“And if you fear that you cannot act equitably towards orphans, then marry such women as seem good to you, two and three and four; but if you fear that you will not do justice (between them), then (marry) only one or what your right hands possess; this is more proper, that you may not deviate from the right course” (Quran 4:3). This verse was quoted for people need to know the real reason why men are allowed to marry more than one woman at a time. Of course there are rules and laws regarding the Polygamy in Islam and polygamy are not uncommon in Malaysia. People are receiving more and more shocking news regarding the issue, for instance when Abu Bakar, 54 with an income of RM20, 000 a month applied to get a fourth wife with the permission of all his three wives, (Utusan Malaysia, 2008) was approved by the Syariah Court. The three wives of this very lucky man happily approved his request based on the reason their husband can support his family materially and he also had proven himself to be a good father to his children. Later, he married his fourth wife and built his fourth house for her to live.
Coming back to the analysis, I will analyze the short story Sucked dry and with the movie Madu Tiga, the song Madu Tiga itself, and the song Kesah Rumah Tangga, all were contributed by our late Tan Sri P. Ramlee during his years in filming industry. In this analysis, the way the short story, the movie and the songs will be analyzed is through the perception of the wife, the husband, the society and the religion towards the issue of polygamy. Before going to further detail, let us start with the title first. The title of the short story ‘Sucked dry’ itself came from a Malay proverb; Habis madu sepah dibuang and the title of the movie is Madu Tiga. Both of the titles have the word ‘madu’ with similar issue in its story which is polygamy but have different definition to the word. Madu Tiga literally means three wives and the word ‘madu’ in the proverb means a woman’s value. Something that is hard to get, beautiful, sweet, and shiny are often appreciated compared to the opposite; too available, dull, sourly looked, and faded. If ‘madu’ is associated with women, then the way people will appreciate women is actually when they are hard to get, beautiful, sweet and shiny just like a real ‘madu’. When a husband is marrying another woman, the reason of the marriage plays the most important role, as the marriage will not only involve a newly married couple but more heart and soul to be considered about.
First, let us look at the perception of the wife. From the short story Sucked Dry, Maziah blamed the fate for the pain that she had to endure. It was fate that had caused her to share her husband with another woman. Apart from blaming fate for her unhappy marriage, she also blamed her husband himself for marrying another woman. From her point of view, she knew that her husband left her because she was no longer pretty and attractive to be parade around as her husband’s trophy but she can do nothing about it. “It wouldn’t matter how pretty I was, he won’t come back to me. He’d rather be with his other wife”. Even Maziah said this with anger, her friend Norani could not help but to notice the disappointment Maziah felt towards herself and her marriage. This is a part of the song “From this moment on” by Shania Twain.
From this moment life has begun
From this moment you are the one
Right beside you is where I belong
From this moment on
Literally, this is how a woman would vow to devote herself towards her husband once she gets married. Considering the time setting of this short story, beyond 1970’s, when women still depend on men to survive, as not many of them were given chance for education, a woman would fully give herself to her husband just for her husband to love her in return as much as this song means. From the moment she is married to a man, she expects forever from him, for herself, not to be shared with some stranger when her face started to have wrinkles and losing color. In Asian culture especially, husband is above everything, before God. To obey a husband is like obeying God, and to displease a husband means displeasing God too. A woman looks up to her husband as a shelter and food provider, as well as someone to show her purest love. That is why when the question of polygamy comes in, to be specific in the context of Malay people, women sometimes get hysterical and react out of their conscious control, that is all because of one reason, when she got herself married, she expected that she will always be the one and only to her husband.
Second, let us consider the perception of the husband. When Norani first approached Asrul at the table, Asrul was startled by her presence. In this case, Norani not just represented a friend of his first wife but a society around him. Asrul’s early reaction had shown that what he did to his first wife was not something that he felt proud of. His existence in the short story was only at the beginning so it was hard to actually analyze about his perception in this short story. He was a devoted husband once five years ago and even Norani thought that her friend Maziah was fortunate to have him as hers so that means he was a good husband once when his wife was still young and beautiful. It was unfair if people just want to judge about his polygamy practice based on his fault alone without considering why such thing happened. The short story might be biased towards his wife as the story was only told on the side of his wife and her friend. What about him? Now let us look at the movie Madu Tiga. This movie was filmed in the similar time setting with the short story Sucked dry, so basically both stories can be taken into comparison equally without any influence of women’s independency, as both of them were housewives. These two men, Asrul and Jamil were similar, one was a rising government official and the other one is a businessman, and both of them were able to support more than one wife. As a husband, they may have given their best earlier in their marriage proven by how their wives treated them, with love. Yet, when Jamil’s first wife, Latifah gets old, he called her “old hag” but in the case of Asrul, there was no mention of how he called or treated his first wife. These men felt trapped in their marriage with their first wife and tried to move on to a happier life without letting anyone go. In the song Madu Tiga, “senangnya dalam hati kalau beristeri dua terasa dunia ini ana yang punya”, all a man want was just to be happy, and that was all. What was this upheaval for when it is legal and permitted by the religion itself? If they can afford it, there should be no reason why they have to feel wrong about it.
The third stanza of the Madu Tiga song, “isteri tua merajuk, balik kerumah isteri muda, kalau dua-dua merajuk, ana kahwin tiga” showed a warning for the wives to behave themselves, so that he would not have to go for another one. Asrul would expect that his second wife, Aliza would not be so shocked if he wanted to marry another woman one day and with that notion, Aliza was given an indirect warning to make sure he will not have any reason to do it. If the third marriage happens one day in the future, it will be Aliza’s fault, not him, just like it was Maziah’s fault in the first place when he married Aliza. A man just wants to be happy. When he firstly got married he had to let go all of his freedom and had to start thinking not just for himself but for other people too. After sometimes, even donkey got tired and bored, why not him?
Last but not least, we take the perception of the society as one of the point for consideration. Society will always be the side to have the right to put the blame on whom in the story regardless whether they have the fact right or not. In the short story Sucked Dry, Norani played the role of sincerely concerned society in the beginning of the story, questioning how could Asrul did that to his wife but after she met her friend, Maziah and judged the situation herself, she made up her mind, Asrul was not at fault. For Norani, as a woman herself, Maziah should listen to her, about her opinion on Maziah’s horrible look and condition. In Norani’s opinion, if Maziah had at least tried to maintain her beauty, her husband would definitely stay with her instead of going to marry another woman. As I had considered that Norani was the representative of the whole society, her judgment was the society’s judgment, which means that if Maziah had taken a very good care of herself, Asrul would never look for another. Her side was explicitly spoken when she mention about the flower she saw. Even though the fact was hard and merciless, and the other fact of her becoming disorganized was because of her role as a housewife with children was not seen by the society, instead they told her this is the cold truth that Maziah had to accept as a woman. In the song Kesah Rumah Tangga, the experienced society had given a reminder for the young man and woman who are going to get married to choose the best so that they will not regret themselves in the end of the day. These unhappy marriages sometimes lead to polygamy as the husband who is not satisfied enough with the first wife, be it her fault or not, he can marry someone else, one whom he think can make him feel better than the one he already had. If a person expects to have a good husband, she must be a good wife, and vice versa, but if the husband or the wife is not acting or giving the commitment as good as he or she had promised, something need to be done about it. To let it longer is to torture a human being who is gifted with feeling and emotion thus affecting the innocent ones, the children. Sucked dry might not mentioned what the children had to go through but the statistics did, and it may get worse if the parents chose to be selfish about it.
As a conclusion, different people have different perception on how they look at the issue of polygamy. They have their own reasons to justify their opinion. To tell if their opinion is realistic or just excuses, it has to get to the main point that is the reason why it happened in the first place.
No comments:
Post a Comment