It’s always a wonder to me as to why women marry. Don’t get me wrong, but mostly I find that women marry the wrong sort of guy for the right reasons (eg, Karisma Kapoor), or marry the right sort of guy for all the wrong reasons (eg, Karisma Kapoor again).

The more beautiful/successful they are, the more vulnerable they seem to be on this front. It’s puzzled me for years, the reason why women marry toads.

On the contrary, men’s reasons for marriage never puzzle/interest me. I think they seldom make the decision after considering the pros and cons – like a woman does. They marry because they are told to. Either by their parents, family, or girl friend.

Among the mismatched couples one has seen, read about, come across, none intrigued more than Malaika Arora-Arbaaz Khan. I mean, even a vegetable can make out Arbaaz had nothing to recommend him in life – neither looks nor career to speak of. If there was a loser’s association, I would expect him to be lifetime president. If you remove bhai Salman Khan from his life, there’s nothing left to him.

So why did someone like Malaika marry him? Ah, why do women marry the men they do!

My first exposure to Malaika was thanks to MTV’s late night adult chat show, Love Guru or some such she hosted with Cyrus Broacha. Don’t get me wrong, but I couldn’t get my eyes off her. I don’t think anything she’s done since – not her item songs, other TV appearances, nothing – comes close to that show. I both envied and pitied Cyrus. Envy for the proximity; pity for, well, the ordeal he must have been undergoing trying to look, ahem, normal.

If I was a male, and there was this scantily-clad Malaika next to me for a couple of hours, and 10 years ago when both us were that much younger, believe you me, I would find it impossible to do what Cyrus managed so well.

Naturally one was dismayed to know that she was happily married. But not so happily, was revealed obliquely a few seasons ago on Koffee with Karan. In the episode in which she appeared along with her sister Amrita, KJo asked her what advice she would give her younger sibling on marriage.

Malaika’s words rang out loud and clear: Marry only if you want to have children, darling.

So that was the reason she married Arbaaz, to give her child a patronymic, I thought to myself, and this morning’s reports confirmed what I then suspected.

Can a glamorous, successful woman like Malaika remain married for too long? No, I think. But surprisingly, the person who’s talking of a remarriage here is not her but her husband!

Well, as I said, I’ve always wondered about the reasons women marry, and you bet I will be doubly wondrous is Arbaaz marries the second time!