Childless by choice ... dream or nightmare?

From the day a girl learns to play, she is given dolls. Most girls will pretend the dolls are their "babies". They will pretend to feed them, and care for them. They lull them to sleep and kiss them good night.. They will pretend to be mothers. Most girls will love interacting with new babies, holding them, helping grown ups take care of them... by looking at these girls, one would think that motherhood comes naturally to females in general. The concept is taken and generalized... and becomes the norm, and the expectation of every adult woman. Any woman who dares think differently is not tolerated. As girls get older they are taught that motherhood is the most important role a woman could have. They go to school and get an education, but they are taught that children and motherhood come first, career comes second, if at all. Many are told that a career in something to fall back on just in case you never get married, or your husband for some reason is incapacitated and cannot work, so you can be the "backup" breadwinner until he recovers. Many girls spend all of their premarital life looking forward to the day when they will be mothers.... others will marry only to have children, the husband has a secondary role in their equation. To top it all off, religion dictates that a woman's "role" is child bearing and caring for the family.... This may seem like a traditional way of thinking... a no brainer.. really isn't this what all women want??

The answer to this question is yes, and no. Yes, because most, but not all women want to have children. There are no real statistics to verify this statement, but if you look at countries where having a child is not a necessity, it is not uncommon to see a woman who has decided not have kids. They are women who are childless by choice. They would rather go to the movies than spend the weekend feeding and changing diapers. They would rather spend time with their significant other, enjoying each others company, rather than fighting about whose turn it is to put the kids to bed, or fix a big healthy dinner, or change a dirty diaper. They would rather get a good night sleep rather than be up all night with a child with a fever. They would rather spend all their energy advancing their careers, rather than spending it dealing with issues relating to caring for kids. They would rather save their money for retirement and for fancy houses, great vacations and expensive cars rather than saving it for a child's education. Is this right? Is this wrong? No one can judge, it is an individual choice. If this is how these women want to spend their life, it is their prerogative. They make a decision, and go through with it, and whatever consequences there are, they bear them, because this is their choice. The other kind of woman is someone who wants to dedicate her life to her family and children. She enjoys caring for dependant children that are her own. She is happy to sing her baby to sleep. Saving money for a child's future gives her a purpose in life. It doesn't matter if her spouse does not do his share of the house work, or refuses to change the baby. Having this baby and caring for it is the joy of her life and the purpose of her existence. Nothing compares to the feeling of tiny hands around her neck giving her a good night hug and a kiss. When she is with her kids, her career is secondary, and whether it exists or not, is not an issue, as long as she has a happy healthy family. She is not concerned about the future if for example she gets divorced or her spouse dies.For this woman, this is her choice, and whatever consequences come of it, they are hers, because it was her decision to live life in this manner. Other women can combine both options together... this is also their choice, and if it results in lack of sleep or excessive stress, or being drained all the time from too much responsibility, they will be happy because they have both a career and a family. Again a choice they made. In this day and age, do women in our Egyptian society have this choice? Can an Egyptian woman decide not to have kids? Will she be ostracized by society for making this decision? What about women who cannot have children?? How can these women cope in such a society?

For an Egyptian woman, life after marriage changes dramatically. From day one of her marriage, she is asked if she is pregnant. If the answer is no, the question will be repeated on each subsequent visit, every phone call, every chance meeting in the street. Parents will ask, in laws will ask, siblings will ask. Friends, neighbors, distant relations, and even colleagues at work. Everyone who knows that she is recently married will ask if she is pregnant, and if she says no, they will ask so when do you plan to get pregnant? The pressure to reproduce is relentless. Delaying child bearing for a year or two will be frowned upon. She will be pressured to have a baby immediately or else. She is "advised" by concerned family members that if she does not have a child as soon as possible, her husband will run off with the next available woman. She is "threatened" by her in laws that if she does not produce the next heir... preferably a male baby, they will get their son a second wife. Religion will be mentioned in every conversation. Her God-given "role" has to be fulfilled as soon as possible.... she is told it is her duty.. it is why God created her. For many women, there is no way around it.... they will try to get pregnant as quickly as possible to please everyone.... and to fulfill the role society demands. Most of the time, one child is never enough... soon after her first child, the relentless nagging and social pressure will begin again to force her to have more and more children.. how these children will be supported is not their concern.... God will provide for the kids, so there is no need for her to look at her finances to see if she and her spouse can afford to take care of a new child. The only way an Egyptian woman can be childless by choice is if she never marries.... which puts a whole new stigma on her.... she will forever be "spinster" a reject, never a part of society.... never accepted for who she is... and constantly reminded that she is nothing without a man. Most women will avoid this stigma if they can.

The consequences of this peer pressure on women seems trivial when compared to the consequences suffered by women who cannot reproduce. These unfortunate women will have to sustain tremendous amounts of societal pressure, and they will have no way out. Explaining intimate details about her very private medical dilemma as painful as that will be for her, will only bring about looks of pity, and gossip behind her back. Some will even offer to find a new wife for her husband, so the man can have a family, totally oblivious to the feelings of the woman. It is as if she does not exist, and her infertility is a crime that requires she be punished for it. A very good read that discusses the dynamics of the cultural impact of infertility on Egyptian women is "Infertility and Patriarchy: The Cultural Politics of Gender and Family Life in Egypt by Marcia Claire Inhorn".

A close look at infertile couples in Egypt will show that the blame is usually placed on the woman's shoulders. Many men will refuse to be tested and will feel that being tested for infertility is an insult to their "manhood". Then the husband's family will blame the woman even if she is not at fault, and threats of divorce or a second wife will be constantly thrown in the woman's face. Lack of reproductive education in our society, and the stigma associated with educating youngsters about their bodies are contributing factors to the many misconceptions prevalent in Egyptian society. The image that comes to the minds of most Egyptians when sex education is mentioned is pornography. This is why most parents are so adamant about preventing their children from learning, or from being taught a course about sex education in the school curriculum. Parents also have many issues regarding this matter. It is often an awkward subject to discuss with teenage children, so many parents avoid it all together, also not all parents have all the answers, since they themselves never received the proper education. If only parents are informed that sex education is about Reproduction, how it works, and how the human body functions, they would understand why this is an important part of education that needs to be included in school curricula, and that it is in no way shameful or embarrassing, and it will not teach children bad behaviour. It will teach them information that will help them function as adults, and will answer questions that they already have, which will otherwise be answered by peers who don't have the proper information as well... hence all the misinformation circulating in society. In the previously mentioned book, the author interviewed Egyptian men who believed that a man deposits a fetus (rather than sperms) in a woman's body, and these men were shocked that women produced eggs, and actually thought that it was a ridiculous idea, because women are not like chickens!!!! One informant went as far as saying that if a woman does not produce children, then the man is feeding her for nothing!!! Another form of unacceptable women objectification. The point of view of women is not any better. Many feel inadequate, and unable to fulfill the role they spent their entire life preparing for. These women live in constant fear that their life as they know it will end because they have "defaulted" in an unforgivable way. They know in their hearts that they can wake up one morning and find that their husband decided to marry another woman, they may wake up one day to find themselves alone, while the man they spent years with has gone and started another family. He laughs and goes out, and sleeps with another woman. He has a life to live... but not the woman. Her inability to conceive is unacceptable. Many women in this situation will end up with depression, and some even contemplate suicide.... There are no support groups for these women, and the nagging society they live in is unforgiving. Even if this is through no fault of their own. I believe that if being childless by choice were acceptable in society, women who suffer from infertility would be less ostracized and less liable for devastation of their family life. Why not encourage careers for girls? Why do we hammer into their brains from the time they open their eyes that they need to be mothers? Why not give them something besides motherhood to look forward to?? The need for motherhood comes naturally to most people, so why are we reinforcing it at the expense of all other options in life? Why is a successful man without children accepted by society, but a successful woman without children ostracized? Encourage your daughters to be talented in music, art, science.... anything she likes.... let them have a life besides being mothers.... let grown women have the choice to be mothers... Why make it a necessity? why is it an order done under societal pressure? When will we be able to see "career women" who are childless by choice?? Why do people feel the need to dictate other people's lives and choices? Why ostracize someone for their ability or inability to reproduce? Just live, and let live. Let Egyptian women be Free!!!

The Wife's Boyfriend: Is He the Better Deal?

How does this sound?.. Awkward? Bizaar? Meaningless? Well, not to me. I'm pretty familiar with the concept. Heard it being justified over and over. Yes, there are wives who do have secret boyfriends. But they didn't mean to cheat. In fact, they think that those boyfriends help them go on with their marriages. They would never think of cheating. It's completely out of the question.

To start off, I want to make it clear that I am not making any moral judgements. Those women are all devoted wives who took the decision to stay on board of a sinking ship in the hope of saving whatever can saved. I won't betray the trust of those who confided in me and shared their stories. Yet, I feel obliged to talk about this subject for a number of reasons:

1. The several cases I knew of suggest that there are quite a number of wives who share the same secret.

2. All those wives are suffering an ethical dilemma that is threatening their lives, and which could have been easily avoided if they had read a post like that before slipping into the area where they are trapped now.

3. Women usually open up and talk about their problems after they grow beyond repair. They are being intimidated to express their pain by everybody around them. Families are so relieved once a girl is married off, they focus all their efforts on keeping their daughters inside the marriage. This causes them to refuse acknowledging that their daughters are having problems. They won't listen. They may tell them that all those feelings of frustration are imaginary, or caused by the evil eye. It is the devil that makes her imagine things. Similarly, friends would refrain from providing real support, thanks to the common female wisdom which says that complaining wives will always reconcile with their husbands making the friend who interfered in their problem be classified as jealous and wicked. Who can give sincere advice when their reputation is at risk?

4. Each of those wives thought that she was a unique case, unknowing that her frustration is actually shared by many others. If they had known that, they would have learned of better ways of coping with their frustration before it devours their hope.

5. Wives who ended up having double lives didn't ever plan for anything of that sort. What started as an innocent attempt to break away from depression, gradually turned into a serious situation. They are victims of inexperience and unrealistic assumptions.

6. None of those women can bring herself to see that what she is doing is cheating. Cheating seems to have a very narrow meaning in our culture. Some forms of cheating are even idealized by those who commit them. Like students who cheat in exams and think it is a good sign of cooperation. Those wives, as I said earlier, are under the illusion that what they are doing is helping them continue with their married lives. As long as the relationship doesn't involve anything sexual or indecent, then it can not be considered cheating. Those of them who didn't actually meet their boyfriends in person, don't consider this a relationship at all.

7. In many cases, the wife suspects that her husband is having an affair (or multiple affairs). This puts her conscience at ease somehow, as she believes that her innocent relationships can in no way be compared to his sins.

8. Those of them who are mothers claim that they are putting the kids' best interest before their own. If they were selfish enough, they would have asked for divorce, in which case the children will be the victims, they argue. So mainly, they prefer to have secret affairs instead of divorce!

Allow me to repeat that I am not passing any moral judegements. I place my honest opinion in the care of those who wish to face the reality of the situation, and for anyone who is actually involved in this kind of relationship or is about to get involved.

First of all, it is in my humble opinion that the extremely high social cost of divorce (which I discussed in my previous post) should be the first to blame if anyone wishes to place criminal charges. Society has made divorce (which is allowed by God in mercy of his mortal creations) become such a shameful stigma, that would stain any woman who happens to be unfortunate enough to actually hold the title of divorcee. As I explained earlier in my posts, our culture values appearances much more than it values the real ethics of people. If you appear good according to social measures, then you are good, no matter what you do in secret. As long as a person is clever enough to keep secrets hidden from everybody, then he/she has nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if you are the best person that could ever be, yet you fail to maintain the accepted appearance, then you are in a position to be questioned by others, who tend to attach the worst explanation to anything that won't appeal to them. What if you carry a label that generates all kinds of negative responses from society? Imagine if you move around with a sign sticking to your chest saying "DIVORCED WOMAN"! This does not need any kind of effort from others to put you in the black list. You skip the questioning phase to be automatically delivered into the social waste basket. Nobody cares to know any background details. It doesn't mean anything if you were a victim in a miserable marriage. It doesn't make a difference if you are a surviver of the marital hallocauste. You carry the label. You have a criminal record. You are evil by default. You are guilty by nature.

Who wants to step into this fire? Hey, welcome tough woman! Show us your guts! You're nobody's friend. You're everybody's ex-friend. You scare the women away. You invite male scum who invite themselves to take their chances. You are avoided by married couples. You can't be seen anywhere in public. You are suspicious. You never get invited over. You can't expect good wills from anyone who comes near you. You're harmful bacteria.. and everybody fears infection.

If this is not intimidating, please tell me. We crucify our divorced women in public. Human cannibals eat their flesh alive. What do you expect? Honesty? Moral values? Courage? Truth?.. What? This society deserves nothing else than its own nature. Double faces, double values, double standards, double lives, and LIES, LIES, LIES. A society that lies to itself can expect no more or wish for no more. Exceptions will exist at their own risk. But if you are a true daughter of this society, you have well absorbed its teachings. You are like the fish in water. And you will be safe inside the water as long as you are in harmony with your surroundings. Only fools are ready to lose everything in return for nothing.

Yet, I ask, what about you? What about the person inside you? How can you calm her down? How can you shut her up? I know your husband is an insensitive pig. He doesn't have this good person inside talking to him. He does not suffer when he is mean to you. He is a natural bastard. But what about you? You do deserve a better life. You have many admirable qualities that he can not appreciate. You have a huge emotional energy, a volcano of feelings, a longing for romance, a thirst for understanding.. Yes, you have the right to satisfy your heart. You have the right to feel wanted and desired. You have all the right to find someone who listens to you. You only want a receptive heart to absorb your pain and sadness. You need a soft pillow to be able to take a nice nap that will aid you to go on with your tiresome life. You are human, and all humans are weak.

A nice chat with someone with whom you feel comfortable can lift up your mood for the whole day. I understand how good it feels when for the first time you reach out your hand in distress to find another hand willing to catch yours. There is someone who is not trying to make use of you. Someone who finds you funny, intelligent, interesting, and romantic. Someone who sees the real you. Someone who is always there to hear you and comfort you. Someone who cares for your feelings and tries to lift up your spirits. Someone who doesn't criticize you or patronize you. He makes you laugh. He says nice words. He is interested in what you think. He likes your sense of humor. He asks about your day. He pays attention to all the details. He gives you his opinion when you ask for it. He cares and shares your troubles. He finds your voice musical. He knows how to bring out the best in you.

And you got used to this man in your life. His presence, even through emails, online chat, phone calls, or sms, has become so essential. You can't go back to your life before him. You can't stop needing him. You feel you are addicted. It is all innocent talk. It is just communicating with someone you feel comfortable with. You exchange views and a couple of jokes. It's not a big deal. It's not your fault that society doesn't allow a married woman to have a male friend. You have to keep knowing him a secret, although there is nothing secretive about your relationship. I understand it all, believe me. And I don't blame you. And I don't have any bad thoughts about you. I know you are a good woman. I know that you are a respectable person who wouldn't do anything shameful or immoral. I won't care for you if I didn't believe all that.

My dear, I want you to think more about yourself. You might think that you are in total control of how this hidden communication is going and where it is heading. But others who did that all thought the same. However, they reached a point when they became more flexible with the strict rules they put from the start. For some, curiosity was beyond control. "I have to see this person. His face will say more about him. It would tell if I can really trust him or not. What if he is a young boy or an old man who has been deceiving me? I must find out for myself." For others, it was the unexpected development of feelings towards this person. They found themselves getting closer and closer, and the closer they become the more they get attached. Then you can never know. Your mind will start deceiving you in such a cunning way, making you able to find a justification for anything you want to do. Your mind can use your negative feelings towards your husband to push into directions you didn't really want. It can make the idea of revenge sound so tempting that it becomes irresistable. I've seen women going for things they didn't truly want just because they felt like a chance for revenge. The more they get attached to other people, the more guilty they feel, and the more they hate their husbands for being the cause for all this mess. This area is so slippery. No matter how much you think you are in control, there is always a chance of falling. The secretive nature of the relation gives it unlimited possibility for expanding. Walking two steps sounds as risky as walking the whole mile. It is a dark side of your life after all, and once you have this side it tends to fill itself gradually, adding more and more secrets. Then you will find that the innocent secret has turned into a whole other life, where there is a whole other you playing the leading role. The amount of secrets piling up will turn into a mountain dividing your life into two. Once this happens, a secret whether innocent or not, becomes a load of guilt placed over your shoulders. You only shake it off when the other person takes over, but it will quickly return again once you are back to your first self. And that's what you are stuck with most of the time.

You don't deserve that. Why torture yourself in such a way? Why do you willingly switch from being a victim to being guilty? What if your most carefully hidden secret was found out? How will you be able to prove that it is innocent? How will you appear in the eyes of everyone? Who will believe your defences or understand your motives? If you have kids, what will happen to them? What if they heard any of the things being said about you? How can you face them? How will you be able to continue being a mother in their eyes? And what could possibly be worth all this disaster? Fear of society? Fear of divorce?.. Do you think these are enough reasons to ruin yourself?

If you are having a bad marriage, invest the time and feelings you are ready to place into another relationship inside your marriage. Try to work things out using all possible methods. Express yourself honestly. Don't seek quick fixes that depend on your endurance and sacrificing your wishes. If that doesn't work. Face it! Be brave to admit to yourself that now is the time to jump off this sinking ship. Marriages fail for many reasons, but they only destroy people who are not wise enough to know when to end them. If you are newly married, give yourself at least 2 years before having children. You can never test the stability of your marriage before that. If things are not going well, don't ever listen to those who say that kids change husbands. They change them to the worse, that's all. Get out. Now is the right time. You don't need to increase the number of victims in this sinking ship. It is never too late to have the life you want. Don't live in denial. Denial only complicates matters and makes them grow beyond repair. Each year you spend in a failed marriage, is not only wasted from your life forever, but adds up to the losses and makes it more difficult for you to leave.

My final advice to you is to weigh things before taking any decisions. If you lose yourself, there is absolutely nothing to win.

How Much Does a Woman Pay for Divorce?

This time I pose the above question because I was so surprised to see that many people can't form a realistic image about the critical condition of divorced women in Egypt. I'd like to say that women who haven't undergone the painful experience have a big share in contributing to this unrealistic view. Our media, with all its messed up representations of almost all social groups, also played a very big role in shaping this image. This false image more or less originated after the law of khul' (a law which gives the wife the right to divorce her husband through court if she hates to continue living with him on the condition of returning back the amount of money paid by her husband as dowry at the time of marriage, and which also states the inability of husbands to appeal against their wives divorcing them) was approved by the Constitutional Court. It is as if a single law can wipe away long years of negative stereotyping and social discrimination practiced against divorced women.

It is true that this long-anticipated law (along with the introduction of family-court) came at a very critical time, and was actually the only hope for thousands of women who have been waiting for years for a verdict that would put an end to their miserable marriages. Going through many legal battles, years of waiting, going from court to court to follow the lawsuit, paying a big sum of money to lawyers, were never enough to ensure winning the case. Women faced many obstacles during hearings, and it is so difficult for most of them to prove that serious harm was inflicted on them by their husbands. That was because of the general trend among married men here, who refuse to divorce their wives no matter how bad their marriages have turned to be. The majority of men think that women have no right to decide when to terminate a marriage. It is taken for granted that such a decision is 100% masculine. A man can suddenly and unconditionally decide to divorce his wife, and the law even gives him the right to divorce her without her knowledge. He can then be kind enough to ask the police to notify his ex-wife, by sending her the divorce papers, or he can just disappear without ever caring to let this woman know whether she is still married or not.

Another reason why men refuse to divorce their wives has to do with money. According to the Islamic shariaa, a man who divorces his wife has to pay a fine (mo2a7'ar) which is already stated in the marriage contract, a monthly amount of money for children fees (nafaqah), and monthly payments for the ex-wife (nafaqet 3eddah+mot3ah) as long as she doesn't remarry. All this in addition to the wife's right to keep the appartment where she lived with her husband in case she has custody of their children who are under 12. Of course these financial rights will be lost if the husband refuses to divorce his wife officially. Men have the choice of verbally declaring divorce, which is considered a full divorce from a religious point of view, without going through the official procedures to authenticate this divorce on paper. In such cases, the Egyptian legal system is totally paralyzed. Women who are verbally-divorced have absolutely no authority to claim their financial rights. They have to file for divorce first, and if the court divorces them, then they can claim those rights. But the problem is that the judical system doesn't approve of verbal-divorce, except when the ex-husband confesses that he did actually tell his wife that she was divorced, which is useless of course!.. or if the wife can get witnesses who are ready to testify that they heard her husband while verbally declaring divorce, which is equally useless. In 99% of the cases, husbands who divorce their wives by saying "you are divorced" won't say it in front of witnesses. Besides, a husband can always object to the testimonies of the witnesses, and members of the wife's family are already considered as having weak testimonies.

The other option would be for the woman to pretend that she was still married. She will then try to convince the court that her husband has been harming her. Again she will have to face the dilemma of the witnesses, objections by the husband's lawyer, and the own estimation of the judge of what is considered to be real harm. Therefore, most wives had no other choice but to say that "this harm" was due to lack of sexual intercourse. Can any Oriental woman stand in front of judges and lawyers to say such a thing? Even if that was the only way to have a divorce, it is considered too shameful and scandelous.

Now, what happened with the khul'? Not a big difference in fact. A wife has to convince the court that she has experienced a "change of heart" towards her husband, which prevent her from giving him his shariaa rights (which is the polite term for sexual rights). In this case, she will be viewed by everyone as being an unfaithful wife, who probably has an affair with another man. This would be the only reason behind her mysterious "change of heart," what else can it be? So, as you see, a woman who resorts to this solution is risking her riputation. What good will divorce do her after that?

What if she doesn't want to mention this change of heart? Same dilemma. She has to prove that her husband is abusive or violent or that she was seriously harmed by him. Now, with khul' (also called no-fault law) it is different. She doesn't have to go through the same complicated process of proving physical harm. After all she is will pay for divorce, so it may be enough that she gets weak testimonies. Yet, the fact that the law does not strictly define the degree of harm sufficient to grant a woman's right to divorce leaves a big room for the estimation of the judge. You can now guess what that means. Women of low social status won't be taken seriously if they filed for divorce because of being hit by their husbands. It is generally accepted among low classes that men can be phyically voilent with their wives. And this doesn't seem to alarm anyone who belongs to this social class at all. The judge then believes that rejecting the case is in favor of this family. To him, this woman is just angry and will soon calm down. So what if her husband hits her? Did he hit the queen of England?

Another example on the absurdity of the word "harm" is the fact that polygamy isn't considered by some judges to be harmful enough to the wife who discovers that her husband had secretly married another woman. The fact that polygamy is authorized for men in Islam, makes many judges reluctant to certify that it is psychologically harmful to the first wife. Judges are men after all, and with male calculations, a verdict that permits a wife to have divorce when her husband marries another can cause a revolution among women. If all women had easy access to divorce, the majority of men won't be able to marry more than one. Even a judge is not brave enough to announce a final judgement concerning polygamy. But is it really that hard to tell whether polygamy harms the first wife or not?

I hope that by now it is clear for you to see that women don't really have much say in deciding whether to go on with their marriages or not. Those who are lucky enough to get off the hook are only a small percentage. Women care for their children much more than they care for themselves and are willing to endure anything for the sake of protecting those children. Therefore most women whose husbands refuse to divorce them won't have the guts to file a lawsuit against their kids' father. How can a mother subject her children to this ordeal? How will she appear in the eyes of those children when they see her standing against their own father in court? This is the absolutely unendurable thing for mothers. Can you see it now? While men have unconditional access to divorce, not having to even enter a courtroom to end their marriages, women undergo a long process of painful suffering and have to beg for their divorce! They are forced to stay with husbands they hate. They are denied justice in the legal system. And those who succeed to end their marriage carry a social stigma and face a wide social rejection that reduces them to the level of bacteria!

-"Did you meet the new employee?"

-"No. Is she here already?"

-"Yeah.. hmhm.. Take care, she's a divorcee."

-"In what way shall I take care?"

-"She will share the same office with you. You may think she can be a close friend."

-"And what's the problem with that?"

-"Oh, you innocently naive girl! Sure you don't want anyone to think you hang out with her."

-"Sorry, I really don't get it. Why won't I want that?"

-"Hey.. You're single girl. You don't want to harm your reputation in any way. What if a colleague wants to propose and then finds out that your friend is a divorcee?"

-"What will happen?"

-"Are you seriously that naive? He may change his mind."

-"That will be good. But why?"

-"You don't mean that for sure. Why?? He will have doubts about your behavior. What makes a single girl like you have a divorcee as a friend?"

-"Wow.. And will it be any different if I was married? Can you be her friend for instance while I can't?"

-"NO WAY! Will only be friendly around the office, but I must keep my distance."

-"Why? Doesn't your husband trust you?"

-"Of course he does. It's I who don't trust him. Not him as a person, you can't trust men in general."

-"What's the relation between not trusting and the new employee?"

-"If I ain't careful enough in keeping my distance, she may wish us to be friends outside the office."

-"What's wrong with that? Can't you have coffee with her in a public place or what?"

-"That's not the problem. She may call me at home. My husband may pick up the phone. She then might visit me at home, and my husband can meet her."

-"Oh, I see.. So, you don't allow any women to call you or visit you at home."

-"Not any women. She is a divorcee, don't you understand?"

-"No. I can never understand, and I refuse to accept such a thing. What is there to understand? What if I was the one who was divorced and she was the single girl? Would you be telling me this precious advice now? Please go to attend to your work and never mention such things again."

-"You are young and inexperienced. I was just trying to open your eyes. Do as you like, you will only blame yourself for not taking my advice."

-"Thanks ya madam. But I don't think I will ever blame myself for being human and fair. I don't care to please a suitor who will doubt my conduct if one of my friends is a divorcee. And I certainly won't marry someone that I don't trust. Even if he leaves me for her, I won't regret. Because then I will be sure that this man did not deserve me and therefore is not worth keeping. That's me and that's how I think. There's no place for your wisdom here I'm afraid."

Do I need to say more?.. Not only does a woman pay a very high price for divorce, but she also has to pay for it more than once.