Divorce
As I was given by hints-and-indirection to understand, a Mussulman was permitted by his law to have up to four wives; a Hindu could have as many as he chose. Later, I read that the Maharaja of Bhojpur used to have over three hundred. To my somewhat fevered eye, this appeared as an opportunity without parallel for ...well...quite an opportunity. And yet, no one seemed to have more than one wife, not in Govindapur. From my solitary point of view, it seemed an awful shame.
Hardly on familiar terms with many woman in the several villages of my panchayat, I could scarcely avoid noticing that my best friend, Sri Kissun, appeared one day to have replaced his wife with a new one. Divorce was not spoken of. I never learned the word for it, if there was one. His wife had seemed a pleasant enough woman, rather anguished by shyness, bringing him a bidi when asked, but someone had whispered: “She has no children.” And by the time I learned of any matter, it had been public knowledge long since. Even so, he was young, she was young, I was, too; it didn’t seemed very important to me when I heard it.
I was sitting on one corner of the wooden sleeping-platform, which served as general gathering place under the thatch overhang which fronted his extended family’s enclosed court, when Sri Kissun made a point of introducing me to his new wife. Further, he introduced his son, a boy of seven or eight years, who, I was sure, had not been in the family before. The new wife smiled sunnily and retired in confident manner to the back of the house.
Did I have the sense to ask Mohana or Teknathpandit what had become of the woman I had first known as Sri Kisun’s wife? Did he have two wives, or what? I hope I did not ask him right on the spot where his other wife was. I hope. Somehow I learned that the old wife had been sent back to her parents. By default, lack of children would be her responsibility. This smiling new wife was a widow; that she had a son was proof positive of her ability to have children..., boy-children. By the time the argument had progressed thus far, I am certain, I must have had sense enough not to blurt out that the ball was in Sri Kissun’s court–nearly certain.
But why did no one, Mussulman or Hindu, have more than one wife? “Oh,” Pandit told me with a sweep of his arm over the horizon, “there was a rich man way over there who had two wives one time. He had to build them each their own house.” He shook his head severely, at the conclusion. “It takes a big man to have more than one wife.”
Hardly on familiar terms with many woman in the several villages of my panchayat, I could scarcely avoid noticing that my best friend, Sri Kissun, appeared one day to have replaced his wife with a new one. Divorce was not spoken of. I never learned the word for it, if there was one. His wife had seemed a pleasant enough woman, rather anguished by shyness, bringing him a bidi when asked, but someone had whispered: “She has no children.” And by the time I learned of any matter, it had been public knowledge long since. Even so, he was young, she was young, I was, too; it didn’t seemed very important to me when I heard it.
I was sitting on one corner of the wooden sleeping-platform, which served as general gathering place under the thatch overhang which fronted his extended family’s enclosed court, when Sri Kissun made a point of introducing me to his new wife. Further, he introduced his son, a boy of seven or eight years, who, I was sure, had not been in the family before. The new wife smiled sunnily and retired in confident manner to the back of the house.
Did I have the sense to ask Mohana or Teknathpandit what had become of the woman I had first known as Sri Kisun’s wife? Did he have two wives, or what? I hope I did not ask him right on the spot where his other wife was. I hope. Somehow I learned that the old wife had been sent back to her parents. By default, lack of children would be her responsibility. This smiling new wife was a widow; that she had a son was proof positive of her ability to have children..., boy-children. By the time the argument had progressed thus far, I am certain, I must have had sense enough not to blurt out that the ball was in Sri Kissun’s court–nearly certain.
But why did no one, Mussulman or Hindu, have more than one wife? “Oh,” Pandit told me with a sweep of his arm over the horizon, “there was a rich man way over there who had two wives one time. He had to build them each their own house.” He shook his head severely, at the conclusion. “It takes a big man to have more than one wife.”