I am a
great fan of Korean drama serials. These serials usually have themes
that cover family relationships and have plenty of complications,
turns and go rounds. I find it quite interesting that the value
systems of Korean families are quite similar to traditional Indian
values. Using these value systems, the pruducers come up with all kind of contrived
situations and interestingly main characters always find their way
out of the tight situations. Recently, I completed watching all the
episodes of a serial about twin sisters, one of which steals the face
of other (by means of plastic surgery off course) to marry her
fiancee. However later, it is revealed that the sisters are not twin
but are actually step sisters and had a common father. They remain
unaware to the end as to who is the genetic daughter of the mother in
the serial and who is adopted by her. This leads to extremely
complicated situations, from which a way is finally found out by the director at the
end.
Most
of the readers would think that such story lines are just figment of
imagination and have no connection with reality. I used to feel in a
similar way, about a US TV serial 'Bold and beautiful,' when it was
quite popular in India. I did watch this serial for a few months and
got involved in affairs of Forrester family, but got fed up with
major characters from the serial regularly kept getting divorces from
each other and started remarrying within the same group; so once a
daughter-in-law, her father -in-law pair, after few months, suddenly
became husband and wife and so it went on. I had then thought that
the story line of this serial was totally bankrupt of ideas and it
was better to stop watching it.
However,
I recently came across a mind boggling news item about a 40-year old
lady Meng Tian (pseudonym) from Shuyang county in Jiangsu province of China, who is
believed to have married 26 times. I do not know whether this is some
kind of world record, but it could be. Fortunately, so far the lady
never had any legal problems or issues, because as per Chinese Laws,
you can marry any number of times, law does not have any objection to
that.
The
real twist in the story comes after her 25th
marriage with a man , whom let us call as H25. After she got married
to him, she realised that she was pregnant and the would be father of
her baby was not husband H25 but earlier husband H24. The lady did
not like this situation and though that her baby must have a proper
genetic father and decided to divorce H 25 and remarry H 24 in her
26th
marriage. A perfect -a la
Bold and beautiful -situation,
I thought. After remarriage, she went to register the child, but the
family planning authorities discovered that the child's father
already had two children with another woman in the past. So, he was
not entitled to register a third child under his name.
Now
this lady was in real jam. Chinese rules concerning the government's
family planning policy are very strict and do not allow any leeway.
The baby in spite of being born out of a wedlock was now in danger of
being designated as illegal. Faced with a situation, where her child
would have no legal father, the woman thought hard and approached her
former husband H 25 again, whom she had married and abandoned only
weeks before and asked him, whether he would remarry her. The guy has
been childless so far and said that he was excited and would be glad
to father the child.
The
Government now put its foot down. It said that the much-married woman
could face bigamy charges unless she divorces the man who gave her
the child or was the genetic father (H24). She therefore will have to
marry H 25 only after she divorces H24 (now H 26). She is now
expected to remarry the childless man H 25 soon in her 27th
marriage.
I am
sure most of the readers by now would be totally confused. Look at
the situation. The lady wants to divorce a man because her only baby
born from him would be genetically his progeny but illegal as far as
Chinese law is concerned. She would now marry another guy because the
baby, now a step baby to the new guy, would be actually his legal
baby.
Don't
you think that even my favourite Korean drama serials have story
lines that depicted very straight forward and uncomplicated
relationships, amongst the characters, compared to this? At least I
think so!
13th
August 2014
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