Could it be Love?
You might wish to read the previous article in this series before
reading this one. I had come to Phuket at the invitation of my US
business partner, who was living there, just to find he'd married a Thai
woman. I spent a long time trying to understand why either of them would
want to marry the other. They had little in common. I understood her
reasoning early on, but I'm still not sure about his. She was my
age (early forties) and far past the marriageable age for Thai women.
She was also getting too old to make much money in the bars, as most of
the tourists were interested in the 'young and beautiful' ones. She
liked him, and wanted to be married and 'respectable'. I suppose that isn't too much different from women in the west who
convince themselves they are in love. The one thing I found most
interesting is that she always said "I love my husband," never
"I love Dave". That might or might not have been a
language/culture difference, I did hear it from some others. I believe
she did care for him in some ways, and had convinced herself that she
loved him. Dave was quite certain he loved her, but looking from the outside, I
think he was more obsessed than loving. The two of them fought
constantly, and made it up passionately. All in all, I'd say they each needed the other. Her attitude was a
fairly pragmatic one, it was (for her) better to be a wife than to be a
bargirl. Survival was her concern. She'd led a pretty hard life, and
having a man to support her was a big priority. Even though he wasn't
rich, he was far better off than she was. She also had (as most Asians)
the obligation to send money to her family, and a source of steady
income was important. Dave I'm still not sure about, I'd known him for about eight years,
worked closely with him. I thought I understood him, but I suspect I was
wrong. I think he was looking for someone to take care of him. Maybe a
surrogate mama. I saw that aspect in a lot of the men there. The women
fit well into the "traditional wife" role, and most of the men
seemed to be looking for a mother more than a wife. They wanted someone
to cook and clean house and do the laundry, and send the boys out to
play -- no worries, no responsibilities. I don't think the Thai women are submissive in any sense of the word.
They just consider the work they do to be work. They work at home when
they can. As in most countries, in the poorer families, both men and
women work outside -- the 'traditional wife' is more fantasy than
reality. But they consider housework to be their job, and they expect to
be paid for it, with the husband's paycheque. Many a foreign man looking for a Thai wife has been appalled when the
woman immediately started discussing money. But that's the deal. Even in
a Thai to Thai marriage, money is a big part of marriage negotiations.
It's the man that pays. Thai culture is a bride-price culture, unlike
the West, which is a dowry culture. A Thai man who marries essentially
buys his bride, or his family does (the wife's family often pays this
back with housing help and suchlike). In the 'old days' in the west, if there was any money paid over a
marriage, it was usually the bride's father who gave the new husband a
dowry. In Thailand it is the opposite. I've heard people compare it to
slavery (you are buying the woman?) but it's really more a way for the
potential husband to prove that he's a good provider and that he values
her. In many Thai families, the man comes home and hands over his pay
cheque. The woman runs the family finances, and the man gets his
spending money from his wife. Needless to say, this goes over like a
lead balloon with most western men. Including Dave! Many of the fights
between the two of them were over money. The rest of them were over her suspecting him of frequenting bar
girls. To my knowledge, he didn't, but she didn't trust him out of her
sight unless I was along (which attitude only added to the rumours I
mentioned in the previous article). She was a bar girl when he met her,
and I think she was worried he might find another he liked better. He, in fact, denied to me for several months that she had been a bar
girl. She had told me, and he knew that, but he still denied it. He was
denying it more to himself than to me. In my opinion, that isn't love --
he couldn't accept what she had been, and wanted to make up a fantasy
life for her. She was more honest, she hadn't liked what she'd done, but
it had been necessary for her survival, and she wasn't ashamed of it. So -- in answer to that question I posed. No, I don't think it was
love on either part, not by the way I define love. It might well fit
other people's definitions though. I've often thought many people say
"I love" when they mean "I need", and they did need
each other. If anyone is interested... they are presently separated, fairly
amicably, and still in contact.
by Kathy Kinsley
September 27, 2000
Was
it love? (part 7)
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