we don need no education !!!!

some 20 years ago, in a remote village in India, a girl gets married at the age of 14..
she becomes mother of a child at the age of 16..
her husband dies in an accident when she s 18..
she s given the horrible treatment of a 'vidhawa' (widow) for the rest of her life..

appalling !! her life turns haywire in a matter of 4 years..
the tale becomes even more appalling when life comes a full circle..

after 14 years ....

her daughter gets married at the kacchha age of 16 (this must have been sometime in 1998)..
she s declared infertile after being not able to produce a child for 2 years..
her husband willingly (will of 'his' family i mean :-) marries another girl who produces two kids in a span of 2 years and now his first wife takes care of all of them and they live together..

JUST PLAIN APPALLING !!!
a woman was not allowed to remarry when her entire life lay ahead of her and another's husband remarried just because she could not grow the family tree ahead .....
(other people were taking decisions for them and i felt like shouting at the top of my voice, 'wake up !!!!')

then a whirlwind of thought attacked my mind..
when are we going to treat people as 'individuals' and not some typecasted non sense 'male' or 'female' , 'aadmi' or 'aurat' per say??
Just because someone's 'gender' is masculine guarantees him unlimited freedom and bending of rules ??? and someone is feminine guarantees her a life full of sacrifices and commitments ???
i feel so sad for the mother, who even after facing a life full of 'not-by-her-own-wish' sacrifices, did not care enough to get her daughter married at such tender age ..

and then another thought came in my mind, that may be, when her husband died (and the times she was in..) the decision of staying with the family and being labeled as a 'vidhawa' must have been a safer option..and to get her daughter married at 16 by a family who looked after her orphan (not having a father is enough to term one as 'orphan' i guess ..) daughter must have been another safer option..
but when i think of her daughter, in the so called 'modern times' i feel utterly terrible !!
how helpless can one become ?? she let others take her own decisions which in these modern times is totally ridiculous..my other mind (i tell u its very soft :-/) said that dear not every woman is privileged enough to be on her own.. Indian women have to think of the society and family first before thinking of oneself !! this was again correct..

the 'educated' me thought the educated way.. may be education would have helped her case..helped her take just (or better !!@@) decisions !

and then i thought, i dont need a trip to Afghanistan to get to know the condition of women !
(after reading 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' i was moved beyond words !!)
its the same every where.. sigh ....

this is because, we dont motivate ourselves to take decisions for ourself.. we consider and reconsider people rather than thinking about what we want.. believe me the complications and dimensions of a problem become manageable when one really gives a thought to what one wants .. i really mean it..

P.S. on a broader perspective my observations can be generalized .. guys r u listening ?? :)