Ego or Honour Killing

It is natural that parents feel indignant and ashamed if children do something against the laws of a society and damage their reputation. The indignation and shame turn into anger and persons with peeked ego, even turn revengeful. The 'Ego' is the disproportionate pride a person has, in his judgment, rightfulness and intelligence, combined with a superior feeling over others, especially the ones whom he considers inferior or immature. This 'Ego' is named 'Honour' by the egotistic people. We can also call 'Ego' as extreme selfishness for, this commands them to make others obey their 'self'. They even lose integrity while getting their wishes done. 'Honour', by contrast, is integrity, trustworthiness and keeping up one's word. We must accept the fact that in our country many differences exist and however much the reformers try, the differences do not dissolve. Love marriages have become common, we claim, but when two people choose each other to get married, they have to fight a battle with the objections raised with religion, region, language, caste, class, social ranking and strangely, even colour. Affluence solely decides the social ranking. Though wealth brushes aside many differences, caste is found to be not that easy to ignore. Even if the parents agree for an intercaste marriage for their son or daughter, the relatives stand in the way. They threaten to ostracize the family. They invariably bring in the 'honour' of the clan which is nothing but the collective 'ego' of all these people. Parents should understand the difference between 'ego' and 'honour' and with their experience try to find out whether it is a mature decision and not infatuation alone, when their son/daughter chooses a life partner. They can give their opinions and reasons if they are not satisfied with the choice. As children grow older, parents ought to loosen their emotional hold over them. The best stand for parents of grown up children is being 'friends, philosophers and guides'.