“There was this girl in my school, back in 90s. Brilliant, studious, hardworking, very confident, a topper, a debater, a class prefect. We were class fellows. She was the kind of girl with whom boys talked after rehearsing.

Despite mad competition between us, we were friends. I guess the proudest moments of my school and college life were whenever I scored better than her in exams. Couldn’t beat her in confidence. We both chose engineering after college and graduated. I chose to work in an industry and she chose to pursue Masters in engineering. Later, she joined one of the best universities of the country as a lecturer in engineering.

That’s when her parents decided to marry her off.

An arranged marriage in a well-off family meant that she had to quit job & live as a housewife. This wasn’t all, guy was a college dropout.

She resisted as much as she could. But after sometime, she agreed to everything saying, “My parents are too old & scared of me being single.”

Parents too old and too scared. That was the reason for this brilliant girl to give up all her dreams, her ego and her career.

The guy was nearly an uneducated, spoiled brat of a business family who couldn’t stomach a woman having an education, or an opinion, or ego. In no time after her wedding she realized that he was verbally and physically abusive and his family supported and encouraged all this.

But she kept quiet in the face of all abuse because her parents were too old and too scared. She had no money to spend on herself and her husband never bothered to give her a penny. She had already quit her job. So there was no way.

Very recently she texted me that her husband had beaten her and given her talaaq twice and if after two times talaaq she could live with him. Shocked, I asked why would she live with a man so abusive and so insulting.

Her reply was, “My parents are too old … sick and scared.”

Girls! Your parents love you. But one day, they will be old, sick and scared. Do not quit your career for marriage. Earn your own money. It does not matter if you’re thirty or thirty five, do not marry, I say do not marry a man you feel is unsuitable for you. Do not be blackmailed in the name of family, honour or parents. You are the ones who have to live with the man, YOU decide.

Parents! One day, you will be old, sick and scared. Please raise your daughters as persons and not as commodity. Let them work and earn. Teach your girls to live on their own and never depend on a man for their survival. Do not force them to marry if there is no compatibility.

Don’t panic if your girl is in her 30s & single. Let her pursue her dreams. Don’t blackmail your girl for marriage. This isn’t love. Teach your sons to respect women. Teach them that they’re marrying a human being and they’re equals. Let your daughters-in-law work.”

(Source: Twitter @UGpk.)

The Logical Indian take

The Logical Indian has always been firm on the fact that young men and women should be in control of their own destinies. The fact that, in this example, the girl had to abandon her future, all her potential, to conform to her parents’ expectations is tragic, and too frequent. This sort of thinking should be fought and overcome