Can Married Women Have Male Friends?

Debbie, a smart, modern unmarried woman of 32 years, is an executive in a multinational company. These days, financially independent women are claiming equality in every field and most of them believe in having male friends too. Debbie too has three good male friends working in other companies. They are quite close and often meet each other together or separately in clubs, hotels and at her place.

Debbie knows how to keep good relations with friends. She has reached the conclusion that good friends are a boon and are a great help in many ways. However, she does not let any of them take an advantage and treats them just as friends and nothing else. She is of the opinion that when she marries someone who is surely not be anyone from these friends, she will be happy to continue her friendship with them. She feels that her future husband too will be happy to be friendly with her friends as they are all really nice persons.

Sarah, a recently married woman of 29 years had a childhood friend David of the same age who was staying next to her parents' house. They played together, fought many times and shared their happiness and little sorrows of childhood, adolescence and youth till she got married. There was never any talk of love though both liked each other. After marriage Sarah has moved to another town.

She is an intelligent and sober woman who has deliberately avoided communication with David lest their friendship is taken otherwise by her husband jeopardising their marriage.

FRIENDS - GREATEST ASSETS

Every individual needs friends and women are no exception. With real good friends one feels deep togetherness, closeness, sharing feelings and unconditional support. A true friend is one of life's greatest assets. A good friend helps at the time of need, tells us our shortcomings and mistakes and tries to stop us when we are on the wrong path.

Friends are those who help you in difficult times and who are happy when you are happy. One has to be very selective in developing a friendship and find a person of an amiable nature who has no vested interest. A woman may have a few friends of same sex and a few male friends in her student life and later when she was unmarried but having male friends in married life is something which creates problems and complications in married life.

Men are always keen to make friends with women as they find women better than men for close emotional relationships. Most men in their heart of hearts carry the subtle hope of developing intimacy with her. As the so-called modern city women themselves are anxious to have male friends, it suits both to be together as friends.

The so-called modern women are confident that their male friends cannot seduce them. But in actual life, they often yield to the advances of their male friends or they themselves take the initiative to fulfil their carnal desires due to their biological urges.

The ancient saints had advised long ago that a female and male should not get closer or sit on the same cot even when they are close relatives. Today's misguided women in their foolhardiness take advantage of the freedom to develop clandestine relationships, although it is they who suffer in the long run.

Kristy, a woman of 32 years and a proponent of women's lib, had few male friends before marriage. She always believed that as the men have their friends, why can women not have male friends? Kristy always felt more comfortable with her male friends than her female friends. After marriage when her male friend Tony visited her for the first time, Kristy introduced him to her husband Tim, as her best friend. Tim met him with warmth and dittoed Kristy's invitation extended to him for dinner at their place. Next day Tim rang up Garima from his office to inform her about his promotion announced that day. The maidservant who attended the phone told him that she had gone to Mrs Walker's house. He then rang up the Walker's house to talk to his wife but she was not there.

This aroused suspicions in Tim's mind. During the next visit of Tony, his suspicion turned into reality as he found them in a compromising position in his own house where on the insistence of Kristy, Tony stayed in their guest room. Tim got so infuriated that he killed both of them with his licensed revolver and informed the police who arrested him for murder.

Angela, aged 34 years and a mother of two pretty daughters, was not happy with her husband Roger. He got so busy in his business pursuits that he now was not able to give proper attention and time to his family. Angela drifted towards her husband's friend Scott, a local young man of 30 years, who sympathised with her and soon they developed an affair. On finding that his wife has strayed, Roger talked to her about it and both decided to go for divorce on mutual grounds. Scott fixed up Angela in a rented house on the promise of an early marriage but ditched Angela after a year, to marry another girl arranged by his parents. Angela now lives a lonely life after getting badly hurt and feels cheated, used and abandoned. Her family life is spoiled by her unscrupulous male friend and her own passion. She now misses her daughters, her good natured-husband and the earlier comfortable life.

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP

Friends should be trustworthy and one must have explicit faith in friends. But even then, there is a word of caution. Do not trust anyone too much and blindly even if he is your best friend. People have been betrayed mostly in matters of money, property and women by the persons who were trusted the most. Friendship is a satisfying, warm and positive feeling. A person with friends feels richer mentally and emotionally, and is usually more balanced individual than a loner.

Dangers of having male friends for married women:

* It may create a havoc in family life and lead to separation and divorce.

* It may destroy your reputation and your relatives and neighbours only on suspicion even when the relationship is without any sexual indiscretion.

* The woman runs the risk of losing her life as honour killing is not uncommon.

* When passion and madness take over the good sense of the woman, she may commit the crime of killing her husband in connivance with her paramour and then rot in prison.

* The children suffer in the long run and the woman may not get the custody of her children and thus get deprived of them. Some women do not want the burden of children to be passed on to them as they want to remain free birds with no encumbrances.

Unmarried men and married women as friends:

Women claiming equality in all respects want to continue with their old male friends and do not mind making new male friends even after marriage. But these options are risky. Although the women may be sure about her good friendly relations but who knows the male friend may be lusting about her and may show his true colours sooner or later. Now the question is, does she want to cheat on her husband and if exposed, is she prepared to face the upheaval and anger of her husband who will never like such a thing happening? Men are very sensitive and honour killing is not rare. It should be known that a few women having extramarital affairs have been killed by husbands or their hired killers.

Some women become so blind to their passion that they even get their husbands murdered conniving with their paramours. Not only this, a few women in the past have killed their children who have seen their mother in a compromising position with another man. Instances of grown-up sons murdering their adulterous mother have happened. In such cases the whole family has perished, the killers languishing in prison or punished by a death sentence. Sometimes, women have eloped with their lovers even when they are mothers of three or four children and were in their 30s and 40s.

Married men and married women as friends:

These types of affairs are the worst as not one family suffers but two as the married man is unfaithful to his wife and no more devoted to his family. The man makes false promises to marry her as soon as his divorce with his wife is through but most of the times it does not happen. The married woman who falls for a married man mostly lives as a concubine because most men want to carry on with such affairs on the side avoiding the censor of his family members, community and society. In the long run, the woman has to suffer in many ways for her wrong step. The wife of the man and other family members may create problems for her and even try to eliminate her. Not being a legal wife, she or her children borne out of this relationship, have no right or the man's property.

Husband's male friends:

The husband's male friends may become friends to her and she too may start treating them as her friends as they are always ready to do errands for her. They try to please her by their sweet words of praise for her looks, dress, decoration of the home, her talents, cooking and always find some or other opportunity to be with her. Some unscrupulous men do not hesitate to seduce their friend's wife who too may get closer to him in her weaker moments knowingly or unknowingly with the associated risk, as such a relationship does not remain hidden for long.

Precautions necessary to avoid adulterous relationships with male friends:

* It is best not to have male friends especially after marriage.

* If you do continue a friendship with a man after marriage and this is resented by your husband, terminate the friendship.

* Do not be foolhardy to insist that you will not give up your friendship as this will bring unhappiness in your family life and may lead to unpleasant consequences.

* Do not get friendly with husband's male friends and do not let them take too many liberties with you. Keep your distance.

* Have a control on your biological urges lest they bring doom in your life with unlimited miseries by affecting your reputation, respect and happiness.

* Do not get cheated by false praise and false promises. Do not believe men on their face value as most men ultimately develop lustful feeling towards a woman.

* Women can judge the intentions of men very well and correctly, then why fall prey to their lust and repent later?

* Friendship with males is not a very desirable option. Women who treat their husbands as their best and only male friend lead a very satisfying life.

The position of married women is different. Meeting male friends after marriage and moving with them is rarely liked by husbands. They do not like the appreciation which the woman shows towards her friend or what he shows towards her. It may be simple jealousy or a SUspicion about the fidelity and the faithfulness of the woman. This may create problems and may result in making a crack in the married life. It should also be understood that the association between a woman and a man as a friend is always full of risk because the chances of developing intimacy are always great. Rely more on your husband whose good friends will be the well-wishers of his family as well. Make good women friends for yourself for company and emotional support.

Women themselves never like their husbands to have female friends. Even when there may be nothing, his nearness to any woman arouses suspicion in the wife's mind and she raises a hue and cry about it. She neither likes her female friends to get closer to her husband nor her husband trying to be more free with them, lest he develops an intimate relationship with any of them. Most wise women remain vigilant about their female friends too, lest one of them tries to steal her husband.