Made In Heaven!

Do women really have an option to marry early or late? I have my doubts. My experience tells me they hardly have this option, at least not in traditional Indian families. Family compulsions and unexpected factors overshadow any illusions of options that women may be having in the matters of marriage. It may be the right age for marriage, the match may be most befitting and approval of families all in place, yet more efficient than all these is the force of circumstances that may delay the marriage indefinitely. And my story in this context can be the story of any woman in India or elsewhere.

After graduating from our different colleges, he and I were now studying together in the same university for our post graduate degrees. We met every day, had our coffee and snacks together at the coffeehouse during lunch break, spent our free periods together in the university parks, talking on all types of topics, he preferring to talk on politics and I liking to talk on literature. Even on weekends and holidays we would often be together, I spending the day at his place to be with his mother and sister, who both loved me a lot. After we had left the university on completing our post graduation courses and joined our respective professions, he as an executive in a fast growing company and I as a senior teacher in a girls' high school, we still managed to meet most of the evenings, spending beautiful time together. We had, indeed, fallen in love. In fact, we had been in love from early years in our life when our both families were friends as neighbors, but much more deeply since we were together in the university. All our intimate friends knew we were an inseparable pair. Our families too felt the same, but no one would openly speak or suggest on our marriage, until his brother, ten years older to him, cleared the way by his wedding. I did not face such a situation in my family. My elder brother was already married, but even if he were not, I would not have to wait. like his sister did not have to wait for his brother to get married first. Girls in the family have the first right to get married, if they are of marriageable age. This is the Indian tradition. With his sister gone to Simla where her husband was settled, and his brother, thank God, getting married after a long search for a suitable bride, it was now the time for his mother to approach my parents for their daughter's hand for their son. My parents were only too happy to accept the proposal and with this, our long courtship of many years culminated into our happy marriage. We were both in our late twenties then. Indeed, a late marriage, particularly in that period of time, when the girls were married in their teens.

Everyone talks about what's an ideal age. While there may be something to the "finding yourself" theory about later marriages, that is not necessarily true. Most people find themselves through marriage. Marriage can be an incredible journey of self-discovery and self-growth. Marriage, especially for women, is their best chance to grow up, why delay it. The bottom line is, once people are in their early 20s -- assuming they have reached a certain level of emotional maturity and are with the right partners -- marriages have a better chance of working than they do at 30 and beyond. Of course, it’s better for everything to be in time, even if it's not always in your hands to stick to norms. People who marry at a young age by today's standards -- from the late teens into the early 20s -- share many more precious years with their partners, grow with them, avoid some loneliness and miss the heartaches of some romantic breakups. As young people, you grow together, as you're growing up, you're learning. The years together breed so much loyalty and common ground. The point is to find someone you can grow and change with.

Views towards the “norms” for the marriageable age are changed. And the higher the level of life, the later young people decide to create a family. We are finding in contemporary society many young adults are living singly and not marrying or putting it off till later. Down through the century, and especially the last two decades we see the age has started to increase. An increase in higher education, and people getting established in careers, have been large parts of this societal shift. Late marriages are often from those who claim to not want to marry or those who have gone through unsuccessful relationship or disappointing rejection in most cases. Early success in career could also cause late marriage. You become more passionate for your profession than looking for true love. One of the disadvantages to waiting for marriage is that many of the good potential partners are taken, and you may indeed be set in your ways and accustomed to a single lifestyle. Most women would love to have married at a younger age, but the right love just hasn't happened yet. Or the right match is not found at the right time. Even in the West, where late marriage is the norm, women would love to marry young, if only some one they love to spend their life with makes that surprise proposal. But no, men would love to live-in but never ready to commit their life to the loved one. In India there is normally no such deliberate delay, it just happens. We believe in fate as the Scotch adage says – “A man may woo where he will, but he must wed where he is fated to wed”. Or as they say elsewhere, “In time he comes who God sends”. Or the age old saying, “Marriages are made in heaven.”