Life for folks was darn right hard. Our heros and heroine all lost their fathers when they were young. Khun Chang's father was done in by a robber. Khun Pan's father was ordered executed for disturbing the buffalo herd the King was hunting. And Nang Wantong's father died of a fever he contracted from the forest where he went on a trading trip.
On top of robbers, the King's whims, and diseases, folks had to deal with being captured (and made a slave) in wars, being forced into war service, dealing with corrupted officials, and etc. For the women, life was even harder -- this fair sex didn't have much to speak about in terms of life choices. But all was not sad and glum -- there was a supportive community to fall back on, and there was a one sure way to the betterment of life, at least for the men, as Khun Pan was to wholeheartedly admit to toward the end of the story.
In his youth, Khun Pan was a bit of a rebel and lived in constant
danger without any patronage and protection. With his father's execution, his family was stripped of all their possessions and had to flee. They settled in Kanchanaburi. Khun Pan spent his early adulthood travelling and searching for skills to gain himself a patronage with a King or a nobility. He joined the
monkhood, considered becoming a Prai (an indentured servant) but was wisely adviced against it by his abbot. He was forced into the army two times to fight in wars. He gained a lot of martial
skills that eventually earned him fame. He lived off the forest, faced with diseases and gangs of robbers, had an active love life, and spent times in the Royal slammers.
Khun Chang was the opposite. His father worked for the King's elephant brigade and so he came under the King's patronage from an early age. He grew up never have to worry about a livelihood, and easily he became a tax collector for the King. He didn't have to join the army. The King's law was always on his side.
Nang Wantong was the worst off of all three. As a woman she had only her youth to boast about, and once that's gone then she must settle down into marriage, motherhood and household shores. And as a woman she could not join the monkhood, learn to read and write, learn the skill of invulnerability, go into the forest, or join the robber gangs.
Nang Wantong's life in particular had got to be especially harder than the already hard life a typical Thai woman led at that time. She was a wife to both Khun Chang and Khun Pan. First she and Khun Pan were in love, but as soon as they got married, Khun Pan was sent off to war. Khun Chang was in love with her too and while Khun Pan was away Khun Chang grabbed the opportunity
to steal her away. Forced to be with Khun Chang, Nang Wantong remained faithful to Khun Pan. But when Khun Pan came
back and saw her with Khun Chang, he got enraged and split. So
with Khun Pan gone, Nang Wantong didn't have many choices left in life. She succumbed to Khun Chang and became his wife.
Later on Khun Pan decided he wanted Nang Wanton back. He came and got her, and the both of them stole away into the forest. Life was really hard there and when Nang Wantong got pregnant they decided to get back into town. But then Khun Pan got himself in trouble and was sent to prison. Khun Chang, again, took advantage of Khun Pan's absence and stole Nang Wantong back. She stayed with him till she gave birth to a son named Plai Ngarm.
When Plai Ngarm turned 10, Khun Chang couldn't stand it any more the fact that the boy was Khun Pan's son and not his. He plotted to get Plai Ngarm killed. But Plai Ngarm was able to escape his death and fled to live with his grandmother (Khun Pan's mother). When he grew up he went and helped his father escape from
prison. Then the two of them got to lead the army to subdue Chiengmai for the King. They succeeded and were highly rewarded.
Later on Plai Ngarm was ready to take a wife. On his wedding day, Khun Chang and Nang Wantong came to the wedding and Khun Chang got into a fight with Plai Ngarm about his plotting to kill Plai Ngarm back when he was a boy. The issue was taken to the King who found Khun Chang guilty and gave him a death sentence. Nang Wantong begged her son to make a plea for mercy from the King to spare Khun Chang's life, for he had been a good husband to her all these years. Khun Chang's life was thus spared. He and Nang Wantong travelled back to Supanburi where they lived.
It should have ended there, but not. Plai Ngarm resented the fact that his mother had to be living with such a bad man as Khun Chang who plotted to kill him. Plai Ngarm couldn't get over it. His mother should've been with his father, Khun Pan. He took it upon himself to go to Supanburi to force Nang Wantong to return with him to be with his father. When Khun Chang found out Nang Wantong was taken, he was outraged and went to the King to plea. The King, highly annoyed, sought to end this mess by having Nang Wantong decide for herself who she wanted to be with: Khun Pan, her first love and the father of her only son, or Khun Chang, her husband of many years.
Nang Wantong couldn't decide. Khun Chang was rich, always faithful and dependable but homely and stinky, Khun Pan was handsome but he fooled around and was absent most of the time. When the King found that Nang Wanton could not make up her mind, he had her killed. Did the punishment fit the crime? Was it Nang Wantong's crime at all? Or was it a crime to want something other than what's available? Was it a crime to be pushed around by the whims of the men around her?
With Nang Wantong's execution, their rivalry was over. Khun Pan returned to Kanchanaburi to become Mayer, and Khun Chang returned to his home town to carry on with his royal duty. In the end, Khun Pan, the brave warrior and handsome philanderer, the hero of the story, made sure to secure for his only son the position in the Royal service! He learned the hard way how life without patronage was and would not see his own son living it: he wanted his son to live the comfortable Khun Chang's style of life. At least for the men, the two choices of either living with or without patronage were easily and clearly choosable. For Nang Wantong, as a woman, with no real saying in any matter but pushed around by the men around her, death was probably a reprieve?!?!?!
It was Prince Damrong (one of King Mongkut's sons and considered the father
of Thai history) who put
together the 20th-century published version from the versions written down
by the earlier King (Rama II and his court poets). Prince Damrong admitted
to having censored out some of
the scurrilous parts, and who knows what else! But still, what remained was the
fantastic poems depicting the many rituals and traditions performed by
ordinary people in their everyday life, such as:
-"Yoo Fai" (stay with the flame) - a practice of staying next to the fire
after giving birth (traditional childbirth),
-the prediction of dreams during pregnancy to foresee the sex and future
of the child,
-the tradition for boys of becoming a novice in the Buddhist temple,
-the engagement ceremony,
-the wedding,
-the funeral, etc.
Khun Chang Khun Pan is a must-read for all who are interested in Thai culture and traditions. Too bad about the censored-out parts. This work in all its entirety would have been
one of the most valuable sources of information for the study of Thai cultural history......