There are a lot of partnerships and marriages in which love did not fall onto that partner whom the parents would have preferred for their son or daughter. Obviously not everybody goes that far as to murder their own children or relatives in an honour killing as I described yesterday. There are however many cases in which the family makes outcasts of their own family members for this one reason – they decided to marry the wrong person. It can be someone of another religion but here I see most of the cases in which it is another caste.
It happens often that a boy and girl run away from home because they know their parents would never approve of their love and relationship. They get married secretly and in private, maybe with just a few friends and supporters around. We have heard of cases in which the parents of the girl went to police and reported the boy for kidnapping their daughter. When the police found the couple though, the girl told them that she had not been kidnapped but that she loved him and wanted to be with him. If both of the young couple are adults, there is nothing the parents can do.
Nearly nothing. There is only one thing left in which way they can punish their child: they can break off any existing contact. They declare ‘My daughter is dead for me’ or ‘My son does not exist anymore’. It is not only parents, the whole larger family may react in this way.
You can imagine how a young couple can suffer from this kind of behavior towards them. They fell in love, they have the most wonderful feeling of the world and they followed their heart. For following their heart, they have to accept that others close their hearts towards them. Those, who have been with them for their whole lives, whom they have loved, who have kept them on their laps, who were with them for every joy and sadness, don’t want to have anything to do with them just because they decided to go with love.
They are outcasts for their own family. This can mean that they will not be invited to any kind of social family event. They cannot go to birthday celebrations, nobody wishes to see them on weddings and they are not even informed if a close relative dies. It is as if they don’t exist anymore.
We have two employees who are in this situation. They decided to do love marriage and have then lost any support of their parents and family members. Now they work here and need their job to survive.
I want to request every parent: don’t do this with your children! Keep an open mind and keep an open heart. Place the happiness of your child above what you had planned. You cannot plan another person’s life. Your child has made a decision and you have to accept it. Be realistic and see that you only create sadness and break a precious relation if you don’t. Your child may be sad for some time but then he or she will also close the heart just as you did and it will not matter anymore. When you have reached this state, it is very difficult to return to a normal relationship.
I don’t say it never happens. Maybe, with the course of years, it is possible to reconcile and the remaining family can accept another family member. After such a break however, it is very difficult and in many cases impossible. Sometimes the outcast daughter is taken and at least partially accepted back so that one can have a talk from time to time and the relation is not fully broken. But often the unwanted member – the partner from the lower caste – is still not allowed to enter the home. It usually remains a very difficult situation for everyone around.
So don’t bring yourself and your loved ones in this situation. Don’t love only with the condition that the other one acts the way you wish. Accept, love and help your child live his or her dreams!
Related posts
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3 Groups of People who want to keep the Caste System and their Reasons – 20 Jun 12
5 Ideas how to get rid of the inhuman Caste System in India – 19 Jun 12
Daily Hypocrisy among Followers of the Caste System – 18 Jun 12
Honour Killings due to Caste, Religion, Culture and Society – 21 Nov 11
Honour Killing due to Castes – Attempt to control Love – 18 Nov 11
No Respect for lower Castes in Hinduism? Become a Buddhist! – 3 Oct 11
Westerners supporting Caste System by pretending to be Hindus – 20 Sep 11
Hinduism Prohibits Lower Caste People from Entering Temples – 19 Apr 11
It is always horrible when a break happens in between family members, be that because of honour or anything else. Parents break with their children but more often it is the children who want to be free from parental control which is why they stop any communication with certain parts of the family. This happens quite often though and is mostly temporary. It is bad but you actually get used to those situations even if you hope your children will never do this to you.
How can ppl declare a son or daughter don’t matter anymore for them?i risk to think they never loved them children. I has a son who dies 20 years ago and he matters yet.