Chivalry ain't dead !

     A girl or a boy? Doesn't matter! Reading is for everybody, fortunately! 

I was sitting in the balcony yesterday when my neighbour, a 10 year old girl who had just been back from her village; summer vacation family trip. She was with her Mother then, who asked me when would I get married. I replied saying that there was  a lot of time for that to happen and laughed. She said "Oh! Yes, right. Haha!" and left.                                   

                                               The girl stayed with me and started talking. She explained me as to why her mother had asked me that question. It was a custom in their village to get the girls married at an early age. I wasn't surprised at all. It is so common to hear all this in India even in this era, where the world has been so much advanced and broad-minded.
She started speaking about dowry, that how parents of a girl child start to worry about how they would arrange for funds. "Education is of the least importance there, didi. Hanging out with friends and talking to boys isn't for girls there. Life becomes so dull. I just hate to think about it. Churidar is the only type of cloth for girls there. Why such nuisance?"

I wasn't hearing all this for the first time, but listening to a little girl like her was something new; something to be pondered over. 

Why can't the wise men understand, when a little girl can? 

We, the city dwellers just don't face such circumstances and hearing all this is completely different from experiencing the pain that they go through. Imagining our lives in such a way is creepy. Freedom is what a person craves for and rightly deserves but then there in the countryside, the word 'freedom' is itself out of a girl's life. 

Yes, of course there still are concerns in the cities as well like women being harassed, the narrow mindset of some households that keep the girls away from pursuing their higher education, the fear of innocent parents of their children going alone to a new place and maybe many other reasons. Some men are still so conservative that they feel ashamed of their wife working.Shouldn't a female have her own desires? Her own dreams? Her wishes? 

Such men need to 'wash their brains' and understand that gender has nothing to do with the type of work. Be it the household chores or the office work, there is no written law or religion, which states the type of work for a particular gender. Why is there a need to be ashamed of your wife working outside? Why care what the society thinks about? Does the society pay you? Earning is not the job of a man only. If a woman earns, it never gives an impression that the man of the family is a loser unless your thoughts do so.

Oh! Thank God to those few men who understand what a woman deserves. Their concern for the women's community, girl's liberty! No problem with a women working. 

The real men know that, the only difference between a man and a woman are the body parts.