My wife and I

I faithfully reproduce the post-dinner conversation we had last Sunday.

NSS: In the next issue of Metro Views, I intend doing a piece on women and I am sure you can be of some help.

VS: I caution you not to essay any such misadventure. You will overnight lose female readership. I mean.. if at all you have any.

NSS: No. I consider your apprehensions ill-founded. Women are not only members of the fair sex but they are also fair-minded.

VS: Anyway, whatever you choose to write, make sure you do not despise women. Bear in mind that behind every successful man there is a woman.

NSS: I have also often heard that adage. – but, history does not seem to bear that out. When a young man sought Socrates’ view on marriage, he said “By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you will be happy: if you get a bad wife, you will become a philosopher.” Imagine how bad a wife Socrates must have had for him to become the world’s greatest philosopher.

VS: Don’t tell me about Socrates. He was a reckless person and an irresponsible husband. He had no business to get married in the first place.

NSS: But it is said that even his foremost disciple Plato thanked God every night that he was born a man and not a woman.

VS: Do not quote out of context. Plato also thanked God every night that he was born a Greek and not a Babylonian; that he was born a free man and not a slave. Those were times when slaves and women were treated alike and Plato must have been horrified at the prospect of being a woman. Otherwise, he had no particular contempt for women.

NSS: Why even Schopenhauer cried aloud“When you go thy woman, remember thy whip”







VS: You ask any student even doing his under-graduation in Philosophy, he will vouchsafe that Schopenhauer was the world’s greatest pessimist incapable of appreciating the good things of life including women.



NSS: But you cannot say the same of Rudyard Kipling. He was a robust thinker and a great lover of nature. He said the female of the species is deadlier than the male.

VS: I am amazed at your half-learning. Kipling was fascinated with wild life. His remarks pertain only to the lower forms of life and not the humans.;

NSS: Oscar Wilde dedicated one of his novels “To my wife but for whose willing help and cooperation I would have finished the book in half the time”

VS: This is exactly what I am telling you. Men are an ungrateful lot. After availing his wife’s full assistance, he did not have the decency to acknowledge it. I have read enough of Oscar Wilde and quite often attempting to be humorous he has sacrificed truth.

NSS: Forget him. Leo Tolstoy is indisputably one of the world’s greatest writers with his magnum opus “War & Peace”. Do you know what he once told his friend and fellow-writer Maxim Gorky? He said “I will tell you the truth about women only when I have one foot in the grave and having said it, will pull the lid over my coffin”

VS: Heavens! If that be so, this man Tolstoy was most unsuited to write either about war or peace. If he had really respected war, he should have courageously expressed his views on women during his lifetime and faced the war. Even by peace, it now appears he was referring only to the peace of the graveyard.

NSS: Some noted thinker I forget his name, uncharitably described women as
“The undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, short-legged race”. I know you will be provoked.

VS: This is nothing short of hypocrisy. In that case, why do you men so maddeningly organize beauty contests, make women catwalk in semi-nudity and measure their vital statistics with devouring eyes.

NSS: Even Anatole France had commented that never share a secret with three women unless two of them are dead.

VS: I am fed up. Don’t expect me to react to every one of those stupid observations made by any number of those sick minds. If you have nothing better to talk about, let me at least not lose out on my night’s sleep.

NSS: I concede it is indeed difficult for a man to outwit a woman when it comes to arguing. God made men stronger and to give the women an equal chance, made their tongues little longer.

VS: Please understand God not only made our tongues a little longer but also made our brains a little sharper.

NSS: Anyway, I seem to agree with you. We should not perpetuate any longer the age-old battle of the sexes. After all man is born to a woman and a woman is born of a man. We should learn to live in harmony. I was only letting you know what so many great men had thought of women. Otherwise, I certainly have great regard for the weaker sex.

VS: Mind you, one last word. Never ever refer to women as the weaker sex.
I resent it.

NSS: Oh! Sorry.. I never meant it that way. As a matter of fact, I consider men as the weaker sex. You know the stronger sex is the weaker sex because of its weakness for the weaker sex.

Vatsan,

Welcome to il.

Loved the friendly banter.

NSS: Oh! Sorry.. I never meant it that way. As a matter of fact, I consider men as the weaker sex. You know the stronger sex is the weaker sex because of its weakness for the weaker sex

You think it is only because of the weakness to the weaker sex men are weaker..my god what a great ego...(I think you would have got a few from your wife ..if not let me ask her to give few...)

And how come you have quoted all men philosophers... there were few females who had opinions of the weaker sex ( man) you know.

Hi,

Nice write up...enjoyed it...after reading the entire thing...i think i now see god's view now...god created man first for practice then he got down to the masterpiece....

warm wishes,

aqua.

hi priya,

Good one dear. I could not have said better.