TOI [30-Jan] mentions a 17-year old boy who
was sent to juvie because he got a 21-year old pregnant. Now, if he’s 17 and
she’s 21, shouldn't she be sent to jail for seducing a minor? Crime is gender
agnostic and when an adult sleeps with a minor, the adult is charged with rape—end
of story.
What’s even stranger is the woman’s claim
that this kid had promised to marry her. Really? He’s a minor, with no steady
income and you sleep with him for a year. You get pregnant and keep the child,
fine, but then you charge him with exploiting you. How
can we hold a 17-year old child responsible for knowing who he wants to marry?
How can we expect anyone in this world to
get married before they are 30? Say it, I’m being ridiculous, right? No, wait a
minute, this newspaper article is. Life experience will tell you that a marriage
is a marathon and you can’t run a marathon without training for a few
months/years. Dating is the training.
Dating, living-in, one night stands,
relationships—all these are essential training tools for people to discover who
they are, deal with their insecurities, make their mistakes and realize what
they expect from a partner. Men, women or transgenders—each one needs to
outgrow this learning curve before entering into a marriage.
But in our culture, we insist that people turn
every romantic-sexual interaction into a marriage, even if they have no training.
And then despite best efforts, the shin splinters, the ankle twists, the
ligament tears and extramarital one night stands and dating become the norm. As
for being misled by a boy’s promise of marriage, women need to realize that
when they sleep with someone, they are taking a risk and a man has a right to
change his mind just as a woman does.
Okay yell at me everyone: what will happen
to the girl, what about the girl’s reputation, if they don’t get married, the
boy will have all the fun and leave her, blah blah blah. Hmm… my responses...
First, by not allowing our daughters to
earn emotional maturity, we’re setting them up to become immature wives and
mothers. Second, just because a man marries you, does it guarantee that he’s
stopped sleeping with someone else? Third, you can catch STDs from a marriage
as much as you can from a one night stand. Fourth, often boys don’t promise to
marry but women jump down their throats so unless a boy/man clearly proposes to
you, it is not a promise. Fifth, sometimes after a first sexual encounter a boy
might discover he’s gay or a girl might realize that she’s lesbian. Both might
not want to admit it but might want to break up. Should they still hold each
other to the promise of marriage?
If a woman changes her mind, won’t we
support her? Let us be equally courteous towards our young sons. Men and women
are both horny and sexually curious and as long as both are adults and mutually
agreeable, they do not need to be married to reach out to one another. If you
read the article, you will realize that the girl was studying away from home;
she was probably lonely and this boy was her only comfort. But now that hasn’t
got what she wants—the boy is a criminal. Not fair. To the all women police station at Vallampudhur, I request you: arrest her
for having sex with a minor, release the boy. Counsel him that he should not
promise marriage unless he is 21 or get women pregnant. Teach both of them how
to use protection. Let them jointly figure out how to raise their child.
Read the article: 17-year-old father child, sent to juvenile home
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