I read in the local newspaper that there is a fierce debate going on in Britain about the suitability and requirement of Sex Education in primary school. I am not very sure if it is a debate of grave interest going on there.

Sex Education is a theme that I have hearing for a long time over here. Supporting the idea naturally gives an aura of modernity, and taking a stand against it gives credence of solid social responsibility.

I have seen many persons with bare information and lesser ideas debate it with fantastic authority, especially the local academicians around here. The feeling that I usually got was there they were all barking at the wrong horse.

What is it that they want? Is it that the small children should be given a classroom lecture on the tools, and the ways and manner of their application? Or it is to be a class teaching the finer techniques of sex?

Actually, it is my experience that most children do get the essential ideas as they grow up from their friends, and other peer groups; also from seeing animal behaviour. Beyond that modern films and TV’s serials leave little for imagination. As exact to the biological side of the process, well, the chapter on Human Anatomy and Reproduction in the high school classes will suffice; I think.

If it is about the finer techniques of the art of sex, then there is need for a class at least for some persons; it might be helpful, off course; but then, this class should be for those in the age group that is supposed to perform and practise the arts in the near future; not for children. Actually, there are many persons who have learnt the finer techniques the hard way; that is through practise. There are plenty of books available that give explicit details of the slender devices in the natural kit.

For a long time, I have felt that there is another theme that is totally being missed, in the midst of all these feverish arguments. It is about the main theme that really encompasses the subject of Sex. It is about relationships and marriage. What I would suggest is that the children should be given a class on the complicated elements of arranging and sustaining human relationships.

I would give the assurance here that I would not stray into my usual topic of language codes in this theme; even though, my thoughts are slightly driven by my understandings on the complexity of human relationships as seen from differing social cultures.

Before going ahead, I need to take a quote from Lord Macaulay. When his beloved sisters got married one by one, he wrote thus:

QUOTE

The attachment between brothers and sisters, blameless, amiable, and delightful as it is, is so liable to be superseded by other attachments that no wise man ought to suffer it to become indispensable to him. That women shall leave the home of their birth, and contract ties dearer than those of consanguinity, is a law as ancient as the first records of the history of our race, and as unchangeable as the constitution of the human body and mind. To repine against the nature of things, and against the great fundamental law of all society because, in consequence of my own want of foresight, it happens to bear heavily on me, would be the basest and most absurd of selfishness (Trevelyan 1876: 265).

I aim to take no upper moral tone here. What I am proposing is that there is a great deal of supernatural arrangement in marriages. I find that there are not much writings around nowadays that lay stress on this point. I have found since the early 1980’s a lot of local magazines writings to the affect that they have done this survey, and that survey, all pointing to men cheating their wives, wife’s sleeping around, and much, much more; all related in the superior tone of extreme scientific discoveries. Yet, on close contact, the writers of all these in so-called local reputed periodicals were persons of minor intellect.

I am not here to write on moral issues; but on the need to inculcate in the youngsters the rightful meaning of attachments, especially marriage. There are commitments to be mentally made to their partners. There is the issue of the leadership; in English household it may not be a grave point of dispute. There should be clear vision that after marriage, the leadership in the household remains inside the household and not in the house of the in-laws.

There is need to lend support to one’s spouse, and not to lend support to his or her detractors. Falsehood can gnaw at any relationship; for it carves a niche for the outsider well inside the household and deep inside the intimate links. Honesty in day to day affairs can lend an aura of power inside the relationship. Commitment to promises, words, arrangements etc. How the solid presence of the spouse behind through thick and thin can guide a person through bitter times into a period glory. See the comparative experiences of Oscar Wilde and Bill Clinton.

There are a lot of arrangements and rearrangements that go along with marriage: Friends, parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, hobbies, reading habits, games, sports, adventure activities, visual entertainment, and much else. The study can be on how to rearrange and arrange the variety of these components, in perfect harmony to each other. Let it also include the idea of what all things one should seek in an infatuation.

It is not wise to rush into marital relationship, until and unless there is a lot of common ground built up. There are many elements of a physical attraction that can help in its sustainability. Beyond all that there is always the mental compatibility. It is connected to the theme connected to communication. Of having a lot of themes of common subjects for talk and mutual participation.

The theme is huge, I just gave an outline. I am not very sure how much of these are of relevance over there, in England. Yet, there are many other places in the world, where they may have a bit of relevance.