(1182) Good wife

I was reading a book on regional and traditional cakes of the UK. A conversation from years ago surfaced in my consciousness.

There was a famous book I read when I was 21 years old. It was loaned to me by a good friend in my college. At that point of time I could not understand much of the book content.

Years later a close friend showed me the movie version in her home theatre. Amazingly, the pictorial rendition was crystal clear to me and I enjoyed the show tremendously. Of course, by then I was married and was in my thirties.

The latter friend pointed out one scene: an American born Chinese wife baked a delectable pecan pie, cut one slice for her beloved husband. The rest of the yummy pie ended up in the garbage can. This couple in the movie was childless by choice.

I told her that in all my college life of interacting with American whites and Asian residents, I have never met anyone who would throw away fresh food or bake goods. It was merely the author's ploy of painting an exaggerated version of the event to provoke an emotional response from the readers.

Further along the story, this "spoiled" husband actually left his wife who had bent double back to please him habitually . My friend's sister who is an Australian citizen was adamant that the lady character richly deserved the abandonment by a "good-for-nothing" husband.

Well! I thought that was rather an extreme view. In my opinion, that lady did not "read" her husband accurately enough, some men could not abide by being treated as VIP all the time. Therefore it was useless to be so good to him. My friend had a third view and we agreed to disagree over that case amicably. What do you think?