Lovers, couples, good behaviour and the law

Official cultural Puritanism has always been a fact of our daily life. It’s nothing new. This regime has been rather schizophrenic on the politically important issue of public and private morality in its drive to ‘safeguard culture’. Not content with mere moralising, it empowers various ‘citizens groups’ to critique and dictate terms on a number of issues ranging from women’s dress to how couples should behave.

This Puritanism has now invaded Colombo shopping malls as well. A friend of mine who visited a recently opened, much-hyped ‘super’ shopping mall heard a strange announcement over the public address system. It advised couples not to hold hands and not to assume that ‘here was another Majestic City.’

People,  couples or otherwise, young or old, do not hold hands in temples. This happens only between parents and small children purely for reasons of security. But the new cultural Puritanism makes a shopping mall the equivalent of a place of worship. Without going so far as to see this as a symptom of Sri Lankan society’s manic worshipping of money as the principal means of happiness and personal salvation, I’d suggest that this ‘shopping mall puritanism’ is simply another extension of that political moralizing which has been our official policy with increasing fury since the 1970s, intruding increasingly into our private lives.




Official cultural Puritanism has always been a fact of our daily life. The regime has been rather schizophrenic on political issues of public and private morality in its drive to ‘safeguard’ culture




But the politics of cultural policing has always been most severe concerning the behaviour of couples in public spaces. Recently, during a cultural event at the Independence Square, I saw a young couple seated on the ledge of one of those ponds leading to it. A policeman told them to go away.

They were not even holding hands. What law were they breaking? I have seen people, including couples, seated on the ledges of the main building. Is it unlawful for anyone to sit on the ledges of those ponds, or is it unlawful to be deemed a couple sitting there? In another recent instance, a young friend of mine met an old school mate (female) near the Vihara Maha Devi Park. They decided to walk in for a chat, but were turned back by a security guard who told them couples were not allowed in after five pm.

Is this a prosecutable offence, or an unofficial law? If so, who makes such laws? What do they hope to achieve?

The minister of botanical gardens and public recreation was reported some time ago as saying that lovers were free to enter the botanical gardens as long as they behaved themselves correctly.

I don’t know if he specifically used the word ‘lovers’ or if he said ‘couples’, interpreted by the media as ‘lovers.’ This is important since there is a difference between a couple and a pair of lovers.

It takes two people to make a couple or a pair. But that’s just the about the only thing they have in common. According to the Oxford dictionary, a couple could be a. two people or things b. a small number of people or things. It could mean ‘a few’, A couple could also mean two people who are seen together, especially if they are married or in a romantic or sexual relationship of the two. If we take that definition, a couple would be tantamount to a pair of lovers.

But the dictionary gives the following sentence as an example illustrating definition A: “I saw a couple of men get out.’ The compilers clearly wouldn’t want anyone to assume that the couple of men in question were married or in a romantic/sexual relationship. That would be merely an assumption on our part. I have often seen young men walking along city streets holding hands. I have never assumed them to be in love. A Western friend of mine who noticed this phenomenon was rather amused by it.  I have seen, too,  many ‘couples’ (a man and woman) walking the same streets without holding hands, but the assumption is that they are either married, engaged, in love, or in a romantic/sexual relationship in whatever condition. All this simply goes to show the trouble we can land in when we try to define a couple.

The minister may have used the term ‘lovers’ just to avoid this difficulty. Therefore, one can assume that his  conditions of good behaviour apply to young men and women who enter the Botanical Gardens as pairs (or couples). If a couple (lovers or otherwise) can enter the botanical gardens under the minister’s definition, why can’t they sit by a pond at Independence Square (this was around 4.30 p.m.) and why couldn’t my young friend and his former school mate enter the VMD Park (if there’s an official closing time, signboards should announce it, and that rule should apply to everyone, not just couples). Otherwise, it amounts to discrimination.

In this context, what exactly is the official definition of ‘good behaviour’ inside our public parks, including the Botanical Gardens? Is it OK to hold hands? If a man and a woman can’t do that, can two men of whatever age stroll through the park holding hands? we shall leave out the more shocking behaviour of kissing, which is so vulgar and improper that, with a cinema industry going back to 1948, we have made only two films which show a man and woman kiss on screen. Current wisdom indicates that this number will remain exactly the same for another 65 years.

I remember going with my family to the Gampaha Botanical Gardens about 15 years ago. There were more couples than flowering plants (couples = lovers) and I narrowly escaped being assaulted by a furious young man minus a shirt while trying to photograph a  flowering plant. I hadn’t seen him and his girlfriend on the other side of the hedge. If this example appears to refute my argument for greater freedom for couples in public places, let’s not forget why people go to such lengths. It’s because either they can’t afford to rent a hotel room or because they are terribly afraid of being raided by the police if they do so.

Dharmasiri Bandaranaike’s film Hansa Wilak shows the hell a couple must go through when arrested by the police for ‘indecent behaviour’ inside a guest house.  In other words, what you can’t do inside a park, you certainly shouldn’t do inside a room rented for that purpose.

Certain judicial officials have allegedly prosecuted a number of helpless couples arrested by the police for similar ‘indecent behaviour’ by the Colombo seaside. Not having SUVS with opaque windows, they take shelter behind umbrellas.

Back in the 1980s, a pensioner arrested by the police with his companion in a guest house  showed greater moral courage by pressing charges against the police. He managed to win the case. But such instances of courage are rare. In any case, it’s doubtful if he’d get sympathy from a judge in today’s exacerbated climate of moral outrage. Human rights activist Nimalka Fernando being vilified recently for standing up to sex workers rights (that their profession should be legalised) is another aspect of this problem, which is simply a reflection of  the public view that every woman who enters a rented room with a man is a ‘tart’, and hence worthy of vilification.
But it isn’t the professions of those who rent rooms which should concern us here. More to the point, our laws in this context are archaic. Other countries have been more sensible. In China, extramarital sex was illegal until 1997 and was officially termed ‘hooliganism.’ But the country has seen a dramatic liberalization of sexual attitudes in recent years, with premarital sex becoming common.

In Cuba, couples faced another kind of problem.  They had trouble getting a room as private property and business wasn’t allowed. Recently, though, this business has boomed under Raoul Castro’s economic liberalization. In Sri Lanka, there’s no shortage of private rooms to rent, but people run the risk of humiliating arrest, public exposure and court fines simply for carrying out the universally accepted act of love in a rented room. The problem is so acute that couples are reduced to ‹renting› space in the rear of buses and three-wheelers (one driver was recently caught and charged) and cinema halls for their sexual needs.

No wonder our ministers are left ranting about standards of good behaviour in public parks.