UNEQUAL PARTNERS

" Walking up is hard to do but if the urban Indian Man doesn't want to lose his wife. It's time he did, Marraige seems to have given him a licence to thrill, Even as it seems to have caged the woman's spirit. [55% Men Prefer the man on Top position while 19% like the women being on top.]

They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly difficult. But it is never easy.

Ian McEwan was writing about a couple in 1962 Englandin "On Chesil Beach"(he, er, arrives too soon in bed and she runs away in disgust), but he may well be speaking of thousands of contemporary marriages in India. The INDIA TODAY AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG Survey of Urban Marriage. If love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence, then the Urban Indian marriage is the victory of opportunity over occasion. Greater infidelity on the part of men, increasing resistance of the woman to coercive sex, even the lessening appeal of the woman post marriage are all indicative of a relationship under tremendous strain. The men and women are at odds with each other, not just in the act but also in attitude, creating an unequal partnership where there should be comfot- giving compatibility. While 52% of the men say they have sex thrice a week, only 27% of the women agree, a yawning gap not explained entirely by the man's braggadocio. What's more, 39% of the women are bored with sex in marriage. Almost 40% of the married women said their partner's pleasure was more important than their own. Such timidity in the bedroom seems to have emboldened the men believe it is, their marital right to have sex, again consistent with the response in 2004. As for women professionals in nuclear families, they have it bad both ways, points out sociologist Shiv Visvanathan, lacking both the protection of the joint family and being subjected to husbands who seem to be distracted by the seductions of the city.

None of the traditional stereotypes seem to have changed, especially when it comes to men. More than half the men interviewed believe housewives have better married lives compared to working women. While 48% of working women think that housewives won't necessarily have better married lives. Add to the act of sex itself being hasty (70% spend less than 10 minutes on foreplay compared to a majority of American couples spemding over 25 minutes making love) and where exactly does that leave the principle of the lesure in marriage? more preciselu where does that leave marriage, still over whelmingly arranged for Indians who cearly sem to regard the institution as a family rather than an individual unit? Especially when the survey shows that the family that stays together doesn't stray- couples who live in jount families tend to have more sex than those in nuclear families.

Clearly, the woman's sentiments have outstripped her circumstances. If in the 2003 survey 57% of the wimen said an orgasm was important for their sexual fulfilment, now a mere 28% say they always hace an orgasm. Yet, they are more open to foreplay and ae also willing to talk about it thes year. From 27% women in 2003 pleadng ignorance about foreplay, only 11% didn't know about it today.

• 50 % OF COUPLES BELIEVE SEX IS A SOURCE OF PLEASURE.
• 26 % OF COUPLES WHO HAD LOVE MARRIAGES ADMITTED HAVING EXTRA MARITAL AFFAIRS.