Dirty Old Men, Foolish Young Women

In pursuit of the ongoing and heated debate in The Sunday Star, following the letter published to Dear Thelma, I decided to take a peek into the issue as well; however from my own perspective and not in any way related to the story as posted by the original author.

So, in this context, it revolves more on the secret affairs between the older men and young women. Hmmm...may I make a correction to the statement; married older men :p
And, you may wonder, what's with all this fuss over the issue since it is no longer a new trend following the multiple wives trend during our ancestors' time and yeah, you read that right, multiple wives...

Dating back to ancient history, in most countries, such as China, India, and even Europe, the rulers of the country wedded many wives; but in all, there is only one legal wife; the first to be wedded will always be recognized, in the eyes of the public, the legal and rightful wife.
This applies to the commoners as well; and in ancient China, there is also a policy which may differ from the aforementioned practice; whereby the first wife may not necessarily be the legal wife. The women are ranked by their reproductive ability; whereby the first wife to bear a child; to be more specific, a son; the heir to the family will be automatically bestowed the title of the first wife. This also gave birth to the idealisme of the importance of the male gender over the female gender whereby some women would go to the extent of killing or exchanging their babies if they were born girls. Sad, but true.
In fact, even today, some are still doing the same thing in order to protect their position in their husbands' and in-laws' eyes.

Now, back to the original issue; older men with younger girls huh?
Hmmmm....somehow, we often hear of married men having affairs out of their marriages; be it with younger girls or women their age. Point is, extra marital affairs are no longer new in the contemporary world. What happened to the marital vows which they swore by during the wedding ceremony? Are they just reading it for the sake of reading it in order to complete the ceremony? What is the meaning of matrimony anymore? Isn't it supposed to be a solemn and sacred affair between two people in love? Or love is not an important element in the marriage anymore?

It is sad how fragile this can be; how women are neglected as they get older and their husbands start to venture beyond the marriage borders to seek for excitement. Their once beautiful and young wives who have now aged after delivering their "heirs" and "heiresses", haggard and tired looking everyday due to the mountaineous household chores they have to do, and also their once fair and smooth skin and hair, now looking shaggy and dirty due to the washing and cooking they have to do.....are now abandoned because of the states they have gotten themselves into. They secretly felt disgusted (I think openly, for some of them), with the physical states of their wives and felt ashamed if they were to be seen in public with them, whom they called wives.

Furthermore, they get bored looking at the same faces and also the lack of lustre and shine in their once adorable appearances. Thus, they start to pay attention, or some allegedly claimed that they admired the young and chirpy young ladies around them who are keeping up with the trend; with a physical stature of a model, silky long hair, innocent looks, cute giggles, attractive eyes and a great sense in fashion. Then they start flirting and slowly, the betrayal of the marriage vows commence as these men stumbled upon the extra marital affairs with these "other" women.

Now, I am not saying these based on my own judgement; in fact the reasons I have listed up there were given by the men in a study conducted. That justifies the reason why older men prefer younger women.

On the contrary, it is a question as to why the younger girls would engage themselves with these older and furthermore, married men when they can have any men down to their knees given their physical appearance.

Well, there are also reasons to the justification; of the most popular would be wealth and society status. Most of the older men who can afford to have extra marital affairs are usually reputable and sought after in the corporate world. Otherwise, they would not have the luxury to buy gifts lavishly for these unknowing and naive young girls.
Also, there is a sense of security among the young women to hang out with these older men due to the maturity level. In fact, it is undeniable that older men tend to be more attentive and caring towards their partners, especially if their partners are younger(this is due to their insecurity though, the other way round :p ).
Thus, the women felt they were truly cared for and loved based on the attention showered upon them. Hence, most of the women usually opt for partners older than them; although the trend today also portrayed otherwise.

Another reason would be the old word, LOVE. Yes, no discrimination allowed, it is not such a surprising thing and yet nobody believe the simple meaning of this word. I do not see any problem with young women falling in love with older men; even if they were married. After all, this is love and nobody can tell whether it's right or wrong, I think I've posted before this on love, whereby you do not go looking for love but it will naturally find you. Therefore, given all the attention and love by these older men, it is no surprise that the young women who are still naive and vulnerable to their charms fall into the circle of love. (Tempted to say trap, but then, no discrimination:P )

Simple as that, they fall in love hard and by the time they realized their partners are actually married or attached, they find it hard to let go and chose to hold on, to the extent of willing to keep the affair going in secret. Of course, this will not last as jealousy and anger eventually prevails and the demands will start to come in whereby these women want a family of their own and request, ermmm....DEMAND...that the men leave their wives or risk having their affairs being exposed.

Also, there are cases where there are young women who already knew beforehand that the men are married and yet pursue them due to the jealousy and longing feeling for these model family men. Thus, they are determined that they are more deserving of the attention and resorted to extreme extents to win over these men for themselves.

Well, whichever it is, there is no one to judge the wrong and right in issues like these; however, my humble thought on this is that no one ever has the right to hurt anyone; be it in life or love.
As they say, all is fair in love and war; and I believe that we can have the freedom to do whatever we want and also to love whoever we please, as love is blind and we never know when we will just "fall" in love. That's why we even see people hanging around with abusive spouses, drug addicts, murderers, etc. There is no justification for that; but only thing is, avoid hurting others.

I know, we should always seize opportunities as they come by, but if the opportunity is already someone else's, why hang on to it? You are actually taking something which does not belong to you; that's equivalent to stealing. For the ladies, please take note that you are not only causing harm to the other women whom are the rightful spouses of the men you are seeing but also the young offsprings who are innocent and oblivious to the happenings of the adults. Most importantly, you are also hurting yourself in the process.

There are other fish in the sea and a whole lot of trees in the forest, why pick one which is already picked?

As for the men, beauty and looks may be not be there forever and if you are marrying someone because they look beautiful to you, that's not love. Do NOT proceed with the proclamation of the marital vows if that is so. Do not say what you do not mean, and do not make empty promises.
It may mean the world to someone and imagine how they would feel if these were to vanish one day?

If one day, you were to come home and find your once beautiful wives shabby and plain-looking, do you stop loving her? Regret marrying her?
Point is, please think before you take the big leap into marriage and consider all the possibilities.

Additionally, please take note that nothing lasts forever; if you think your wives are no longer as radiant and glowing as before, think of the hardship she went through each day when you were at work; cleaning the whole house, cooking for you, washing all the clothes, etc.
The reason she has gray hair on her head; is due to the amount of thinking she has to do in planning the menu for your meals, the finances for the household and your allowances, the future of the kids, etc.
Her rough hands and composure are due to the toiling in the household.
Her dark skin due to the exposure to the sun as she makes sure your clothes are dry enough to be worn to the office and also in sending your kids to be educated.
Her aging due to the life-and-death situation she put herself through in bearing those kids who bore your name.
Above all this, this truly shows the strong love she has for you as she is willing to endure all this for you.

Therefore, cherish your spouses, and that goes the same for the ladies(not only men are having extra marital affairs, you know) .
Think before you are to do something which you may regret for the rest of your life and also hurt the person whom you have loved and loved you in return.
Reminisce the romantic moments you have had with your spouses and you will feel nostalgic and reminded of why you were in love in the first place.

And to the young ladies out there, be cautious and pull out yourself if you found someone who is already married. I don't think you would like the idea of sharing your spouse with someone else; sharing is definitely not the concept to be applied in this context.

Remember, it takes two to tango; if you do not nod to the invitation, you would not be in the situation.

"Two's company and three's a crowd....."
Let's just leave it at two :)