Sulekha team has thrown late marriage to us bloggers as abait.
I wonder if the late is as in dear departed or if it is a delay in marriage. That is the average age at which people marry.
Marriage is a socially recognized and approved union between individuals, who commit to one another with expectations of a stable and lasting intimate relation.
In simple terms it means becoming an adult and taking responsibility for your life and being a support to another.
In the modern society marriage is getting delayed as compared to other decades. Interesting this trend was seen post world war I while World War II saw a spurge in marriages and divorces.
One thing I realized from the various conversations is that both men and women these days want a “wife” of their own. What I mean by this is someone who’ll get the hot soup and pamper you when you go out and conquer the world. Somehow there is a negative connotation to it, it sounds like a domestic servant.
Being married gives a kind of social completeness, companionship, safe sexual partner, dependability, sharing of mutual interest , pooling economic resources and proper delegation responsibilities.( yes I know this is Utopia)
A colleague of mine who is in her late 40’s is unmarried her contention is why bother with marriage when you don’t need a husband to have sex, economic support, share residence or even have kids. You married women are harassed multitasking, and forever trying not to offend your husband despite of the same economic and education status.
When people do marry late, there are problems, though in the current scenario I would put it more as problems of being single. The more the marriage is put off, greater chances of remaining unmarried.
Why has this delay occurred at all? Lot of social scientist attributes it to the factor of 3 highs that is greater education, jobs and income.
The social scientists hypotheses that women delay marriage in the current scenario as
· Allows women to pursue higher studies which is the current focus
· Women can focus on their career paths.
· Pre-marital sex has become acceptable.
· It decreases possibility of divorce.
Some women opt of marrying at a later stage, when goals and aims of life are clearer. There is a sense of economic comfort. This may make a relationship more stable.
Since sex has got delinked from marriage it adds to the factor of delay in marriage. Among the Naga tribes before the missionary invasion, the social structure was such, that marriage was a commitment for life, sex, and children where different. Children were the responsibility of the community. During that social structure, domestic violence, sexual crimes were negligible.
Its also that the phase of life devoted to forming relations is also the period of life focused on career. Instead of symbiosis where balance is no doubt achieved but to many at the end of the day there is a sense of disappointment, focus on one area seem to make more sense.
Emotionally most chronologic and physiologic adults are not adults. Early childhood and young adult focus on academics, at the cost of learning basic interpersonal and survival skills like cooking, mending or ironing scares many kids. This is another factor contributing to avoidance in committing to a relationship.
My colleague from the psychiatry says despite of the Alpha+ image portrayed majority of human beings are not Alpha+. Domesticity is a necessity for emotional health. It has been noted that depression, sexual repression and related perversions, anger syndromes, are more in late marriage, as is the chance of the marriage failing. With age people become set in their habits, and more choosy when it comes to their partner. All this presents a picture of incompleteness.
The above psychological scene spontaneously presents greater life style disorders hypertensics, diabetics, cardiac disorders and the works.
With women there is an additional limitation of the biologic clock ticking.
Actually the change of structure from a early marriage, to a late one, the conflicting rationale behind it is all well portrayed in an Israeli movie, I do not know the Israeli name the English subtitle is delayed marriage. The hero who is waiting for his ideal love, and companion, the parents who are worried about their son’s reducing choice market, and basically the change in priorities of the generation.