Recently, there is a particular piece of news that aroused great
attention in our society, which is the love story of an 18-year old boy
and a 51-year old woman. The two of them are now fighting against the
boy』s family because they forbid the boy and the older woman to be
together. This sweet relationship between them is now being obstructed
simply because of some terrible prejudice in our society.
Unfortunately, such prejudice is far from uncommon; in fact, my best
friends suffered from it.
Darren and Judy are both my close friends. Judy is a
student in applied foreign languages, whereas Darren majors in
Tae-Kwan-Do. The both of them are very much in love with each other and
they have been together for more than a year now. I remember that once
Judy went to school with a very bad cold, and it began to turn into a
serious fever at noon. She couldn』t get in touch with her family but
she had to go to the hospital at once. Darren was practicing in a Judo
Clubhouse an hour from the school at the time, but he came straight away
as soon as he heard about Judy』s sickness and took very good care of
her. Moreover, anybody who ever observed the couple together can feel
the strong emotional connections between the two of them.
However, Judy』s parents found out about Judy and
Darren being together and were really mad about it. They forbade them
to see each other. Judy』s parents told her that the reason they did it
was because she was only 17and this was too young an age to fall in love
with anyone, for they said that she was too young to understand what
love really was. However, the truth was that Judy』s parents held great
prejudice against Darren for being a physical education major. From
their point of view, people who study Tae-Kwan-Do have no future at
all. They would never let their darling Judy to fall in love with a
muscle man.
What Judy』s parents see is that Darren majors in
Tae-Kwan-Do. They couldn』t see that when Darren and Judy are together,
they have great communication between them, and that both of them are
trying to do their best in everything so they can have a steady
relationship; moreover, they』ve already begun to make plans for their
future. How can anyone be so cruel to obstruct this wonderful
relationship?
To me, the recent story about the love between the
18-year old man and the 51-year old woman is facing the same problem as
Judy and Darren』s relationship. When I heard about the news, I was
quite shocked for a moment. At first, I wondered whether the two of
them really loved each other or not. I wondered whether there really
was true love between them. However, having learned from Judy and
Darren』s experience, I quickly thought to myself---「What right do we
have to judge and doubt the love between other people? We are not in
their position, how would we know their feelings?」 Love is something
that exists between the couple themselves, why should we judge any of
them according to the 「prejudice」 of this society, right? We really
should just give the lovers our blessings, and leave the 「loving」 to
them.