nowadays having concubines is of course no longer an option, but it’s not unusual for men to frequent what are basically strip clubs and brothels and their wives to sigh and bear it. A woman who will not tolerate her husband leading such a lifestyle obviously has the option of divorce, but most housewives in Korea have no means of supporting themselves. With the stigma of divorce, it’d be very difficult for her to get married again (more so than a divorced man). The father would most likely get custody of the children and deny her the right to see them at all. She has a lot to lose if she chooses not to tolerate her husbands dalliances, so most women just grin and bear it and pour themselves into their children to console themselves.
Of course, with the increasing number of women who are now educated and are able to be financially independent, this kind of situation is starting to become less frequent, but it’s still not uncommon. And women still face a lot of discrimination when it comes to the workplace, so most of the time their financial situation is less stable than their husbands - which undoubtably plays a part in how much they are willing to tolerate before they ask for a divorce.
Most welcome. As I said, it is kind of Naipaul-esque, but (a lot) less cynical. That said, I really liked Naipauls India - a Million Mutinies Now, too. If you haven’t read it, it is definitely worthwhile. Now, if only someone could write the same kind of “metropolis biography” about Calcutta… Wonderful place.
I’m starting to love you. I read about 100 pages of it last night and had a hard time putting it down this morning. Please recommend more interesting books about India. I can’t tell you how long I have been spending trying to find good Indian authors. I gt tired of reading what non-Indians write about my country; I always feel they see it through the veil of their own culture, and not mine. And I don’t always want to read the same old stuff about young girls and the way they are treated (this is one of the dominant topics I have found when I do unearth Indian authors around here).
I’ll try to look up Naipul, too, I had to look him up on Wiki to even find out who he was. Anyone you can recommend would be appreciated. Any books you know about North India, or Punjab, or even Delhi?