The railway minister and his trophy wife
THIS nation in its living rooms was agog with mixed emotions in the run up to that auspicious moment when our railway minister renounced his confirmed bachelorhood and married a woman younger than half his age. Men were upbeat in their arguments as if they had found in the minister a living proof of the fountain of youth. Ladies were upset for their own valid reason. They were scandalised by the age difference between the bride and the groom.
Nobody, however, contended that the railway minister got his wife railroaded into this marriage. Anything is fair in love and war; age is never an issue when two hearts are beating as one. No reason why a seventyish Adam and a thirtyish Eve couldn't have their own Garden of Eden.
Many of us would have found it more encouraging to see similar mismatch in the railway budget, revenue being his age and cost being hers when wider margin between them would have been merrier than slim difference. We would have been equally inspired if the minister could show similar energy to turnaround the distressed railway. So far his marriage has been the highest point in his public service career.
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger mocked his reputation as a secret swinger at the Washington Press Club congressional dinner. He was quoted as saying that power is the greatest aphrodisiac. When Kissinger married his second wife Nancy in 1974, she was 40 and he was 51 and still serving the government of Richard Nixon.
On the home front, former dictator Hussein Muhammad Ershad was 71 when he married a 30-year-old woman. Former foreign minister Abdus Samad Azad had married a 35-year-old woman and he was 70. It's not so much to compare the railway minister with these men but to establish the fact that other politicians also have taken marriage vows under the heady influence of that aphrodisiac.
It's because public men need satisfying company in their bedrooms. The loneliness of private moments becomes oppressive when they come home at the end of frantic days. After pressing the flesh, attending the meetings, rousing the rallies and minding the media, it's like walking through the din and bustle of a marketplace before entering a soundproof room. Suddenly, the silence is overwhelming and magnified. The loneliness is sharpened by the withdrawal syndrome of these embellished men stripped to their sleeping pajamas.
Researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute have assessed that by choosing a bride 15-17 years younger, a man could cut his risk of premature death by 20%, and choosing a wife 7 to 9 years younger will reduce his risk of dying early by 11%. The prospect is conversely bleak for wives. Women with husbands older or younger by seven to nine years increased their chances of dying early by 20%, and 30% if the age difference is between 15 and 17 years.
Our ladies may have a point there, because the age difference between the minister and his wife leaves little to their imagination. They argued that such an uneven marriage not only meant unilateral biological disarmament for the wife, but also hegemony of the husband in terms of getting the value out of the union. One of the ladies reminded that at the rate of MPI calculations, 40 years of gap meant the wife should be already dead on the wedding night.
Yet the state minister for women and children affairs joined the groom in the wedding procession. Other ministers, party colleagues and members of national and local elites also attended the wedding. The prime minister is said to have given her blessings. The media gave extensive coverage. When a man and a woman want to get married, why should anybody bother to make it their business to stop them?
The irony of public life in this country is that it's still driven largely by private impulses. There are reasons why businessmen aren't supposed to sit on their company boards once they assume public roles. There are reasons why public persons are expected to maintain utmost moral, ethical, social and financial standards instead of giving indulgence to their personal fancies and secret compulsions.
Here's the simple math to understand the inadequacy of this moonstruck marriage. The husband was in his 40s when the wife wasn't even born. It's as good as anybody's guess what could happen to him by the time she reaches her 40s.
When an English king decided to marry an American divorcee, he abdicated to avoid constitutional crisis. Our minister could have resigned to avoid the crisis of conscience that questions his sanity. It's honourable in a fight to pick someone your own size. Age is equally important in marriage for reasonable men looking not for trophies but for wives.
The writer is Editor, First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star.
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