This Morning as I was reading the newspaper, an article caught my attention.’ Brilliant men always betray their wives’. It stated examples of people like Einstein, Kennedy and Picasso who were not just brilliant and successful…they were also unfaithful to the women they had promised to love and cherish till their death. The reason quoted is that these men were over endowed with the desire of taking risks…which was fulfilled through extra-marital affairs.

I confess that having grown up in a typical Pakistani household, marriage is an essential way of life. There’s no digressing it. Until some two years back, I couldn’t possibly have imagined this to be rife in any society…let alone in mine.

This was until I read Will Durrant’s statement ‘Men are secretively, essentially and ravenously polygamous’.

I respect Mr. Durrant for his work and given the fact that he is a man himself…I think it’s safe to accept his statement as true and valid.

But why? Why is it that man feels the need to cheat? How is it that somehow, just one woman no matter how wonderful she is…just isn’t enough?

A few days back I was conversing with a friend about how men seem to choose their mates. The apparent hypothesis was that it’s an instinct that has evolved through time. Men look at females and according to their weight, proportion of their bodies’ etc try to judge if the female will be healthy enough to carry their children. The opinion expressed was that it’s basically innate and covert behavior on the male’s part and doesn’t require any conscious effort.

Frankly, I found it absurd. Knowing full well that an average male nowadays does his best to avoid any long term commitment let alone marry a girl for the purpose of procreation. And when he does marry, it’s some little girl scarcely educated enough to know how to really look after her kids. She learns eventually, but by then the man has moved on to fulfill his desire for taking risks.

As I was thinking about this, Nubla sent me this quote on the messenger.

‘Later that day I got to thinking about fairy tales. What if Prince Charming had never shown up? Would Snow White have laid in that glass box forever? Or would she have gotten up, spit out the apple, gotten a job and a health care plan and moved on with her life?" Carrie Bradshaw is a genius...!

After reading this, my mind turned into a different direction. Apparently its not just men who are going against their instinct of finding a perfect mate. Women for whatever reason are also going down a different path. Slowly and gradually we have begun to accept that romance really is restricted to Hallmark cards and movies. Relationships do not necessarily mature over time into something worth holding onto. And that there really is no such thing as a life long love. We get married if we are lucky and if the person we get married to doesn’t give us ulcer in five years, we are luckier still. We read about passion in novels at night and during the day we make sure that our pensions are enough to support us in our later years…provided we live that long.

But what happened? What has gone so wrong in the past decade or so that it has become alright for men to cheat and women to become money minded? And whatever happened to dreaming and living? How is it that the two are so different now? And most of all doesn’t religion figure into any aspect of our life anymore? The man earning and the woman taking care of the home, together the two raising good strong individuals that contribute to the world positively.

I wonder if I grew up holding on to the wrong notions, was raised on the strictures of polite society where girls could only converse about weather. Whatever it is the society or me…I know that I am in for a good lot of learning. And by the time I am done learning…it will all be useless. After all, life really is a lesson we learn once we are through.