Our society has created a very bad stereotype about the marriage of girls. What it says is that a girl should be married as soon as she attains a marriageable age and should be put into household work irrespective of her wishes. She should be in the kitchen cooking and performing household chores throughout the day while the boy or man of the family should go out and earn bread for all. This stereotype is not at all correct, every girl has equal opportunity in life as the males. We males have not done anything special to attain the rights and privileges that we get, we only get this special treatment because we have the virtue or luck of being born as a male into this world. On the other hand, girls have now even stepped ahead of us because of their presence of mind as well as unmatchable intelligence that is possessed by only some of males.

We should change this old-fashioned thinking and work towards an equal and secular country which is the only way of inculcating development from the grass root level.

Another image that has been taught to the girls from the start is that there are problems in marriages and the girl should adjust and make the marriage work. This is too a completely vague topic. Why the girls should adjust, shouldn’t be the adjustment from both the sides who are entering into a relationship.

The following is one such story of a sweet and simple girl Megha who was married to an ill – mannered man who had truckloads of attitude and ego that was boosted into him by his parents who were the so called “ladke” wale.

This all started in November when Megha passed from high school and was now preparing to go to college. Megha was a very bright student who had scored really well in all her standards till date and even topped her stream in class 12th but being from a small village in a part of the country she was forced to marry again and again by everyone.

Her father would listen to new topics like no one would marry his daughter if she studied too much, she would remain unmarried for the rest of her life etc. etc. and would come home to convince her to marry. This was an everyday scenario. The village women would every day gather around her house and literally tell her to marry before she grew old.

This was really frustrating for her and she was not able to focus properly on her exams to enter college and one day in anger she said yes to marriage. That day was marked as the worst decision in her life if she said no then maybe she would have been alive now.

The villagers celebrated and came forward to help her in this decision. They all got together to find a match for Megha and would every day meet at an assigned spot to discuss the potential grooms.