To Speak or Not to Speak is the Question: The Marital Fraud Conundrum

 

Everyone comes across frauds at some point of time or the other. In this world, there are cheats, there are liars, there are backstabbers, and there are frauds of all kinds. But if we come across a fraud who takes away only objects and things from us, we are lucky. Worst kinds of frauds are those who take away the very essence of what constitutes us – a part of our life. I am talking about marital frauds.

There are people from both genders, who marry only for money. If they marry for money but still be with you, it is still a win-win. If they marry you but steal only money and objects from you, you are still lucky. But what if they marry and then take away part of your family – how can you cope with that? You feel incomplete forever. Marital frauds are the worse kind of inhumanity on earth.

When something like this happens to you, you find it very difficult to keep it all together. Would you still have faith in the goodness of this world? Would you still be able to trust others? Would you still have faith in the institutions you have trusted and revered all through your life? Will you still be looking at the roses and not the thorns? It is one thing to be left to die. But if you are victim of a marital fraud, your every living moment is hell. You wish every moment that you better die and then perhaps this endless pain stops.

There is a term called “heartbreak”, which we do not understand until we go through it. Every boy experiences it in his teenage, when they realise that the girl they though was the prettiest in the world does not love them. Then if your friend ignores you, or someone you respected abandons you. All these are nothing when compared to if your spouse defrauds you.

I remember coverage of Raja Raghuvanshi on Times Now Navbharat channel. This TV news channel has a wonderful host named Sushant Sinha. He was telling about this crime and when he came to the point where Raja Raghuvanshi’s wife asked her friends to kill him, he described the moment in a very touching manner. He asked to imagine how Raja would have felt when he realized that his very loving wife was getting him killed. At that moment, would he think of saving himself or be pained with the reality of his wife? That was heartbreaking and beyond it altogether. I would say Raja Raghuvanshi was very lucky that he departed. He would have found it more difficult to live with the true identity of his wife he so loved.

While marital frauds destroy the very fabric of our soul, sadly, there are no laws and institutions to give us justice once we are its victims. There is no surprise that so many people can’t come to terms with it and just give up. Everything has a breaking point.

The worse part of it is that this is not a legal problem to solve. This is not even a social problem for all – because it does not happen with everyone. Those who are at its receiving end suffer mostly in silence. They are silent because they fear ridicule if they speak up.

Hence the title: to speak, or not to speak, is the question.

- Rahul