Against the Grain

I'm supposed to stay home, do the laundry, keep house. I should wait on my husband, like a true well-bred Filipina, serve him meals cooked with love, and lay his clothes neatly on the bed while he takes a shower.

I have been raised to believe that it is a woman's duty to submit to her husband's wishes, his decision the supreme law of the house. Unbreakable. Unarguable.

And like all the other women born in this patriarchal society, I was taught the art of suffering in silence while my husband sleeps with another woman during his lunch break, on weekends, or whenever it pleases him.

"He's a man after all," they'd say. Like it's the most natural thing to do; that there's no need to apologize if he does it.

I wonder if they would give me the same understanding if I make the same mistake. Would they say it's okay, I'm as human as he is? Would they be as forgiving?

Probably not. They would crucify me; call me a whore, a slut who should be hanged. They would avoid looking at me as if I have a disease; as if looking at me alone is enough to contaminate them.

Lualhati Bautista said in her book Dekada '70: "It's a man's world," and women weak enough to commit that kind of blunder will not be tolerated.

So if I ask the household help to do the cooking while my husband fantasizes about how he would screw his mistress as he takes a shower, blame me. I'm a lazy wife who doesn't even know how to boil water.

If I'm too disgusted to go near the wet, dirty underwear he left on the bathroom floor, if I refuse to listen to his ramblings about his work when I know it's his mistress doing another man that's really eating him, sue me. I did not marry to be a shock absorber, an audience who will soothe his bruised ego, not even a maid who will follow all his whims and caprices.

I will continue to work. I will travel. I will see the world. I will not forget who I am and what I am is not just a mother, a wife.

I am a woman with a mind of her own, strong-willed and independent. I can be anyone's dream or nightmare. But I can also be a companion; a quiet refuge from all cares and worries. A drop of water in the desert. A diamond in the sand.

And I will not let anyone-not my husband or this male-controlled society-indoctrinate me with such a bigoted, narrow-minded conviction.