Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah : 100 Years & Shared 70 of Them With the Man She Met in Medical School

For 100 years, Tun Dr Hasmah lived through a changing Malaysia, from a young girl growing up in Klang, to one of the country's pioneering women doctors, a mother, a public health advocate and eventually a woman who stood beside one of Malaysia's longest-serving Prime Ministers.

For 70 of those years, she shared that journey with the man she first met as a fellow medical student. Their story began in medical school, grew into a marriage in 1956 and continued through seven decades of family, public service, challenges and history.

Now, as Malaysia remembers her, perhaps the most fitting way to look back is not at the titles she held, but at the century she lived and the seven decades she shared with the person who had been beside her through so much of it.

In a video shared on Tun Dr Mahathir’s official YouTube channel in 2021 to mark their 65th wedding anniversary, Tun Dr Hasmah spoke candidly about their marriage. Their journey, she admitted, was not always smooth. Like any couple, they had their share of disagreements and arguments. But they would eventually make up, sometimes simply by going out for a meal together.

She also remembered one of the sweetest moments in their relationship when Dr Mahathir first told her he loved her in 1949. Even in their later years, they continued to embrace and show affection towards each other.

For Dr Mahathir, however, love was never really about saying the words.

“We have never said it with words. It’s more the way we behave towards each other,” he once said.

He believed their long marriage was built on tolerance, learning to understand each other, accept their differences and be patient along the way. As the years passed, Tun Dr Hasmah also became increasingly protective of her husband and deeply concerned about his health.

In a 2022 interview, she spoke about her responsibility as a wife to look after him, saying she would accompany him whenever he went out and often worried when he was surrounded by crowds.

She even made a heartfelt appeal to the public: “Help me take care of my husband.”

After 70 years together, perhaps their love was no longer about grand declarations.

It was in the small things looking after each other, making up after an argument, staying close in difficult moments and simply choosing to remain by each other’s side.

Watch the video here: 

Image Credit : commons.wikimedia