Unequal Partners
indiatoday.com
Waking up is hard to do but if the urban Indian man doesn’t want to lose his wife, it’s time he did. Marriage seems to have given him a licence to thrill, even as it seems to have caged the woman’s spirit.
By Kaveree Bamzai
They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly difficult. But it is never easy.
Ian McEwan was writing about a couple in 1962 England in On Chesil Beach (he, er, arrives too soon in bed and she runs away in disgust), but he may well be speaking of thousands of contemporary marriages in India. The INDIA TODAY AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG Survey of Urban Marriage, the fifth in our series of sex studies, spotlights what goes on behind fluttering lace curtains, away from the glossy fantasies of warm satin sheets, cool rain-drenched greens and steam-filled showers.
Call it a byproduct of the growth in GDP or the result of social transformation, but the things that make life more fulfilling have also made it more open to cracks. If love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence, then the urban Indian marriage is the victory of opportunity over occasion. Greater infidelity on the part of men, increasing resistance of the woman to coercive sex, even the lessening appeal of the woman post-marriage are all indicative of a relationship under tremendous strain. The men and women are at odds with each other, not just in the act but also in attitude, creating an unequal partnership where there should be comfort-giving compatibility. While 52 per cent of the men say they have sex thrice a week, only 27 per cent of the women agree, a yawning gap not explained entirely by the man’s braggadocio. What’s more, 39 per cent of the women are bored with sex in marriage, up from 8 per cent in the 2003 survey.
Methodology: Sex and Marriage 2007
A total of 2,563 couples between 21 and 50 years of age, across 11 cities ranging from Mumbai and Delhi to Lucknow and Ludhiana were interviewed as part of the INDIA TODAY AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG Sex Survey 2007. The respondents belonged to three age groups: 21-30 years; 31-40 years and 41-50 years, from the middle and upper middle-class (Sec A and Sec B) socio-economic strata. They were divided almost equally between two age groups—1,384 in the 21-35 years category and 1,179 in the 36-50 years category. There was a set of questions that was prepared exclusively for the 1,274 male respondents, while some questions were only for the 1,289 women. The couples were asked basic demographic questions and were assured of confidentiality. Even though a system of secret ballot was used, the couples refused to answer a lot of questions. The survey covered a vast range of topics and gives an insight into the different facets of sexuality of married men and women—from satisfaction in their sex lives to the issues of family planning, and how social set-ups like joint family and work affect their married lives.
Snapshot 2004
Street-corner sampling was used to target 2,499 male respondents across 11 cities rather than direct interviews. The age group covered was between 18 and 55 years and the men belonged to the middle and upper middle-class (Sec A and Sec B). The survey turned up contrasts as far as the sexual fetishes, fantasies and expectations of men were concerned. With Lolita-esque fantasies, 45 per cent of men preferred much younger partners. Where 54 per cent went for the traditional sari-clad woman, giving vent to their nice-woman fantasies, 21 per cent had a fetish for women with long nails, long hair and loud make-up. An equal number even liked women in leopard-print lingerie. The survey revealed that Indian men still fantasised about actors—Aishwarya Rai topped the list with 6 per cent of men fantasising about her—while 16 per cent fantasised about having sex with acquaintances.
Snapshot 2003
In 2003, 2,305 women were interviewed across 10 cities belonging to three age groups: 19-24 years, 25-34 years and 35-50 years, and included those who were unmarried, married, divorced/separated or widowed. The survey showed up women who were perhaps giving their sexual side free play but who still wanted to be good wives or girlfriends. Fifteen per cent said they would have sex even if they were not in love with their partner and 58 per cent even disclosed the number of sexual partners they had had. Twenty-two per cent said they had extra marital affairs mostly with their spouse’s friends. However, 85 per cent still had their first tryst with sexuality only after marriage.
If the survey were to be distilled into a book, its title would be from the man’s point of view: ‘I’m OK, and You, Hey, Are You There?’ The bedroom seems to be the man’s preserve, his kingdom, his haven, while the woman seems to be at her sati-savitri suffering best. Almost 40 per cent of the married women said their partner’s pleasure was more important than their own, which was almost a 30 per cent jump over the 2003 survey of what women want. Such timidity in the bedroom seems to have emboldened the man—over three-fourth of the men believe it is their marital right to have sex, again consistent with the response in 2004. As for women professionals in nuclear families, they have it bad both ways, points out sociologist Shiv Visvanathan, lacking both the protection of the joint family and being subjected to husbands who seem to be distracted by the seductions of the city.
55% MEN PREFER THE MAN ON TOP POSITION WHILE 19% LIKE THE WOMAN BEING ON TOP
50% OF COUPLES BELIEVE SEX IS A SOURCE OF PLEASURE
26% OF THOSE WHO HAD LOVE MARRIAGES ADMITTED HAVING EXTRA MARITAL AFFAIRS
Family above individual and duty before pleasure, it is as if the sexual explicitness of an increasingly promiscuous society is passing the married women by—yes, they are conscious of the absence of it but unable to pursue gratification outside marriage (after all, 31 per cent of men admitted to infidelity while just 6 per cent women accepted it).
None of the traditional stereotypes seem to have changed, especially when it comes to men. More than half the men interviewed believe housewives have better married lives compared to working women, while 48 per cent of working women think that housewives won’t necessarily have better married lives. Add to it the act of sex itself being hasty (70 per cent spend less than 10 minutes on foreplay compared to a majority of American couples spending over 25 minutes making love) and where exactly does that leave the principle of pleasure in marriage? More precisely where does that leave marriage, still overwhelmingly arranged for Indians who clearly seem to regard the institution as a family rather than an individual unit? Especially when the survey shows that the family that stays together doesn’t stray—couples who live in joint families tend to have more sex than those in nuclear families.
Clearly, the woman’s sentiments have outstripped her circumstances. If in the 2003 survey 57 per cent of the women said an orgasm was important for their sexual fulfilment, now a mere 28 per cent say they always have an orgasm. Yet, they are more open to foreplay and are also willing to talk about it this year. From 27 per cent women in 2003 pleading ignorance about foreplay, only 11 per cent didn’t know about it today. If the men could tune in to the women’s frequency, it would make their marriage the funfair they seem to want.
One of the essayists has written potently about a new definition of marriage and pointed to the lack of friendship—not love—that makes for unhappy marriages. It doesn’t mean the death of desire. The alternative to coercion is caring, as sociologist Ravi Nandan Singh puts it, but it is not one the woman can apply alone. It just requires the man to wake up and smell the morning coffee or tea—preferably from a pot he has made himself. A marriage is made up of a thousand such gestures, and not all of them need to be made in bed.
with Bushra Ahmed
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