Unmarriageable(3)

‘But, miss,’ Tahira said hesitantly, ‘what’s the purpose of life without children?’

‘The same purpose as there would be with children – to be a good human being and contribute to society. Look, plenty of women physically unable to have children still live perfectly meaningful lives, and there are as many women who remain childless by choice.’

Rose-Nama glared. ‘That’s just wrong.’

‘It’s not wrong,’ Alys said gently. ‘It’s relative. Not every woman wants to keep home and hearth, and I’m sure not every man wants to be the breadwinner.’

‘What does he want to do, then?’ Rose-Nama said. ‘Knit?’

Alys painstakingly removed a fraying silver thread from her black shawl. Finally she said, in an even tone, ‘You’ll all be pleased to see that there are plenty of marriages in Pride and Prejudice.’

‘Why do you like the book so much, then?’ Rose-Nama asked disdainfully.

‘Because,’ Alys said simply, ‘Jane Austen is ruthless when it comes to drawing-room hypocrisy. She’s blunt, impolite, funny, and absolutely honest. She’s Jane Khala, one of those honorary good aunts who tells it straight and looks out for you.’

Alys erased the blackboard and wrote, Elizabeth Bennet: First Impressions?, then turned to lead the discussion among the already buzzing girls. None of them had previously read Pride and Prejudice, but many had watched the 1995 BBC drama and were swooning over the scene in which Mr Darcy emerged from the lake on his Pemberley property in a wet white shirt. She informed them that this particular scene was not in the novel and that, in Austen’s time, men actually swam naked. The girls burst into nervous giggles.

‘Miss,’ a few of the girls, giddy, emboldened, piped up, ‘when are you getting married?’

‘Never.’ Alys had been wondering when this class would finally get around to broaching the topic.

‘But why not!’ several distressed voices cried out. ‘You’re not that old. And, if you grow your hair long again and start using bright lipstick, you will be so pret—’

‘Girls, girls’ – Alys raised her amused voice over the clamour – ‘unfortunately, I don’t think any man I’ve met is my equal, and neither, I fear, is any man likely to think I’m his. So, no marriage for me.’

‘You think marriage is not important?’ Rose-Nama said, squinting.

‘I don’t believe it’s for everyone. Marriage should be a part of life and not life.’

‘You are a forever career woman?’ Rose-Nama said.

Alys heard the mocking and the doubt in her tone: who in their right mind would choose a teaching job in Dilipabad over marriage and children?

‘Believe me, Rose-Nama,’ Alys said serenely, ‘life certainly does not end just because you choose to stay—’

‘Unmarried?’ Rose-Nama made a face as she uttered the word.

‘Single,’ Alys said. ‘There is a vast difference between remaining unmarried and choosing to stay single. Jane Austen is a leading example. She didn’t get married, but her paper children – six wonderful novels – keep her alive centuries later.’

‘You are also delivering a paper child?’ Rose-Nama asked.

‘But, Miss Alys,’ Tahira said resolutely, ‘there’s no nobler career than that of being a wife and mother.’

‘That’s fine.’ Alys shrugged. ‘As long as it’s what you really want and not what you’ve been taught to want.’

‘But marriage and children are my dream, miss!’ Tahira gazed at Jane Austen’s portrait on the book. ‘Did no one want to marry her?’

‘Actually,’ Alys said, ‘a very wealthy man proposed to her one evening and she said yes, but the next morning she said no.’

‘Jane Austen must have been from a well-to-do family herself,’ said the shy girl, sighing.

Alys gave her a bright smile for speaking up. ‘No. Jane’s mother came from nobility but her father was a clergyman. In their time, they were middle-class gentry, respectable but not rich, and women of their class could not work for a living except as governesses, so it must have taken a lot of courage for her to refuse.’

‘Jane Austen sounds very selfish,’ Rose-Nama said. ‘Imagine how happy her mother must have been, only to find that overnight the good luck had been spurned.’

‘It could also be,’ Alys said softly, ‘that her mother was happy her daughter was different. Do any of you have the courage to live life as you want?’

‘Miss Alys,’ Rose-Nama said, ‘marriage is a cornerstone of our culture.’

‘A truth universally acknowledged’ – Alys cleared her throat – ‘because without marriage our culture and religion do not permit sexual intimacy.’

All the girls tittered.

‘Miss,’ Rose-Nama said, ‘everyone knows that abstinence until marriage is the secret to societies where nothing bad happens.’

‘That’s not true.’ Alys looked pained. She thought back to the ten years her family had lived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she’d studied at a co-ed international school and made friends from all over the world, who’d lived all sorts of lifestyles. Though she’d been forbidden from befriending boys, many of the girls were allowed, and they were no worse off for it. Like her, they’d also been studious and just as keen to collect flavoured lip balms, scratch-and-sniff stickers, and scented rubbers, which she’d learnt, courtesy of her American classmates, were called erasers, while a rubber was a condom, which was something you put on a penis, which was pronounced ‘pee-nus’ and not ‘pen-iz’. Alys’s best friend, Tana from Denmark, stated that her mother had given her condoms when she’d turned fifteen, because, in Scandinavia, intimacy came early and did not require marriage. Alys had shared the information with Jena, who was scandalised, but Alys had quickly accepted the proverb ‘Different strokes for different folks.’