I happen to browse through my collection of Thai movies on DVD and eventually ended up watching The Mia, where the battle between first wives and mistresses takes action, as they openly declare and wage war against each other. The whole hour passed by and it was made clear to me that they were fighting almost nonsensibly over a man, whose identity and character in the story was never even brought up and given much attention.

And there was clear distinction between a man’s wife and a husband’s mistress. The mistresses or the Mia Noi were all clammed up in glamorous couture, skimpy skirts and flesh bearing tops to undoubtedly emphasize their need to be attractive at all times to men they desire-the husbands. On contrary, the Mia Luang, legal wives are clad in simple monotonous outfit of neutral colors that don’t catch attention. Does this mean wives have nothing to be insecure of that they need not be too brightly colored to catch their husband’s eyes?

Sadly for some reasons this could be true. Aside from having a clear conscience to carry around with, legal wives have nothing to fear in the case of philandering husbands. The wife after all is whom he shares his bed with and dines with his kids when he returns to his home. Mia Luang’s have the aces while the Mia Noi’s have only got their bodies to lure men. Or could this be true?

I’ve witnessed some discreet mistresses often sporting alluring bodies and whose ages are often within my range or younger, you would not mistake them to be home wreckers. They offer temporary happiness and gratification to men who fell short of contentment with their wives and are easily lured by biological urges that are known to be somewhat irrepressible to men, as in the male species. The strings sometimes come to taunt the husbands as they often result to deeper emotional and physical attachments they cannot escape from.

But what is it with concubines that they find themselves clinging on to the arms of committed men? Is the conquest worth the pursuit? Is it a challenge? Or are there emotions lying underneath it all?

The answers lie not in my head nor in my hands for I am not a Mia Noi. I am a legal wife, a Mia Luang.