Coordinate Covalent Bond Marriage

In the first-year chemistry textbook, there's a bond called coordinate covalent bonding. What is it? Let me put it simply. In chemistry, a bond is an understanding between at least two atoms or other chemical entities to stay together. By "other entities," I mean ions or radicals. Those who don't understand this sentence needn't bother trying to understand it. Anyway, this understanding requires something called electrons, just as human bonds require love. And covalent bonding is like a cooperative society. That is, those who participate in the bond share an equal number of electrons—the essential ingredient for bond formation. This is the condition for forming the bond. In this bond, everyone is equal because everyone contributes equally. No one can lord it over anyone else—that's the rule. But in ionic bonding, one gives electrons, another receives them. One is master, the other slave. The master will dominate, the slave will quietly accept it—that's natural. Because if the slave has no electrons, how can it speak with authority? Someone who never pays the bill at a restaurant—what sense would it make for them to order whatever they want from the menu? That's how it is!

Coordinate covalent bonding is a bit different. Here, two entities share electrons to form a bond. From a distance, it would seem that both have equal rights in this cohabitation, that they exist quite contentedly based on mutual respect. But that's not actually the case. This bond is somewhat ionic in nature. Unlike ionic bonding, no one gives or takes electrons here—that much is true. The problem lies elsewhere. The electrons that remain in the shared state come from only one entity. The one they come from uses those electrons during the bonding period. And the one who lacks the capacity to give electrons also uses those same electrons with equal rights. Now the question is: when one gave electrons and the other gave nothing, yet both are sharing the electrons with equal rights, surely both can't have exactly the same status? They don't.

Suppose some young man takes money or gifts from a girl's father and marries her. After marriage, won't that young man hear taunts, spoken or unspoken, from the girl, her father's family? Whether he lives as a live-in son-in-law or not, he has sold some of his self-respect. So his duty is to quietly endure many big words, justified or not. From the outside, it might seem—oh, what a happy family! Happy, fine. But the man of that family has sold his masculinity to someone else. After marriage, the girl will often point her finger at the young man or express through her attitude: "You're eating on my father's money!" That raised finger is for life. In this case, the young man is always bound to maintain a "Yes sir! Yes sir!" attitude toward the girl and her father's family. There might be affection from the in-laws, but respect will definitely diminish. A real man cannot endure disrespectful affection for long. Even the girl's brother will never truly respect his sister's husband from the heart. You might say, no, that doesn't happen! I say, come on, brother, listen! If the girl's brother were so good, people wouldn't call him a "brother-in-law" with such implications!!

So, back to what I was saying. Coordinate covalent bonding. In this bond too, the one from whom the electrons come naturally keeps a finger pointed at the other. Since the shared electrons are actually his, he constantly reminds the other with an arrow sign: "You're eating on my father's money!" The other has nothing to say because it's the truth. Everyone around understands the "significance" of this raised finger—the arrow sign—but pretends there's nothing to mind about it. The girl's father is also the girl's husband's father. I say, of course he is. But let not the claim of fatherhood lie prostrate before the responsibilities of fatherhood. If something like that happens, simple relationships might not remain simple.

I've seen that when a girl's father is wealthy, he thinks of all young men as poor lovers who were born into this world solely to do the shopping for their in-laws. After marriage, they'll show up uninvited at the in-laws' house anytime and say, "Ma, I'm terribly hungry! Whatever's at home, serve me rice with that." He assumes that every young man's sole ambition is to grab some portion of his property after marriage. Helping with in-laws' work is nothing improper if it comes from love and responsibility, not obligation. These types of girls' fathers start giving accounts of their assets to the boy or the boy's family, either directly or through intermediaries. They believe all young men have an invisible tag attached to their chests: For Sale!

But the girl's father is by no means solely responsible for this commercial form of marriage. Our social customs force them to think this way. I've seen many young men always ready to sell themselves. Don't think only uneducated, barely educated, or half-educated young men do this. I've seen my doctor friend who failed matriculation and intermediate twice, who after graduating from Dhaka Medical College took an apartment, a car, and 40 lakh taka cash for his chamber from his father-in-law "considering him family" at the time of marriage. During my MBA at IBA, I met many who would say, "Why shouldn't I take money during marriage? Don't I have any value?" Hearing this, I'd remember the plump, glossy cow at the cattle market before Eid. How carefully they prepare the cows for sacrifice! People will pay high prices for the cow, and even if the cow kicks and struggles during slaughter, they won't say anything but will lovingly kiss it saying "Oh my precious darling, my magic dust"—that's not how it should be. I've seen many young men waiting to get settled on their father-in-law's money. They very calculatingly make some rich man's naive, emotional daughter fall in love. These young men who sell their freedom and self-respect create a stereotypical mindset in girls' fathers. At some point, they come to believe that all young men are perhaps spineless.

No young man should even think of marriage until he's established enough to support himself, his family, and his wife. How can someone who hasn't learned to stand on his own feet guarantee to help another stand? Life isn't like Humayun Ahmed's novels. I fell in love, and like a child, I rushed to the registrar's office and got married! How many of these registrar office marriages or court marriages actually last in the end? Look around you. These marriages usually remain secret, so either by the time the young man gets on his feet, the girl gets married elsewhere, or even before that, they create problems between themselves and either the boy or the girl no longer wants to maintain the relationship. You'll have to pay a steep price for every whimsical major decision in life—that's the rule. Showing marriage papers, in most cases the young man or sometimes the girl has resorted to blackmail—such incidents aren't rare either. How many marriages have survived purely on the strength of love? Those that have—investigate and you'll find either the girl or the boy left their family. Living life on the run from family and society isn't a hero's work, is it?

There are plenty of exceptions to the above. There are quite a few young men who completely changed after falling in love. Like Bengali cinema stories, those who showed "Chaudhury Saheb" by becoming heroes from zero entirely through their own merit—such confident and self-respecting young men undoubtedly deserve a salute. Just as love can weaken a man, it also teaches him to become strong. But for the latter, you need to know how to pay the rickshaw fare and fuchka bill. Generally, young men who court on their girlfriend's money are less able to stand on their own feet. To marry before becoming completely marriage-worthy with the self-confident attitude of "I won't even accept a wristwatch from my father-in-law during marriage!"—no, never, never!!