Ignorance is bliss vs Knowledge is power.

I was having this rather interesting conversation with a friend yesterday in the midst of which I said “Not being aware of the options that you have lets you achieve happiness in your scope of life” and he goes “Yappa, now that’s gonna be in your blog tomorrow” .
Well, here it is :)

We were talking of arranged marriages.

He: Girls nowadays know exactly what they want, its not like they just accept what their parents decide is right.

Me: Obviously, they have just as much right to checking out all the options just like you would.

He: I know, it is pretty cool that they do. They want more than just a job and a family background, they want the personal details too. The girls of this generation have changed, I mean if I were to look for a girl the way my mom would do if she had her way, then I would just have to take sanyas.

Me: :)) That hard is it?

He: Everyone is educated, they know what they want. They tell me that they want to study further, I will have to go find a better job to be able to support them.

Me: :) Well, that’s the other part to it . If girls were married off before they really really figure out what they want from life, they will tend to grow into whatever they have. But if it is someone who has known independence and has learnt to think on her feet and fend for herself , she will probably have a harder time accepting a new person into her life whole-heartedly.

He: But that’s the whole point, she will be independent, she will be her own person, she will have a mind of her own. She will know how the world works and can look after herself.

Me: And because she does that, she wont be able to conform to the traditional Indian custom of being the docile wife who is expected to be one step lesser than her husband in all aspects, she is expected to be in his shadow. People may never publicly accept it and there may be quite a few guys who will treat a wife as an equal but the amount of people who can treat his wife as a superior being is almost nil. Most guys would probably want his wife to look upto him. How many girls who know that they are just as capable as him will want to ‘bow’ or ‘bend’ to his will willingly. If she does, it will be because she has to compromise, coz she doesn’t want any issue.

He: Yeah, that is sort of hard to ask a girl to act like she isn’t an equal, and of course guys would prefer to have the upper hand. And I guess girls would want a guy to look upto too. I mean they too have this culture ingrained in them like us.

Me: True. I guess it’s the way we are brought up.

(I don’t remember the conversation that went here)

Me: If someone were brought up in an atmosphere where she sees day in and day out that men resort to domestic violence at their whim and fancy, if she finds herself with a husband who thinks beating her is a norm, she probably would be able to devise a way to take it and still have a ‘normal’ relationship with him. But just imagine how appalling that idea would be to a girl who has always thought stuff like that was from during black and white movies. She would walk right out on that marriage if she couldn’t find a way to fix it.

He: :))

Me: She has her options open, she knows that this is not normal and that she has a right to expect a decent life. And she may chose to walk out but her marriage will be considered a failure though she is happier. Whereas the other woman would have made her peace and lived on finding happiness in the way she knows best. Having a limited vision lets you achieve the max in that scope. You believe you are happy and satisfied. That’s all that matters. Knowing too much doesn’t give you enough happiness if you don’t get what you consider ‘good’ stuff.

He: Too much knowledge is a bad thing, you should just have enough.

Me: Yeah, and how will we define that :-P

And then it trailed off. Well, this is but one minor aspect of the title but makes sense na.