To Choose or to be Chosen?

Reading parts 3 and 4 of the Knight’s Tales made me remember about this summer and my trip to the castle of Versailles. There were many rooms, each had its own purpose but the one I remember the most was pink, it had a small bed and a dresser, it was Marie Antoinette’s room . Why I remembered this I don’t know, what I do know is that she reminds me of Emelye because the first things the guide told us about her was that she was forced to marry king Louis XVI of France.
Palomon and Arcite had both fallen deeply in love with Emelye so Thesues decides to hold a contest and the winner would marry her. I find that completely unfair because she has no say in the matter whether she wants to marry one of them or not but then again this is not so shocking in other cultures, it is accepted. I am one those people who finds it shocking. It’s not because I believe in “mr.right” or love at first at first sight but I do think that we should be able to choose even if we make a bad choice. There is no point in judging since both ideals have a valid reason, you just have to consider them both.
There’s no point in saying that one is love and the other is not because you can eventually learn to love the person that you are arranged to marry. Some, may think it is best to arrange a marriage because parents always know what is right for you so they will pick a man that meets their standards and reflect the life that you are used to living. Then again we are different from our parents and we want different things even though we are raised under the same standards.
I want you my reader, to put yourself in that position. You are 21 let’s say and you know you have two options:
1. You parents choose this wonderful man for you. He is handsome, wealthy, and respectful and can give you the life you have been used to living. Considering the circumstances you know that if the end you have to marry him, it won’t be a misery to live with him and eventually you may learn to love him.
2. You know you have the choice to marry the man you want. You may fall in love and he may not love you back but you are able to live with the tranquility that you choose that and that you made the mistakes, no one forced you to do it, so the you try again and again if necessary until you find the person that you choose knowing it was what you wanted and not what someone wanted for you.
Going back to the Tales, in this case Emelye has no choice but I thought it was interesting to see how even though we are talking about stories that happened many years ago, they still resemble things that go on today, and not only arranged marriages but also how the women is not treated with the same respect as a man, or have you ever heard of man forced to marry a woman?