Samara pleads, “But Mom, the pant and shirt is just as classy as the dress! Why can’t I wear it?”.  “I said no! All the girls are wearing a dress. If you are the only one wearing a pant and shirt, log kya kahenge?” her mom yells getting annoyed. The room goes dead silent. Samara takes the dress and sulkingly walks to her room knowing there was nothing more she could say to convince her mom. 

Reputation is one of the most important things in life. This is a true statement. However, when reputation starts to weigh over happiness and good morals of not only your own, but others, that’s a problem. We’ve all had a moment in our lives where we didn’t do something because we were scared about what people would think about us. It’s funny how we’ve all known that humans always want to be liked by people and that it’s not healthy to feel that way. Yet, no one does anything to change how they behave. The reason is that we can’t. Humans are the most social creatures on Earth. We always need to have some sort of attention to give and to have. For that to work, we change the way we behave and teach other to behave the same way. In some cases, actually most cases, this need turns into a dangerous obsession. 

The definition of honor is “adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct”. However, we’ve seen in the past how society easily turns what is “right” morally or by God into a self-beneficial trigger for bloodshed. The past that I’m talking about isn’t in the time when women couldn’t vote or only men were the “leaders” of the household. A source from Violence Against Women from 2000 show that “more than 5,000 women are killed annually for reasons related to “family honor”, although experts estimated the number to be much higher even back then”.  The families in this data must have felt the pressure of society’s “honor” and did what it took to keep their reputation from being tarnished. The fact that experts estimated the numbers to be higher shows that they knew that it was in human behavior to prioritize reputation over their family’s well-being. Think about it. The scientists knew that we, you and me, were ready to kill the women of our family to “protect” our reputation. Do you think the families lived happily ever after? Well, I don’t know, but I do know that those families sure didn’t or won’t get a spot in heaven for their “honorable deeds”. 

The tragic “love” story of Othello and Desdemona only has one moral; know your enemies and know your limits. The beginning, but not the entire cause, of Othello’s destruction was his insecurity of being a Moor. Throughout the play, many characters passed racist comments and openly only identified him as “the Moor”. Iago once said, “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving”. Othello falsely keeps his reputation at its highest by putting all of his blind trust in Iago despite his suspicious actions, only because Othello himself appointed Iago as the ancient. Could you imagine what would people would say about Othello if Iago, the ancient he appointed, turned out to be a bad nut? What would people say about his credibility as a general? However, think about the end of the play. Desdemona, Emelia, Roderigo, and Othello; all dead. Othello didn’t even die because someone killed him. He killed himself because he couldn’t handle the guilt of literally killing his wife and ruining his life. Cassio becomes the new general and Iago just goes to jail to get tortured and eventually die. Now, what would people think about Othello? Would they think of him as a brave hero that gave his life for his love? No. The people would think of him as a stupid coward that killed his wife for “cheating on him” without any actual proof. Just the words of Iago, who took advantage of Othello’s insecurities and fear of losing his reputation. Not such a happy ending right?

“Anosognosia is a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her disability”. This disease represents a human trait in healthy people. Arrogance. Everyone has arrogance in them. At times in arguments or fights, we think we are completely right and those opposing us are wrong. That’s natural and healthy because, hopefully, at times, you are right. But, as usual, there are people that are too arrogant. They think they are right all the time and don’t know that they are being arrogant. However, this isn’t considered a medical condition. Weird right? Anyway, arrogance plays a huge factor when it comes to reputation. Not all the time, but most times, its the older members of the family. Generations are unique from one another. Thoughts, behaviors, and rules evolve as generations come and go. The issue is that sometimes the thoughts between generations are so different  from one another that it creates a huge gap between people and it hinders the ability for them to understand one another. In many cultures, listening to elders is one of the pillars of morality. So in arguments, when push comes to shove, the elders usually “win” and the opposition becomes silent even though they knew they were right. This simply creates a bigger gap in relationships between family members and sometimes breaks them apart completely. Nevertheless, it all comes down to your reputation, doesn’t it? Because otherwise, log kya kahenge?