Anne Boleyn, fidelity and infidelity in Opinions

I just finished watching “The Other Boleyn Girl”. I was at first struck by the immensity of the ambition of the Boleyn family. Then, I began to notice and think of other things. The film has created stereotypes where one sister is mild of temperament, submissive and unambitious. The other however, is the polar opposite. It is hard to agree with such stereotypical portrayals. It is hard to believe that in real, the Boleyn sisters were so black and white. Every human being has a multifaceted personality and no one can just be one thing. That too, for all of his or her life. But I have seen documentaries as well. They don’t deviate much from the narrative of the film either. As callous as it sounds, a father instructs his daughters to seduce the monarch in the hopes of securing the future of his family. The uncle moves them all around as though they were pieces of chess. The way most of the characters were driven by their ambition to the point of madness is sickening. But perhaps this is the beauty of a text. It arouses some emotion in us. It even shows us some parts of ourselves that we are otherwise loathe to see.

I often sit with myself and wonder if it is possible to find lasting happiness in another person. The world around is in high praise of self sufficiency. It seeks to make islands of us all. At the same time, on social media, film and elsewhere people are given advice on how to find the “one”. If I am the “one” for myself, then why is there “another”? Why do I even need to look for someone for fulfillment of any sort? Does it not boggle the mind? Similarly, suppose I have found that “one”, then why should it matter if there’s fidelity between us or not? Somewhere, our logic seems to have taken its leave. If self sufficiency is the ideal, then there are no soulmates. Out of the idea of soulmate and self-sufficiency, at least one has to be a myth. At times, both feel like a myth. Today, there was on an going debate about husbands who cheat. Scores of women suggested that one should just leave a husband who cheats. The part of the world that I exist in, it is easier said than done. Here, a man just needs a penis to qualify. And a woman’s slightest weakness is used against her time and time again till there’s nothing left of her. But I digress. Or do I? It was alright enough for Henry to dispose off Catherine and bring in Anne. But it wasn’t alright for Anne to seek a lover even in desperation. It was high treason!

Scriptures speak of wives that are in harmony with their men physically and mentally. It talks of wives who offer only physical … pleasure. And of wives who offer neither the former nor the latter. My experience with intimacy tells me that without mental harmony one can’t even hope for the physical. Sometimes even with the mental parity, physical satisfaction is far from reach. Pleasure matters. But in this world, the world I am in, nothing matters. Sense of self maybe just a fanciful idea. Physical satisfaction a dream and mental compatibility a complete myth. Why do things that matter in scriptures and theories are seen as completely baseless in the real world? Why then, when both fidelity and infidelity are mere abstractions, must be so significant to the human societies where life itself holds no value?