Today, both girls and boys have more freedom over their lives than they did just a few decades ago. More and more youngsters are taking control of their educational choices, career choices, and most importantly relationship choices. With so much freedom going around, there arises a need to make people aware of the consequences of their choices. In this article, we discuss why women should choose education over an infatuation.
The Consequence of Mindless Infatuation
In just 2017 alone, over 1600 runaway minor girls were rescued by Indian Railway officials. The interesting thing about these cases is that most of them had willingly run away, and were almost always accompanied by a boyfriend. This infatuation with the notion of love and a glamorous runaway life in the cities is fuelled by romantic movies, officials and activists said. Also influencing them are smartphones and the easy availability of the internet.
The number of IR rescued runaway minor boys stand at over 3000. However, it is obvious who falls into the higher risk category; trafficking of minor girls has always been a great problem in our society. Many of them, like the case of a 15-year-old in Darjeeling, are lured in by older men pretending to be lovers. This is where awareness must come in. If perhaps more people placed greater importance on women’s education and career, then girls would have enough time to gain stability to pursue mature relationships. Not only would the occurrence of such incidents drastically reduce, but women would also have stronger voices to speak out against toxic relationships and marital abuse.
Who to Blame: Children or Parents?
Note here that not all cases of runaway girls can be judged as wilful infatuation. Many of them run away to escape dreadful lives or unsavoury alliances at home. The insistence of a backward society on child marriages and keeping women uneducated is as much a reason for trafficking as are love affairs. People should be educated on why a woman’s career and education is as equally important as her marriage is. This is not a debate on what is more important in a woman’s life, career or relationships. Different women may have different priorities and we do not have the right to judge anyone for the choice they make. What I argue here is the need to give women enough awareness and education to make a conscious and independent choice over their lives.
Education: The Biggest Asset of an Average Woman
While trafficking and running away to escape filial oppression is one end of a big spectrum, there are many girls who enjoy a relatively happy love life. Our society is irredeemably sexist and it is a universally acknowledged fact that it is often the woman who has to make compromises. Perhaps the most harmful compromise a woman in love can make is the one she makes with her education. Most of us may be familiar with at least one person, hearsay or experiential, who abandoned opportunities for love and is now that much worse for it. Again, this is not a condemnation of their choice, this is a reiteration of what could’ve gone differently to grant the ‘weaker’ partner a better foothold in what’s supposed to be a lifelong institution.
Also Read: THE SCHOOL THAT’S TRANSFORMING MINDS OF MALAYALI STUDENTS
It is another universally accepted fact that married life is so much different from love life. In the latter, women often enjoy the protection of families and let’s be real here, how many of us know anything about being an adult? By all means, in all views, the safest route a woman can take towards a healthy marriage is through proper education. From a more philosophical perspective, life changes from moment to moment and so does opinion, hence, we humans who cannot control much of our lives should make all the right choices when we get the opportunity and those of us who believe in God can leave the rest to God. Either way, there aren’t enough words to stress the nature of the highly prejudiced society we live in, and as it is, it is best that women prefer education over an infatuation.
