The sizzling telenovela "TWO WIVES '' is running neck and neck in run-away ratings with the romantic drama "FOREVERMORE" in the same channel. While the first TV drama tackles the hot topic of bigamy, adultery, and concubinage, as well as the fury of anger and revenge, the second beautifully depicts the gentleness of love, and the sweetness of pure affection and romance. It is summer now and the torrid love and romances among the young sometimes reach a boiling point, while the hatred, the anger and the revenge by those who feel betrayed may result to violence and legal disputes.
"Two Wives" tells the story of a young couple with a very young son. The husband loves the wife very much and adores his son. He was faithful and true to his wife. But the need to earn more to support the family led the young husband to the arms of a young single mother, who also has a daughter with another man who jilted her. The single mom hired the husband, to perform an unusual function of acting as dad to her fatherless daughter. The employment led to attraction, then romance, and concubinage. He, being a lawfully married man with the faithful wife, violated his wife's trust and had an affair with his employer.
The affair became too torrid that he decided to have his marriage annulled in order to marry his hot employer. They had a very hot relationship that the husband felt a new sense of ecstacy, maintaing a relationship with a rather aggressive and sexually liberated woman. So different from his first wife who was more conservative and demure. And so, the employee-lover got an annulment and married his employer-paramour. But a twist of fate, or, was it karma, intervened. The husband of the two wives met an accident and developed an amnesia.
His kind of amnesia made him forget his second wife and only recall his first wife. And so, the second wife filed a case of concubinage against her husband resulting to the latter's conviction and imprisonment and the first wife's destierro or banishment. Now, we have heard a lot of rumors and even newspaper reports nowadays of women fighting over a man, some landing in hospitals, others in the hospitals if not the funeral parlor. We also come across of men committing murder or suicide because of a woman. Rumors about love, romance, sex, and philandering are serious matters that they should first be verified before taking any action.
We, who are not privies to the true stories should not be judgmental. We do not have the moral right to judge them. We cannot just take sides, either for the wife or for the lovers. For we do not know why husbands would fall for women other than their wives. It may be because they have some sort of an insatiable thirst and then, there is an irresistible force of attraction. We cannot also blame the wives who take the law into their own hands. For they may be acting under the pressures of passion and obfuscation. As the poet says: " Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned''.
Our role is to broker reconciliation. To preserve the marriage, defend the family and protect the children. Love, sex, romances and philandering are just phases that some people have to go through in order to experience the fullness of life and just to taste the thrills and excitements of eating the "forbidden fruit." But just once. What matters most is that, both remorse and forgiveness should follow, and reconciliation shall be the final chapter. And one should never do it again. Love is not lovelier the second time around.