IV. PLAYING
THE
HUSBAND
About the time of my marriage, little pamphlets
costing a pice, or a pie (I now forget how much), used to
be issued, in which conjugal love, thrift, child
marriages, and other such subjects were discussed.
Whenever I came across any of these, I used to go through
them cover to cover, and it was a habit with me to forget
what I did not like, and to carry out in practice
whatever I liked. Lifelong faithfulness to the wife,
inculcated in these booklets as the duty of the husband,
remained permanently imprinted on my heart. Furthermore,
the passion for truth was innate in me, and to be false
to her was therefore out of the question. And then there
was very little chance of my being faithless at that
tender age.
But the lesson of faithfulness had also untoward
effect. 'If I should be pledged to be faithful to my
wife, she also should be pledged to be faithful to me,' I
said to myself. The thought made me a jealous husband.
Her duty was easily converted into my right to exact
faithfulness from her, and if it had to be exacted, I
should be watchfully tenacious of the right. I had
absolutely no reason to suspect my wife's fidelity, but
jealousy does not wait for reasons. I must needs be for
ever on the look-out regarding her movements, and
therefore she could not go anywhere without my
permission. This sowed the seeds of a bitter quarrel
between us. The restraint was virtually a sort of
imprisonment. And Kasturbai was not the girl to brook any
such thing. She made it a point to go out whenever and
wherever she liked. More restraint on my part resulted in
more liberty being taken by her, and in my getting more
and more cross. Refusal to speak to one another thus
became the order of the day with us, married children. I
think it was quite innocent of Kasturbai to have taken
those liberties with my restrictions. How could a
guileless girl brook any restraint on going to the temple
or on going on visits to friends? If I had the right to
impose restrictions on her, had not she also a similar
right? All this is clear to me today. But at that time I
had to make good my authority as a husband!
Let not the reader think, however, that ours was a
life of unrelieved bitterness. For my severities were all
based on love. I wanted to make my wife an ideal
wife. My ambition was to make her live a pure
life, learn what I learnt,and identify her life and
thought with mine.
I do not know whether Kasturbai had any such ambition.
She was illiterate. By nature she was simple,
independent, persevering and, with me at least, reticent.
She was not impatient of her ignorance and I do not
recollect my studies having ever spurred her to go in for
a similar adventure. I fancy, therefore, that my ambition
was all one- sided. My passion was entirely centred on
one woman, and I wanted it to be reciprocated. But even
if there were no reciprocity, it could not be all
unrelieved misery because there was active love on one
side at least.
I must say I was passionately fond of her. Even at
school I used to think of her, and the thought of
nightfall and our subsequent meeting was ever haunting
me. Separation was unbearable. I used to keep her awake
till late in the night with my idle talk. If with this
devouring passion there had not been in me a burning
attachment to duty, I should either have fallen a prey to
disease and premature death, or have sunk into a
burdensome existence. But the appointed tasks had to be
gone through every morning, and lying to anyone was out
of the question. It was this last thing that saved me
from many a pitfall.
I have already said that Kasturbai was illiterate. I
was very anxious to teach her, but lustful love left me
no time. For one thing the teaching had to be done
against her will, and that too at night. I dared not meet
her in the presence of the elders, much less talk to her.
Kathiawad had then, and to a certain extent has even
today, its own peculiar, useless and barbarous Purdah.
Circumstances were thus unfavourable. I must therefore
confess that most of my efforts to instruct Kasturbai in
our youth were unsuccessful. And when I awoke from the
sleep of lust, I had already launched forth into public
life, which did not leave me much spare time. I failed
likewise to instruct her through private tutors. As a
result Kasturbai can now with difficulty write simple
letters and understand simple Gujarati. I am sure that,
had my love for her been absolutely untainted with lust,
she would be a learned lady today; for I could than have
conquered her dislike for studies. I know that nothing is
impossible for pure love.
I have mentioned one circumstance that more or less
saved me from the disasters of lustful love. There is
another worth noting. Numerous examples have convinced me
that God ultimately saves him whose motive is pure. Along
with the cruel custom of child marriages, Hindu society
has another custom which to a certain extent diminishes
the evils of the former. Parents do not allow young
couples to stay long. The child-wife spends more than
half her time at her father's place. Such was the case
with us. That is to say, during the first five years of
our married life (from the age of 13 to 18), we could not
have lived together longer than an aggregate period of
three years. We would hardly have spent six months
together, when there would be a call to my wife from her
parents. Such calls were very unwelcome in those days,
But they saved us both. At the age of eighteen I went to
England, and this meant a long and healthy spell of
separation. Even after my return from England we hardly
stayed together longer than six months. For I had to run
up and down between Rajkot and Bombay. Then came the call
from South Africa, and that found me already fairly free
from the carnal appetite.
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