How would you feel if you learned that your husband was gay? Shocked? Heartbroken? Furious? Priya Vedi, a 31-year-old doctor at a prestigious hospital in New Delhi, India, was devastated and allegedly committed suicide last month for the “immense mental torture” inflicted on her by her husband Kamal Vedi, also a doctor, because he is gay.
According to Priya Vedi’s four-page suicide note, she discovered her husband’s homosexuality soon after their wedding and chose to accept him and remain in the marriage. But after five years, she felt incapable of continuing, citing a lack of trust and her failed marriage as reasons for the suicide. Kamal Vedi was soon after arrested for negligence.
She also posted a message on Facebook addressed to him: “I just wanted to be with you, accept you and your sexual orientation because I loved you very much but you never knew the importance of this. You are a criminal. Kamal’s family is innocent but you are a devil.”
Photo: Hu Shuan-shiang, Taipei Times
FAKE MARRIAGE DISPUTES
Stories of homosexuals marrying heterosexuals are common across the globe, especially in relatively conservative countries where marriage is expected such as India, China and Taiwan.
These marriages have been examined in popular culture. Ang Lee’s (李安) 1993 blockbuster The Wedding Banquet (囍宴) tells the story of a gay landlord and a female tenant who agree to a marriage of convenience to satisfy his parents. Lee’s 2005 movie Brokeback Mountain is about the secret, two-decade love affair between two cowboys, who are both married with children.
More recently, the made-for-television movie Wish Love List: the Two of Us (願望清單) was aired on CTV (中視) last month. Made by openly gay director Leading Lee (李鼎), the drama, featuring actors Jack Chang (張晨光) and Lin Wei (林煒), follows the love and struggles between a man and his wife and boyfriend.
The drama has caused much discussion on Professional Technology Temple (PTT), the nation’s largest online academic bulletin board, with some netizens posting similar stories.
THE UGLY TRUTH
Sham marriages do exist in real life. Not long ago, Tseng Kai-hsin (曾愷芯), a biology teacher at National Taichung First Senior High School, surprised the public with his decision to undergo gender reassignment surgery. After hiding his sexual orientation from his wife for years, Tseng decided to “find his true self” soon after his wife’s death.
“Due to social pressure, some homosexuals marry heterosexuals, with the latter often becoming victims of fake marriages,” said Chiang Han-kuang (江漢光), head psychiatrist at Taipei’s Shu-Tien Clinic (書田診所).
“In the past, women in a traditional society had to endure a sexless marriage. But women in a modern society have difficulty accepting it, and consult their doctors for help. Their marriages usually end up in ugly divorces since [homosexuals] are unlikely to change their sexual orientation,” he added.
In February 2012, for example, a woman in Miaoli County filed for divorce after 20 years of marriage when she learned that her husband was having an affair with a male employee. The court approved the divorce and ruled that the husband pay NT$2.69 million in compensation. The woman was also given custody of their three children.
‘TONGQI’ AS VICTIM
In China, these sham marriages are so common that there is a term for a woman who unintentionally marries a gay man: tongqi (同妻). Gay writer Hsu Yu-sheng (許佑生), citing a Chinese study, says there could be as many as 16 million tongqi, with the majority of them unaware of their husbands’ sexual orientation.
Chen Ko-hua (陳克華), a gay poet, says Chinese homosexuals face enormous pressure to marry and have a child to continue the family line — a problem made worse by the country’s one-child policy.
“Such fake marriages cause various problems, while their heterosexual spouses become the biggest victims,” Chen said.
Do we really want our children to enter a fake marriage? To curb the problem, recognition and support for marriage equality may be the key. This would allow homosexuals to pursue their happiness without being forced by their family or society to ruin the happiness of others.
In an effort to promote marriage equality, on May 20 the Kaohsiung City Government launched “sunshine registration” (陽光註記), a measure that allows unofficial registration of same-sex couples at the city’s household registration offices. Although not legally binding, it is a well-intentioned good start.
As we marked the sixth Kaohsiung LGBT Parade (高雄同志大遊行) on May 16 and International Day Against Homophobia on May 17, it is good to see that the government and public are improving their attitude toward homosexuality. Hopefully, as Taiwanese society becomes more progressive, homosexuals and heterosexuals won’t have to suffer the indignity of fake marriages and all the hurt that they can cause.
Exceptions to the rule are sometimes revealing. For a brief few years, there was an emerging ideological split between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that appeared to be pushing the DPP in a direction that would be considered more liberal, and the KMT more conservative. In the previous column, “The KMT-DPP’s bureaucrat-led developmental state” (Dec. 11, page 12), we examined how Taiwan’s democratic system developed, and how both the two main parties largely accepted a similar consensus on how Taiwan should be run domestically and did not split along the left-right lines more familiar in
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