Fraudulent Fertilisation

“I hope you’re right, I hope I’m not suf­fer­ing from an in­cur­able de­fect, a lack of af­fec­tion that pre­vents me feel­ing.”

“No, not at all, I’m sure. Be­lieve me, I’m not wrong.”

Rocío blushed again and quick­ly changed the sub­ject.

“And what about you, have you ever come close to get­ting mar­ried again?”

“No, I’ve met a lot of women, the ma­jor­i­ty ex­cel­lent, who did me a lot of good. But it wasn’t such a big thing, mar­riage is very se­ri­ous, it’s too much. In my case, I feel as if I’m back in the game. Up until re­cent­ly I didn’t have the strength to begin again. I want­ed to live in peace, I wasn’t pre­pared to get up in the mid­dle of the night to com­fort a baby, or to raise one.”

“Until re­cent­ly?” asked Rocío.

“Yes,” an­swered Burán, “it’s iron­ic, but true. Now it’s pos­si­ble that I’ll have to de­vote my­self to rais­ing a child that I never dreamt of hav­ing. If I get cus­tody of the child, it will be a dif­fi­cult task. In any case, what­ev­er my sit­u­a­tion, I’d like to be able fall in love again.”

“You’re afraid of re­mar­ry­ing, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Not afraid, but at this stage of my life I wouldn’t agree to a clas­si­cal, so­cial­ly con­di­tioned mar­riage. I wouldn’t have been able to think like that twen­ty years ago, but now I’m be­yond con­ven­tion­al­i­ty. I’d need a more au­then­tic form of bond­ing, based on free­dom, not on legal or so­cial ties. Un­less there were chil­dren, I’d only ac­cept a free re­la­tion­ship with plen­ty of fresh air. Spon­tane­ity should be a con­stant, and not an ex­cep­tion. I wouldn’t make de­mands on my wife, I think that’s self­ish, bru­tal. I wouldn’t sub­ject her to moral­ly vi­o­lent sit­u­a­tions, to ab­surd sub­jec­tion. I’d pre­fer my part­ner to have in­tel­lec­tu­al and eco­nom­ic in­de­pen­dence. Oth­er­wise it would be easy for her to allow her­self to be dom­i­nat­ed, to feel more com­fort­able with­out ex­er­cis­ing her free­dom. That’s what usu­al­ly hap­pens... You’ll never have this prob­lem, Rocío.”

“Yes, but it’s not that sim­ple. I’d have to find a man who thought like you, who wasn’t a male chau­vin­ist. And there are ad­di­tion­al com­pli­ca­tions, life to­geth­er must also have its rules; if there are none, if there are no lim­its, it falls very close to lack of af­fec­tion.”

“Of course, Rocío, rules are pre­sent in every re­la­tion­ship, but not the ar­cha­ic ones im­posed on us by Catholic moral­i­ty. In­stead, there should be new ones, aris­ing form pure hu­man­ism. Rules that allow lovers to ful­fil them­selves, with suf­fo­cat­ing them, with­out tying them to strict or im­pos­si­ble con­duct.”

“You re­mind me of an old client,” said Rocío, “she never want­ed to get mar­ried, she said that she went through life hold­ing hands with a man, know­ing that ei­ther of them could be free, with just one move­ment, that’s why she was so happy... She thought get­ting mar­ried chained the part­ners, that it im­pris­oned them. Of course, it’s not quite like that, be­cause a cer­tifi­cate doesn’t guar­an­tee any­thing. How­ev­er, many peo­ple still think that mar­riage main­tains it­self, with­out day-to-day ef­fort. In that re­spect, my client was right, there’s a neg­a­tive psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fect.”

“That’s true,” said Burán, “I speak from per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence.”

“You? So in­de­pen­dent? I wouldn’t have guessed it. Would you find a sim­ple cer­tifi­cate an ob­sta­cle?”

“I did when I was young; now it strikes me as silly, of course. More than a sim­ple doc­u­ment, chil­dren place lim­i­ta­tions on me... To be hon­est, I be­lieve that for them, it’s our oblig­a­tion to be­have more re­spon­si­bly, to take care of the ties that bind. To pro­tect them, I would try to un­der­stand my part­ner bet­ter, to grant her greater free­dom. I would even be per­mis­sive in cer­tain areas. Above all else, I would re­spect my wife’s pri­va­cy, de­mand­ing equal con­sid­er­a­tion.”

“For­give me,” said Rocío, “do you re­al­ly think it’s that sim­ple? I don’t think so. I see it in my of­fice every day. Spoilt, lazy, ig­no­rant young girls, end­less­ly chau­vin­is­tic. Vain, in­ex­pert, proud or sub­ju­gat­ed young girls. But I can as­sure you, I can’t re­mem­ber many evolved cou­ples, like the one you de­scribe. I won­der if they exist? There can’t be very many.”

“There aren’t many,” he stat­ed. “I didn’t say there were many, nor that it was easy to put what I say into prac­tice; on the con­trary, it’s very dif­fi­cult. You have to over­come jeal­ousy, an atavis­tic feel­ing that dri­ves us crazy. Many peo­ple are ir­ri­tat­ed by state­ments like this; they say that mat­ri­mo­ny is holy, while they vi­o­late its laws in se­cret. I can’t stand this hypocrisy in which our so­ci­ety lives at all lev­els. And the worst thing is it’s im­pos­si­ble to get away from; at least to­tal­ly. I’m no ex­cep­tion, I admit. I’ve also lived fol­low­ing a dou­ble code, I adapt­ed my­self to the sys­tem.”

“It’s more dif­fi­cult for women than for men,” added Rocío, “the rules of so­ci­ety are more de­mand­ing for them.”

“That’s right,” agreed Rober­to, “the fam­i­ly is no ex­cep­tion. Look, if the hus­band is un­faith­ful, un­writ­ten rules state that his con­duct is tol­er­at­ed. The in­fi­deli­ty of women, on the other hand, is not given such a wide berth.”

“It’s true, un­fair but true. His­tor­i­cal­ly, it’s al­ways been that way. Our sex has al­ways been op­pressed, rel­e­gat­ed to the back­ground. But what can we do about it? Isn’t it a fact of life?”

“Yes, doc­tor, but that doesn’t mean we can’t change it. When women couldn’t avoid get­ting preg­nant, greater re­stric­tions were jus­ti­fied. Now, with the gen­er­alised avail­abil­i­ty of con­tra­cep­tives, it can’t be al­lowed. She can act sex­u­al­ly with com­plete se­cu­ri­ty, if she takes pre­cau­tions.”

“Well, we don’t live in a world like that, it’s sim­ply not the case...”

“Do you know why not, Rocío?”

“No, why not?”

“Be­cause that’s how we were brought up; men have been given more free­dom. They are con­sid­ered the hunter, the dic­ta­tor of their home, the one who brings home the bacon. The fe­male, on the other hand, can give birth. She has been in­struct­ed to care­ful­ly con­serve the le­git­i­ma­cy of the chil­dren. To as­sign to a man an­oth­er’s child has al­ways been an ir­repara­ble of­fence, the cause of ir­re­solv­able con­flicts.”

“I don’t think your point of view is wrong,” she said, “rea­son shows us that there are no longer mo­tives to es­tab­lish dif­fer­ences and, if there were any, it would be in­signif­i­cant.”

“Yes, but let’s be hon­est... I my­self seem so con­vinced, but should the mo­ment ar­rive, I would have to make an ef­fort to over­come my wound­ed pride, my anger. It wouldn’t be easy to ac­cept, sim­ply be­cause from a young age so­ci­ety has bom­bard­ed me with rigid, male chau­vin­ist ideas. They in­stilled in me the idea that the male sex has hege­mo­ny over the fe­male.”

“Doc­tor, don’t you think you can get over it with the use of rea­son? Can’t you get rid of un­found­ed, ab­surd be­liefs?”

“Yes, I can, but it’s not that easy. It’s like re­li­gion, al­though I’m an ag­nos­tic, the sight of a cross al­ways has an im­pact on me. I wouldn’t be sur­prised if I beg God for my life short­ly be­fore dying. We’re con­di­tioned, schema­tised. That’s why, doc­tor, when I refer to your past, that you’re not sat­is­fied with it, I said that the most im­por­tant thing is that you haven’t lost your ca­pac­i­ty to feel. Only that way can you go about slow­ly ex­il­ing the ves­tiges of an ed­u­ca­tion that cas­trates and in­duces stu­pid­i­ty, which near­ly all of us have re­ceived.”

“I don’t know, I think I pre­fer to be more clas­si­cal in that re­spect. I don’t un­der­stand so many com­pli­ca­tions, think­ing about things so much. I don’t know if I’d be in shape to start a re­la­tion­ship with so much schem­ing; it would be like start­ing out based on mis­trust, like mak­ing feel­ings less im­por­tant.”

“It’s not like that,” said Rober­to; “on the con­trary, it’s sim­ply tak­ing sup­port from the truth, from knowl­edge. It’s never bad to be in­formed. Do you think in­for­ma­tion should be hid­den?”

“No,” she said, “it’s al­ways use­ful when mak­ing the right de­ci­sion.”

“There’s a lot of lying, Rocío, when two peo­ple swear eter­nal fi­deli­ty, it’s a white lie. How could they be com­plete­ly sure? They also lie when they state that they’ll ac­com­pa­ny the other until death parts them. Rocío, tell me if this isn’t the height of hypocrisy... They be­smirch the union from the out­set, al­though as a poet would say, ‘the per­jury of love should not be con­demned’. No­body can guar­an­tee their af­fec­tion, it’s ab­surd, child­ish. We’re no longer kids, we should face re­al­i­ty, take it on board ac­cord­ing to our spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tion.”

“Ex­cuse me, doc­tor, I think you’re too de­mand­ing. I think a pas­sion­ate promise can be al­lowed, it’s im­plic­it that the fu­ture could dis­cred­it it. If you con­sid­er it metaphor­i­cal, every­thing be­comes more un­der­stand­able.”

“Of course, Rocío, if it were so, I’d be in agree­ment, but don’t for­get that the Church takes us for a ride with the sin­gle, in­dis­sol­u­ble mat­ri­mo­ny. This is dif­fer­ent, it pre­sup­pos­es that that promise must be ad­hered to, whether we like it or not.”

“You your­self, Burán, said to me re­cent­ly that the mar­riage must be care­ful­ly pro­tect­ed when there are chil­dren.”

“Of course, but not fa­nat­i­cal­ly, with­out ac­knowl­edg­ing lim­its or spe­cial cir­cum­stances. When liv­ing to­geth­er be­comes im­pos­si­ble, when the chil­dren them­selves suf­fer, di­vorce is the most civilised op­tion. There’s no doubt about that, I only ob­ject to su­per­fi­cial­i­ty, noth­ing more.”

“But don’t you be­lieve that love can last? Isn’t it pos­si­ble? I think it is.”

“Of course, Rocío, don’t think I’m such an un­be­liev­er... For­tu­nate­ly, there are won­der­ful ex­am­ples. But in order to judge a re­la­tion­ship or a feel­ing, we have to look back, never to­wards the fu­ture. Until it reach­es its con­clu­sion, no one can pre­dict suc­cess. We mu­tate, trans­form­ing our­selves over the years... The per­sis­tence of love oc­curs on ex­cep­tion­al oc­ca­sions; it’s nec­es­sary for both mem­bers of the cou­ple to evolve si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly and in par­al­lel. Isn’t it com­mon for them to take op­po­site paths?”

“Yes, doc­tor, it’s fre­quent in cou­ples who get mar­ried very young, who have not com­plet­ed their in­di­vid­ual de­vel­op­ment. After a few years, they usu­al­ly turn into strangers.”

“Ex­act­ly, an­oth­er rea­son to de­mand more, when there are chil­dren. In these cases, the re­la­tion­ship should be struc­tured around a basis of a few fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples. I re­it­er­ate: there has to be ample free­dom.”

“The prob­lem is that the ex­er­cise of lib­er­ty de­mands great sen­si­tiv­i­ty,” said Rocío, pulling a doubt­ful face. “Aren’t re­li­gious and moral rules use­ful for those who lack sen­si­tiv­i­ty?”

“They could be use­ful to avoid a sep­a­ra­tion,” he an­swered, “but to­tal­ly use­less to make them happy... Only by being free can a man and a woman build a sta­ble re­la­tion­ship, based on love, on com­pan­ion­ship, on spir­i­tu­al com­mu­nion. Strong and agree­able ties that are not eas­i­ly de­stroyed by the fires of pas­sion. Even po­lit­i­cal­ly, the ben­e­fits of free­dom can be seen. Let’s take the ex­am­ple of the com­mu­nist coun­tries... What good has re­pres­sion been, pro­hi­bi­tion, ex­ces­sive con­trol? I’ll tell you, Rocío: ab­solute­ly none. On the con­trary, all in­ter­dic­tion, un­less it has a rea­son­able base, will be ig­nored. I think the tol­er­ance I ad­vo­cate de­fends the fam­i­ly in­sti­tu­tion; if we be­have oth­er­wise, we’ll be in­di­rect­ly pro­mot­ing di­vorce, even though we think we’re crit­i­cis­ing it. Ei­ther we de­fend the fam­i­ly, mak­ing mar­riage sin­cere, more human, more flex­i­ble, or we re­sign our­selves to at­tend­ing its death.”

“But, Doc­tor, it seems dif­fi­cult to me to sus­tain a fam­i­ly just for the chil­dren, I don’t like your words. It has been shown that they suf­fer much more psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly liv­ing to­geth­er in a home with con­flicts than the sep­a­ra­tion of their par­ents. You seem to fa­nat­i­cal­ly rec­om­mend the per­sis­tence of the cou­ple, even if it’s nec­es­sary to turn to machi­avel­lian be­hav­iour. I don’t agree.”

“It’s not like that, Rocío; I’ve al­ready made it clear in a way. Don’t get angry, I admit that some­times it’s im­pos­si­ble to con­cil­i­ate feel­ings with duty. I’m not op­posed to di­vorce, in fact I’ve been through it once. I’m only say­ing that cou­ples with chil­dren should give them­selves more breath­ing space, re­spect their pri­va­cy more. Noth­ing else. Is it so very mon­strous?”

“No, per­haps the only thing you’re doing is de­scrib­ing re­al­i­ty. The thing is, it’s so hard...”

“Do you know why you think that? Be­cause that’s how you were brought up. Your par­ents didn’t go into these mat­ters, per­haps they didn’t even analyse the dif­fi­cul­ties of mar­riage, the false be­hav­iour. If they had ex­plained it to you when you were a child, now you’d be able to ac­cept it with amaz­ing ease. It’s dif­fi­cult be­cause you analyse my words in the light of cul­tur­al con­di­tion­ing. Those un­con­scious be­liefs, so deeply root­ed, can’t be re­moved with­out great pain. It re­quires a great ef­fort. We both agree that it’s very tricky to ex­er­cise free­dom. We ac­knowl­edge that it de­mands the sup­pres­sion of a pow­er­ful, hos­tile, vi­o­lent feel­ing: jeal­ousy. Rocío, this will al­ways be bet­ter than try­ing to sub­ject some­thing as gen­er­ous and ben­e­fi­cial as love to tyran­ny.”