The Mesopotamian merchant

Southern Mesopotamia, around 5800 B.C.: I was a wealthy merchant, and I had a relatively comfortable life. I had a lot of gold, a big house and a garden where I kept my camels.

Although it was not costmary in our land for a man to have more than one wife, I had six. It started when my first wife and I were waiting for children to come, and they never did. Gradually I became worried and started seeking for a solution, and there was only one that I could think of. My situation was one of the few that grant a Mesopotamian man the permission to take a second wife. So that was what I did. But children still didn’t come. So I married for the third time, and this time I chose a younger bride. Again, nothing happened. 

It was only after a year or two that I found myself with five wives and no children. I was frustrated. All my efforts had been fruitless. Now all people in the city had heard my story and were whispering behind my back; that I was being subjected to the Gods’ wrath, that I was cursed. Even though their words wounded me, I could not but agree with them. Why else was I being subjected to such humiliation? 

After sometimethe gossips changed. Now people said that any woman that set foot in my house would have her fertility dried out of her forevere as it had become Gods’ wrathful wish to punish me and all those around me for refusing to accept my fate as a childless man. As a result there came a time that no man in the city had desire to speak to me in the fear that I would ask for their daughter’s hand. None of them wished to risk having that conversation as they did not want their daughters to be subjected to such fate. But as they say, nothing remains the same forever, and my life was no exception

It was in the winter of the third year after I had married my fifth wife, when I hired a new, young camel keeper. He was not like any other man who had ever worked for me. He was strong and fast in his job, and soon my camels were in the best shape that they had ever been in, and they could go long distances in a shorter period of time. But the young camel keeper seemed different in other ways as well. He was clever and funny, but also impudent and audacious. Sometimes I would catch him hobnobbing with my wives and making them laugh, though they would fall silent abruptly as they realized I was there. But I did not pay much attention to that since now as a result of his good work my trading was improved and my wealth had expanded. My joy was completed as I realized two of my wives were pregnant. By the summer I had my first child; a girl, and soon after that I had my first son. Finally Gods had decided that I had been punished enough, and since I had never stopped praising them, they were now rewarding me. Once I discovered that there was another one in the way I was beside myself with joy. Soon I was the happiest man in the whole Mesopotamia, and I got my good name back too. The euphoria of having my life changed in such a short time made me a generous man. Whenever someone needed help I was there. I fed and clothed orphans and widows and gave as many jobs as I could to those with no land and no food. Soon everyone in the city knew me in a different way. People would tell my story to their children to teach them a life lesson. They would say things like, “…so if you praise the Gods even after years of enduring their wraths some day you will be rewarded with such happiness no one has ever dreamed of,” and so on.

Years passed, I was older now. Life was good, but now I was bored. I could not bear the dullness of my life, and I knew that the only thing that could bring a new breeze to my stagnant life was a new bride. But I had many children now, so how could I justify taking a new wife? Could my fame and wealth give me a place above the rules that all commoners had to follow? On the one hand I knew I could provide a good life for any woman who would become my wife, but it would be crossing a distinct line to remarry unless there was a good reason, and as I did not have that reason anymore I was not sure that I could cross that line without consequences. But the temptation was strong, and it was amplified whenever I heard someone telling my story as a man who was rewarded by Gods for his good deed and virtue. Once I even heard someone saying that Gods had tested me with years of childlessness and shame just so that I could be rewarded with a big family later, and that was Gods' way to give a lesson to people of Mesopotamia. I wondered if all people thought of me that way, as a vessel for Gods to teach people something. But at the end of the day I realized that I did not really care what people thought of me, or how harshly they might judge me if I marry again.

My sixth wife was as young as my first daughter, and I loved her more than all my other wives together. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had laid eyes on. But it never occurred to me to ask whether she loved me, or that this was the life she wanted to have. Everything was arranged between me and her father, as it was the case in most marriages that occurred in our city. So it never even passed through my mind to stop myself and ask her, and not her father, whether she wanted this and whether she thought she could ever love me. 

Now when I look back I'm not even sure if I loved her myself, because if I really did how come I had never thought of finding out what she really wanted so that I could give it to her? I’m not even sure what it was exactly that I wanted from her. Her body? Her beauty? Her presence? Perhaps I wanted all of those things, but I never thought about how she felt in her heart or what was in her mind. It was as if her presence was enough, just like my other belongings. You don’t expect your house to love you, no matter how comfortable you are in it or how generously you decorate it.

During the days that came after our marriage she would sit beside one of the long windows with a view to the garden, as she would do needlework on a linen shawl that I had bought for her. She did not talk to anyone if she could avoid it, but when she did talk, her voice was soft and her tone respectful. She was everything I could asked for. Even the fact that she was my only wife who never bore a child pleased me. I did not want to share her with any other soul. Besides, I had enough children, so I did not need more. One thing did bother me though. I could feel that even though she was respectful and polite, she was somehow distanced. I would buy her expensive gifts, jewelry, nice robes and shawls. Whenever I saw a nice commodity somewhere I would buy it for her. But none of my many gifts would make any difference, nothing made her warmer and closer toward me, and never did it occur to me to ask her why. I died not knowing the secret of her heart or the thoughts that passed through her mind when she sat by the window or when she was in my bed, silent and obedient. I also died thinking that I was indeed a good man.

It was only after my death that I realized what a selfish, self-righteous asshole I was. I had never considered my wives as complete human beings; they were my belongings. How could it be that it never occurred to me that they could feel and think just as I did? That they were just as valuable and respectable as I considered myself to be? The only thing that I had given them was a comfortable life. I had provided them with good food, nice clothes and jewelry, but my mind had never gone beyond those things. My sixth wife had suffered the most from my stupidity and shortsightedness. I had taken her from her childhood home, possessed her body without asking for her consent, and imprisoned her heart without knowing its desires. I had in fact bought her from her father like I had bought everything else that I owned. That is how she felt every moment she spent in my house, as if she was a piece of furniture, a thing that was brought there and had no way out. I knew now something that I had never realized when I was alive even though it was in front my eyes every day. That I was the one who had shaped her life like that, hours and hours of needlework so that she could avoid me - an old man and owner- as much as she could. I knew those things only after I was on the other side of the veil and it was already too late to do something about them. There was nothing I could do to change any of those things. 

I tried to defend myself against the rush of regret that is experienced more or less by every soul that awakens to the truth, and as it becomes clear how every choice they made in their life affected every other person around them and eventually the whole world. It did not work, instead I felt like an ultimate loser. I had wasted an entire lifetime with blindness and naivety. The thought was eating my soul up. 

Finally I gave up trying to justify my life decisions and decided instead to go back were I had been as a woman and do it as many lifetimes as necessary until I would fully understand what it ws like to live as a woman in such a male oriented society, and that is exactly what I did. I lived in female bodies for a thousand years in Mesopotamia before I decided that I had learned my lesson, and to this day, my soul remembers it as the most challenging cycle of all my 3^rd density experiences.