By Marina Mahathir

This year, in August, my parents will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. By any standard, that is an awesome number of marriage years, especially when you consider that they married relatively late for their generation at age 31 and 30.

I won’t go into their whole courtship and marriage because Mum tells it pretty well in her book. But I think what’s an important factor was that they had a long courtship while they were students before they got married and therefore had plenty of time to know one another.

My Mum’s father, Haji Mohd Ali bin Taib, was a religious man. Indeed at one point he was head of MAIS (Majlis Agama Islam Selangor). But he valued education for his daughters as much as for his sons.

His daughters went to English school at St Mary’s as well as Malay and religious school, and when my Mum got admitted to do medicine at the University of Malaya (in Singapore), he and my grandmother were fully supportive. And although Mum met Dad very early in university and started going out from then, my grandpa wouldn’t allow them to get married until she graduated. Which she took a rather long time to do.

This was a very progressive stand to take at the time, and you could say, even today. My parents entered into marriage knowing and accepting each other’s character very well. I think that’s the secret to their long, affectionate and happy marriage.

In our family, my parents encouraged much affection among us. From young, we always kissed and hugged our parents and the elders in our family. I remember very vividly being licked on the forehead by my paternal grandparents every time we took our leave of them. The Malay custom of handkissing was quite alien to us and to the rest of our extended family and was something we learnt much later when we moved south.

My parents are also demonstrative towards each other, at least when they’re with us. They still hold hands at this age.

The result of this is that their children and especially grandchildren are also very demonstrative to each other and to their parents and grandparents. It’s not unusual to see my Dad walking hand in hand with a tall pretty girl, one of his twelve granddaughters. And the grandkids end all their phone calls to their grandparents with ‘I love you’.

My parents set a standard for what makes a happy relationship for us all. It’s based on a great deal of respect, trust and of course love for each other. He respects her opinion as much as she does his.

I remember one aspiring female politician once saying to him, “Men are so lucky, they don’t need their wives’ permission to enter politics.” And Dad turned round and said, “Who says?!”.

That’s the secret to 60 years.

Mum and Dad not only have great communication with each other, they also have a shared sense of humour.

Marina Mahathir, a social activist, is the only daughter of Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Dr Siti Hasmah

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