AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 85 of 167 The woman continues “Don’t ever refer to that insipid creature called a wife. A wife is nothing but a beloved minus the romance, the passion, the ardour and the warm urges. It is much better to cease being a beloved than being converted to a wife. How I wish I had always remained a beloved – lived and died as one and not become a wife”. The man is taken aback by her sentiments and fascinated by her eloquence. The woman continues to enlighten him “There is a world of a difference between a beloved and a wife. Samuel Johnson says ‘I like the company of ladies. I like their beauty. I like their delicacy. I like their vivacity. I like their silence’. As a beloved a woman dictates to her lover whereas a wife is shouted at wildly by her husband. A beloved can scold her lover to correction. She is supreme but a wife is a subordinate. A beloved is as free as a bird to sit in any tree but wife is like a bird in a cage with her wings of youthful freedom clipped altogether. When beloved becomes a wife, the tables are turned. The master becomes the slave and the slave the master. Poets have sung in praise of the beloved, superb splendid sonnets, magnificent melodies and exquisite epics have been composed about them. Do you know there is not a single poet who will touch a wife with even a pair of tongs? Wives are unromantic, flat, sapless creatures. There is no adventure or risk about them. A beloved is imagination incarnate like a serene white lotus or a colourful butterfly orchid. A wife is more like a common place cabbage or a cucumber. An aura of magic and mystery surround the beloved. A wife is like an open book, an oft read, well thumbed, dog-eared paperback edition.” I leave it to you to decide what type of a woman Wordsworth meant when he said: - “She is a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight A lovely apparition sent To be a woman’s ornament.”