Saying "I do" is easy. It’s the doing it for the rest of your life that may present a tad of a problem. ‘It’ of course being all the stuff you promised to do when you I doed and not a euphemism for sexual intercourse (in fact there will be no further reference to sex in this article, well hardly any) ...
As far as preparation for doing this ‘rest of your life’ bit is concerned, the Cana course is about as effective as drinking Coke to soothe heartburn. It is worse than no preparation because it tempts some to feel that, having attended it, they know what married life is all about. The truth is they don’t, and this particularly applies to males. Which is not to say that males are more dim-witted than females ... but, Cana course or not, I don’t think you men have the vaguest idea what living with a woman is all about. And what’s worse, being Maltese and hence some subspecies of Catholic, before you’d married one you'd probably never lived with a woman other than your mother or sister, that is family who had to accept you. With the wife it’s different: she can actually up and leave or, better still, she can throw you out if you don’t pass the marriage tests.
Of course the Cana guys do make a rather brave attempt at teaching you the basics: trust is fundamental, communication is important, never forget her birthday, listening to the mother-in-law spells trouble, you know the sort of stuff you could have gotten out of 'Cosmo' anyway. Had you ever bothered read 'Cosmo' that is ... I know, not quite enough tits in that one are there? Actually, there’s more to life (and women) than tits you’ll be surprised to learn once married.
The Cana course also gives you the basics of sex education, just in case you’d failed to grasp all that stuff about sperm, eggs and periods at school. The Cana thingy even starts off sex education very promisingly: sex in marriage is not about two in a bed but three. You'd probably gone, "Wow threesomes are OK? That’s great!" ... especially coming from an entity that says condoms are not OK. The elation is short-lived of course, because you soon realise that the third party is no blonde bombshell but God Almighty. God, you’ll have been told, will always be present on the marriage bed. He also insists on having the final say when it comes to the outcome of your sexual encounters: in short any attempts at birth control besides ‘natural means’ defy the will of God and are therefore sinful.
Which of course, leads to a discussion of ‘natural’ family planning and temperature charts (I heard hip parishes are giving extra sessions on electronic spreadsheets here and they show you how to mailmerge your chart so when she’s ovulating it sends you both a message that automatically pops up on your work PC saying ‘She’s fertile, rent a DVD tonight’ or something like that). I have always been slightly bemused about these charts. I mean I’d really like to have the input from a couple who went somewhere really cold for their honeymoon and used it for birth control…I mean I’d like to have met them some nine months after the honeymoon to see if the cold weather had fucked it all up for them.
But I digress…which, considering I’m no Calvino, is hardly cute ...…so I’ll just get on with it ...
My point is the Cana course teaches you zilch about the woman’s secrets of the closet. And no that’s not the kind of lurid secrets involving your lady shaking her booty in sexy lingerie you imagine. After all, in all probability, if she’s managed to lure you to the altar there may be hardly many such secrets left uncovered. Not your fault of course because you had only been to the Cana course after years of fornication: had you known before that God takes it so personally, I’m sure you’d have both gotten married virgins.
I mean the other secrets of the closet, like just how many dozen pairs of shoes your woman needs, how many ‘neat’ black suits are necessary to complete a wardrobe, the fact that yet another white bag can ‘call’ your wife from a shop window. You will need to know that you will never learn just why she needs to blow so much of her (and probably also your) money on said items. You need to learn to live with this, the way she’ll need to live with the fact that for you watching a rerun of a football match is not the same as watching the match live (yes it’s that weird for you to be doubtful about bags calling from shop windows).
As if that’s not bad enough she’ll even insist on showing you the stuff she bought, and ask your opinion about it. Of coourse, once you’re married you’ll learn that a safe ‘nice’ is not enough of a comment either - she may even expect you to become all bff about it and really appreciate the stuff: the gorgeous texture of her new bag, the pockets on the new denims she’d seen at Jane Norman’s, how the perfect shade of her new lipstick will suit her slightly darker complexion in mid-august, the way the heels on her new shoes so compliment that tan bag she bought last month (as if you remember that bag anyway…and whilst we’re on the subject, what’s ‘tan’?)
This brings us to that big colour mystery. You’d probably seen the world in RGB with the luxury of yellow, white and black thrown in before you’d met her. Maybe by the time you walked down the aisle you’d even heard of peach, beige ... and perhaps pistachio and turquoise ...…but she seems to be strung on LSD or something and she sees so many colours. There’s amethyst, blush, barley, mocha, ice white. The list goes on. When you cooperatively answer her anguished queries by suggesting her beige suit to the wedding of cousin Alfred, she seems quite miffed (yes, that’s a new word too). In fact she’s close to having a fit and you’re not too sure if it’s a laughing fit or a fit of anger, which is another interesting feature of marriage by the way. All this because you’d called the suit beige when it’s really a most delicious shade of ivory. So ivory is delicious now? No actually, it’s worse: ivory comes in shades?
There’s no exam to the Cana test, you get dished out certificates merely for turning up. Later down the line, the parish priest does set a marriage exam but he’s a man, and one who’s never been married to boot,…so what does he know which questions to ask? His test you can pass simply by saying you’re quite fine with continuing to make the marriage work even after she’s done shagging everyone and his brother. Marriage itself, though, will possibly set you one complex exam after the other.
Of course you’ll know you’re about to receive a pass in one of the most difficult credits when, ten years into the marriage, you can glance at the new lipstick she trusts at you and without batting an eye-lid come up with at least something as humble as, ‘nice shade for summer’. Until then, better try to get what you can out of the Cana course and keep buying her flowers and expensive perfumes at regular intervals.
Oh and if you’re using the chart thingy don’t go to Alaska for your honeymoon ... you know, just to play it safe!
No comments:
Post a Comment