Too young to marry or too old to find a match...

Feels like an achievement that I am back here, sticking to my resolution of pursuing things that make me happy:-) Though, I could have come back earlier, but its better to be late than never:-)



"The much hyped and the much deserved empowerment of women has CHANGED IT ALL."
I thought so atleast till a few months back. Career is top priority, Marriage can wait, Climbing the success ladder came before Climbing the steps of your newly wedded husband's home. Well I still don't deny that a lot of things have really changed, but in the broader picture some still have not and probably they won't so easily and so early. The so-called "marriagable" age has become more subjective, with so many opportunities available for women to progress beyond the four walls of the house both professionally & personally. "22-25" is no more considered to be the perfect bracket for the greatest turning point in a woman's life. 28 is the new 24, & there are takers who willingly extend it to 30... I was pretty much convinced on all these and more until a few weeks back...

But some how I am forced to RE-think due to the course of events that happen around me (let me clarify not with me :-) but with people around me). Complete your graduation, get a humble job, and bang on, its time either you find yourself a match or else your parents would...(the former being more common these days) :-) This still prevails in an era where most elite magazines and celebrity newspaper columnists publish and endorse the "Late marriage" & "Successfully Single" kinda stuff. My observations do not rule out that such a trend exists but the percentage is just a little more than "bare minimum". On a more generic basis, girls still get married by 25 and what surprises me is that most of them choose to do so with complete willingness and happiness... Well makes me wonder that I am quite different and no doubt that lands me into arguments with many around especially with the likes of my mother's generation.

Anyway since I have already blabbered a lot, lets come to the point(the aim with which I started writing this). "What exactly is the right age for marriage..." (be it a girl or a boy)... Before I delve into the viewpoint and counterpoint I need to quote someone, who a few days back gave me a beautiful answer to this question. The answer is beautiful though i m still pondering over its feasibility & justifiability. "There is no age for marriage, according to some, it's important to be settled in life, while for others it's important to have a sound bank balance, some give priority to having a great career, for a selected few, you just need to be in love, it could be 22-25 for the girls & 27-30 for boys, someone could be fascinated by the safe figure 30, when for most people all spheres of life are completely in place. But the irony is that going by most of the above standards set by psuedo-philosphers of our society, you would eventually never achieve a proper age of marriage. Because most of the above have no upper limit, be it money, fame, happiness, love, satisfaction.... The more you achieve, the more you desire. So you just might miss the right person and even the so-called right age to marry and you may not even know it before its too late. Marry when you find the right person, (be it through an affair or an arranged match), if you have the right partner, everything will eventually fall in place. So rather than looking for an answer for the right age look for the right person. When you would have the perfect partner, the struggles would also look like a beautiful journey, the obstacles would only strengthen your relation." Though, this beautiful answer sounds really flowery but it still fails to convince me 100 % probably because I still view marriage as a huge huge responsibility...

I am not sure whether I am capable to talk in length and depth on this topic, considering the fact that I am just a fresher in the dynamics of the study called "marriage" but I still want to take the liberty of expressing some random thoughts on this whole "Marry early, Marry late" debate...

#Right Person is more important than the Right Time- I partly agree to this theory cited by the preachers of utopian world. No doubt, the person has to be right but in certain circumstances, waiting for the right time is a wiser decision. After all no one can marry for the heck of it... Just because you have found the right person doesn't mean that the next thing you do is go to the church and marry. Make sure you are mentally, physically & financially prepared to take the responsibility.

#Better career opportunities will probably never alter society on the whole- It might hurt the feminists but it's a fact. Empowerement would probably never alter the traditional role of a woman. She would always be seen as a housemaker first before anything else. I might sound a bit conservative when I say this but being a housemaker or more aptly, a successful HOUSEMAKER is a full time job and it's not every woman's cup of tea to be a master at that. Just for instance, I have doubts on my capabilities as a housemaker:-) The new growth opportunities may give today's woman the option to choose career over marriage but there are very few who would make that choice.

#Early marriage, more time to grow professionaly before you start a family- Well this sounds like a logical analysis. With marraige the responsibilities would only GROW. But if you marry say by 25, there is a buffer in which you can first grow individually or in stricter terms professionally, before you take on the role of a mother. A girl would have biologically more time to concieve. And also even if you have your first child after say 5 years of your marriage you probably would be 29-30 which is quite acceptable in the times of internet and technology.

#Metros and small town culture still differs- Being in an IT hub for half of my day, I get an opportunity to meet a lot of people who have come from smaller cities and I can see the striking difference in their metro born counterparts and them vividly. Even though tier 2 & 3 cities have grown at equal pace with the metros, there are perspectives that still lie at 180 degree opposite ends. The high end endorsements of late marriage are predominantly present in cosmopolitan cities like mumbai and delhi only.

#More options available- well this one comes from my grand mom... "The more you will grow in age, the better you would do in career, there will be fewer choices available to a girl to choose from. As, most of the "good guys" and "equally qualified" would be "taken" by then. Hmm No comments on this analysis by our "dadis and nanis".

#Earlier you marry, Easier to mould yourself & your partner- I have always believed that the older you are, the difficult it is to change. And in a marriage no matter how much you love the other person, eventually there will be conflicts and both sides would have to come to terms with each other's differences and also get accustomed to them. So by this reasoning somehow this point of view gets an agreed nod.

#You can enjoy life longer, together while you have youthful charms- This cute piece of wisdom is from my dearest mom.:-) Indeed true to some extent.. But as always its not very often that I completely agree with my mother, so again I believe, that age lies in the heart and numbers are just a formailty... So, its upto you to keep those boyish and girlish charms alive no matter at what age you marry...

At the end of this post I am amused at my capacity to write these many words on an issue that has never really fascinated me :-) Well, could be so that I never thought about it... May be its just a form of ignorance thats making me feel blissful... Just hoping that all my kind and treasured readers enjoy reading it...
Smile till I login again... :-)