The Mating of East & West

Throughout the Indian subcontinent, the man with a Western wife is in a kind of caste by himself. Invariably, the husband has worked or studied abroad; generally he comes from a good family and has a well-paying professional or government job. But last week his caste mark looked more like the stigma of untouchability, as the press of both India and Pakistan simmered over with caterwauls against that "foreign invader," the imported bride.

Fit for a Lord. "The first thing our boys seem to get when they go abroad," sniffed one Punjab University coed, "is the LL.D.--the landlady's daughter. Is it any wonder that we are annoyed?" A letter to the Pakistan Times charged: "Most Pakistanis who have married Western girls belong to the upper strata of society while the girls are from the lower classes. Have you heard of an English lord or duke having a Pakistani or other foreign wife?"* Still others cattily cited the unfairness of Western wiles. "Foreign girls capture our men by going out with them and spending weekends in the country."

To Pakistan officialdom, these charges were no laughing matter. Last week in response to the cascade of letters, Pakistan's government let it be known that it henceforth planned to enforce a long-ignored rule which requires Pakistani diplomats to submit their resignation if they intend to marry foreigners. It was also pondering a new rule that would bar from assignments abroad the high percentage (24 out of 159) of Pakistani foreign service officers already wed to foreigners.

To most Western wives this outburst of female chauvinism came as a shocking surprise. The mating of East and West has generally worked out well in Pakistan, providing the alien bride 1) adopts Islam, 2) accepts the constraints of Moslem society, e.g., never talks to her husband's male friends, 3) learns to wear a sari or salivar (baggy pants) and kameez (a sort of knee-length blouse. "Dressed like that," sighed a Moslem dowager of her son's sari-clad wife, "how could she be anything but one of us?"

Better in Gingham. But in India, even the Western bride's protective coloration was coming under fire. In the Times of India, Columnist Amita Malik recently launched a cutting campaign against foreigners in saris. "If there is anything uglier than an Indian matron in bulging jeans," she snapped, "it is a white woman, tall, angular and with straw-colored hair, wearing a Dacca sari Foreign wives fondly imagine that they look beautiful in saris, when they would look miles better in gingham."

That meow was too much for one alien wife, Mrs. Joan Das of Bombay. "Pity the poor Western wife!" she answered. "If she brings her national customs over to India, she is being hopelessly insular; and if she tries to adopt Indian customs, she becomes hopelessly ridiculous. I am hanging on to my saris, because I have faith in India and Indians. I can hardly believe that every Indian I have met during the past ten years, while paying me compliments with his lips, has secretly been laughing up his sleeve."

*At least three British noblemen have Eastern wives: the Marquess of Winchester, who is married to Bapsy Pavry of Bombay; the Hon. Antony Moynihan, heir to the barony of Moynihan. who wed Malayan Dancer Shirin Roshan Berry in 1958; and Baron Lindsay of Birker, husband of Hsiao Li of Shansi province, China.

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