What is “an independent thinker”?

I had this exchange on LinkedIn recently and I found it a profound example of what is actually meant by the term “independent thinker.” This fellow I was chatting with, a PhD who teachers at a university, said his daughter was an independent thinker and a feminist and therefore wouldn’t marry at 19. One has to wonder what kind of “independence” this is, given that it doesn’t entail the independence (the autonomy and freedom) to choose when she will marry.

Perhaps the daughter in question was told, “Feminists don’t marry when they’re 19.” But that necessarily means, “Feminists have acceptable ages for marriage dictated to them by their fathers.”

And yet, this sort of thing is normally what I think of when someone talks about being “an independent thinker.”

“Independence” is just a by-word for a predetermined, laughably narrow set of fashionably new ideas.