Friday, July 26, 2019

Ownership issues, trophy wives and societal goal setting

The iconic diamond manufacturing group De Beers came up with their famous slogan “a diamond is forever”. Likewise, I keep seeing quotes like ‘she’s mine’ or ‘forever mine’ - and I get befuddled whenever I come across such lines.

I think the mentality as a whole is deeply flawed that you can “own” somebody. None can own anyone - not friends, not spouse, not even your children. Spouses, at best can be your co-travelers in this sojourn called life, but you can’t own them nor can they own you. To own someone is to reduce them to objects. Neither do we own our children for that matter - Children may come from us - still, it’s stupid of some parents to treat them as property. Not that people who use such terms understand the deeper meaning, but I think it's derogatory to even use it although one may not understand its full implications.

I guess society shares some blame in this objectification. Right from childhood, children are fed with thoughts like - you do this and this, you’ll get this kind of job and this kind of girl. This very mentality gives rise to ‘trophy wives’ and ‘trophy husbands’ (I don’t know if it exists). This is a deep malaise we are to get cured of a society. The objectification is one of the causes of rape so to say, although I concur rape is too complicated a topic to pin it on one single reason.

But some are compulsively slaves and as Voltaire quipped it’s not possible to free people from the chain they revere.

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