Posted:
Since the time I got hooked to JA, I've often wondered about rivalry between wives in polygamous marriages. Not just those of a monarch, but in general.
Instead of affording their wives the priceless blessings and opportunity to enjoy the uniqueness in marriage, aren't women in polygamous marriages forced to compete for their husband's affections, his attention and love for the rest of their lives? With the fear of becoming the loser, don't these women live in a deep sense of insecurity? Doesn't polygamy actually stand in the way of the pledge binding husbands and wives? Doesn't it also corrode the natural alliance and sisterhood of women because they got to endlessly struggle for the same man??? Esp when so many wives, like Akbar's, are living under one roof. Isn't it suffocating?
Whether the wives see each other or not, I don't think it completely does away with the rivalry. Wives in polygamy compete for the attention, love and affection of their husbands in many ways, even in the bedroom. A wife wants to be the more seductive and the most desired wife.
Can wives who live in a polygamous marriage be friends? Could they be sincere friends with each other when they are rivals? How easy is it for two women to be friends when they try to find out what she thinks, what she likes and does not like and how she interacts with the husband. Information allows a person to gain the upper-hand. What are the thoughts going on in the heads of those rival wives when they communicate with each other?
A few random opinions of wives from polygamous set ups:
1) "It deals death to all sentiments of true womanhood. It enslaves and ruins a woman. It crucifies every God-given feeling of her nature. She is taught that to love her husband as her heart prompts her to do, and to feel the natural jealousy that comes from seeing her husband marry another woman, is wicked, and springs from her innate depravity; that she must crush out and annihilate all such feelings."
2) "How can a wife have those holy and tender feelings which should always be associated with the marriage tie, and which are inseparable from a true union, when she can speak, and to all appearances calmly, of her husband's having gone to stay with some other woman?' What ideas of home love and home associations can children have who talk about 'father's week at the other house,' and who discuss freely which woman is his favorite, and why she is so, and which woman's children he is most indulgent to, and provides for the best?"
Your opinions, please...đ
(Please NO bashing of either Jo or Ruqu if they are brought into the discussion)
Jhanak
Udne Ki Aasha
Anupamaa
