Beast and the Burden

Ravi, my dear friend since the college days, often says in all seriousness that he never understood why women, particularly of a mature age, ever get involved with men. Women should know from their experience with fathers and brothers and present and past partners that men are beasts. For some strange reason they think that they can tame the beast and make him a beast of burden. A few no doubt succeed and it gives hope to others. But most women end up living with a beast and shouldering the burden themselves.

Numerous studies in all parts of the world have shown that in spite of countless campaigns by women, they bear a considerably higher share of family responsibilities than men do. This starts at the young age where girls help with chores much more than their brothers and happens even in households where women have jobs with greater responsibility than their husbands. Women in highly demanding professions – medicine, law, finance, you name it - decide the fate of men (and women too) during the work day. Yet, they leave what they are doing at the appointed hour and rush to schools or baby sitters to pick up their children, then go home and cook the dinner while their husbands are downing ‘two for the price of one’ drinks in ‘Happy Hour’ at the bar, presumably developing new business contacts. Is it any wonder that most senior executives are men and women have a glass ceiling which stays just above their heads generation after generation?

It is observations like these which prompt Ravi’s dilemma. He points out that the old adage “When you are young you are foolish” may apply to bright young girls who fall for young men to get their sex fix. One can also appreciate mothers of young children putting up with a heavier load and humouring their men to protect the family unit so the children would have a father. But why, oh why, would a mature single woman with adult children no longer at home want a man in her life? Is the solitary life so unpleasant that one would trade it for the servitude to the bloated ego of an often inconsiderate and sometimes violent person? And why is this man generally older, sometimes with serious health concerns? If it were for sex, women would be looking for younger men with more vitality. It could be the nurturing gene that leads them to an older helpless person who needs to be taken care of. Or it may be their martyr complex that demands a justification for the feeling of “Poor me”. There may be instances where financial considerations in the form of maintenance during lifetime and an inheritance after his death play a part. It may be a combination of some or all of these factors that prompts women to do what Ravi finds so incomprehensible.

Being a mere male with not many brain cells I do not have an answer for Ravi. But I do tell him that I am grateful the women feel the way they do towards older males, being one myself. However, my gratitude does not extend to anything more than minimal help with chores when I am not busy otherwise. That is in the genes too. Men are takers – women are givers. As long as humans have inhabited the earth, women have given men the life and sustenance and men have not only taken every kindness as their due, they have taken women for granted as well.

Ravi believes that if men do not realize the inherent unfairness of their attitude and do not take on larger share of responsibilities, women will give up on them and start pairing with each other in ever greater numbers. Men should take heed: recent medical developments make them superfluous in the process of procreation.

When I am on my way to the bar after work, Ravi’s warning crosses my mind and sends a shiver down the spine. It takes several drinks to wash away the feelings of guilt and the fear of consequences.