y f I HEY are best

I lawyer once remarked about how to handle husbands. With all her experience and knowledge one respects her comments. But is it truly the best way to win a man and keep him at your beck and call?

If one has only the limited experience of living at Melbourne and at Dhaka, apart from occasional visits and residing al other metropolises, one might have some views of one's own. They maybe ques-

tioned and refuted, yet one has the right, to differ from other opinions, and have those of one’s own.

One believes that there is little use Is bickering or arguing or even letting the "lord and master” of the house have his own way all the time, it is well known that marriage is a matter of give and take. Both the husband and wife must pilch In and help each other out. Thus for Instance, If there arc a pile of French examination connections, which can be handled only past midnight, husbands have been known to help out. to the last point and beyond.

Similarly. If one is teaching "A" and ”O" levels of English, apart from doing all the household chores, the husbands have been known to get books from overseas for wives — hardly equipped to handle the task before them. Again, a point tn case. If a job in French teaching had been available, the wife, dcyplte being a Bangladeshi, has been known to surpass French speaking teachers. This has been done only with confidence that the husband filled one’s head with, before the vital Interview.

Dealing with problems, in the same vein, when English articles for a leading national

broad sheet had to be composed and flown from Melbourne to Dhaka, a husband has been "at your service. Ma’am", without the wife even suggesting that the editing on the Jumbled composition on the computer should have been arranged in a methodical manner. This Is not to say the husband was Idle, or did not have his own pursuits to take care of- Understanding and sharing one's problems and Joys, one believes is the best

way to keep the eternally ego-consclous man In harness.

In the same manner when gifts for festive occasions for the extended family Down Under, Europe, Canada, USA and Bangladesh has to be handled. a wife docs her share of buying and budgeting, "and contriving how to keep the family contented, yet the husband has also been known to lend a hand, such as frame pictures. pack gifts to be shipped overseas, polish and dust the family antiques, and even pack and deliver Items for feslivc-occasfons, despite repeated dire distress and currently incurable diseases. This has been done by a wife's request from Dhaka to Melbourne, and even without It.

Not being a marriage counsellor. and, having only the experience of mitigating in female friend's conjugal problems, one still maintains that the men and women are Individuals, who have been married before God — who should not and cannot be ignored. Even teenagers know that “matter cannot be destroyed but changed." Who has not read Charlotte Bronte's "Wutherlng Heights?" One may not believes In ghosts and torments by spirits, but one may not be an atheist, and so

believe In life after death, and may fear the Interrogations that might ensue, and the complaints one's husband's spirit or soul might lodge at the Creator's "in-charge" of the massive computer, which He must be manning with his host of Hts "good angels”, as one can imagine. How then can one defend oneself for the sins of omissions and commissions, if one cannot keep one's tool, as all lawyers and debaters must, to win their' case and bring home the laurels?

God, with hts eternal wis-

dom — putting aside -the ancient' gods and goddesses of China. Africa, Subcontinent and 'Far-East, as well as the ancient ones of the Middle-East — is regarded as "He". Male genders are known to back the male sex. Will it be easy then, for the wife to go her own way. and ignore the plants, diapcries, carpets, potted plants. lawns, the packed lunches. and the final for someone who might, be. labelled incidentally as "Mr Elizabeth Taylor" by his first cousin, who also might happen to be his sister-in-law (despite the Roman Catholicism practised in the husband's-family)?

One is worried lo tears and petrified by the ABC Television reports, and discussion on the recent floods of Bangladesh apart from, printed reports and pictures. One may long to see one's family. As a consequence neither the husband nor tht wife might be able to sleep a wink. Yet life must go on. Thus they might proceed to watch television and read books through all hours of the night, and continue with their routine chores the following morning.

Even if there may not be any children at home (and this may remain the topic of discussion In the neighbourhood,

even tn a creme de In «cme pla<< like Mentone, near Port Philip Bay. Melbourne) there arc the nephews and nieces of the husband lo wek'omc and entertain at festive times, like birthdays, anniversaries, marriages. Christmas etc. Potflew has to be maintained at all cost. Here both the husband and the wife have lo fully com prehend each other and back each other, playing up each other s best qualities and camouflaging any possible flaws.

Despite tight budgeting, one must beg and borrow to keep up appearances before the husband’s family, and the wife's possible extended family overseas.

All the world's a stage," said Jacques In Shakespeare s Forest of Arden In "As You Ukc It". Mothers and aunts at Dhaka, might advise one. years after a crisA has taken place, that one must remember that men arc polygamous by nature, as psychologists have written, and which one has read oneself, decades back. Both the husband'and wife must try and handle any epiotlonul or economical disaster that effect any of the pair.

Husbands have been known to cool dowrt the wives Jittery feet, when their cx-collcagucs have died overseas. Similarly wives have come up to the challenge, despite being an "outsider" to the in-laws' environment Down Under, when there is a .death in the hus band's family. There must be sympathy and reciprocation at all times. Condolence messages and greeting card^, as well as gifts carried by hand, have reached the families of various couples on varied occasions.

One does not and cannot . agree that the man, one's family or oneself chose, should and can be ignored. One be-lievqs in the equality of the sexes. One admits that maintaining, the egoes and alter egoes of a couple is no trifling matter. To divide one's curares, in the modern times -i- If there are no doajesttc hands— as la often the case In the West, and sometimes even in the Bangladesh metropolis — is almost a Herculean task. One must plan, budget, use one's ingenuity, imagination, and resources, as well as rely on friends and relatives to handle the cooking, cleaning, gardening and sewing, apart from carrying on with one's intellectual pursuits.

If the basic backgrounds of the couple are similarly, though the origin of the man and wife maybe poles apart, Chaucer's "Amor Vincit Omnia" will prevail even in the nineties. Of course, one must also keep in mind the mottos like "God Helping Forward." of which one might have been agonised at one tiftre simply because other colleges and schools had other inscriptions in Latin on their blazers.