Magnificent men, winsome women

Societies all over the world stand identified and classified in myriad ways helped by many characteristics, some handed down through the process of natural selection into races and the rest contrived by humans dictated by expediency at different times over centuries. The case of India’s current estimated 1.3 billion headcount falls into a special slot not observed in any other country for its diversity of caste affiliations and also tongues spoken, both running into amazing numbers, if one takes the trouble of listing sub-castes and sub-sub-castes as well as languages and dialects. These diverse features have come in handy for the vote-seekers contesting polls and sociologists revelling in their analyses of people’s customs as well as traditions and inferences thereof. However, in the parlance of biologists, the human population comprises only two sections namely male and female, based on the gender factor, leaving aside the third gender for now, an identity that has recently been granted official stamp in the land.

While many have taken it upon themselves to inconclusively settle the correctness or otherwise of answering the postulate “Whether man created God or the other way about,” even divinity has not been spared the classification on gender basis, given the fact of female-sounding names to Goddesses in numbers matching the male-sounding names to Gods in the land’s pantheon dominated by faith of its majority in the population.

Many interesting statements, some with a sense of solemnity and some others marked by hilarity, attributed to persons known in their times past for their wit and wisdom portray the intimate connect between the two genders. One of them has appropriately said that behind every successful man, there is a lot of unsuccessful years. A more often quoted view that places the female on a high pedestal is that behind every successful man, there is a woman. A wit lost no chance to add another dimension to this time-honoured fact saying “Behind every successful man, there is a woman, behind her is his wife.” The issue of which of these statements passes the test of truth or treated as myth, is left for the readers to decide. Mother and housewife, the two exalted members of any family, having retained their image with unquestionable stability for centuries figure delicately nowadays in media reports, given the rising number of incidents of men conducting themselves improperly with females in society. It is upto males to safeguard their image as magnificent men, not to forget the responsibility of females to retain their image as winsome women.