So You think you can Marry?

640 million people or 51% of India's population is married and a whopping 12.1 million Indians were married before the age of 10 and I wonder if they were all really ready to get married.

Now I know why my mother keeps saying "Beta shaadi karle... You are getting older and everyone is getting married." and I am like "But I'm not ready!"

In my opinion and I could be wrong as I have been about many things in the past. Marriage is a commitment of a lifetime, as annoying as it may sound, getting married is the most beautiful thing that could ever happen to you; provided you are ready and be done with yourself.

It is extremely important that you are mentally (or) psychologically, emotionally, physically and financially ready for this commitment. If you are not, then you won’t be happy and you'll give up at some point.

Psychologically ready:

Oprah Winfrey, Sushmita Sen, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Queen Latifah, Saina Nehwal are some of the women who have redefined spinsterhood. Coco Chanel once said “I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.”

Salman Khan, when asked about when he plans to settle down' said he thinks he is mentally not ready and when he becomes more responsible he will think about it.

They’ve got everything but they are way too busy with their lives, they’ve got stuff to do and they are mentally not willing to give up on their dreams, careers and that little personal space they made for themselves. It’s like you accept a tenant who doesn’t pay rent, you can do that only when you love the tenant more than the rent.

When you have had enough time to explore your own likes and dislikes, your achievements and failures. Most importantly your opportunities and your flaws. Your strengths may not help you, unless your strength is patience. But knowing your flaws, what you lack can help you find 'almost' the right person.

George Clooney one of my most favorite actors of all time, who had the reputation of a love 'em and leave 'em sort of guy, conceded that 'everything's different now' that he's married to Amal, the 37-year-old Lebanese-English human rights lawyer he wed at the age of 53.

Emotionally & physically ready:

A friend of mine was once debating, she said ‘when you're 16-19, you're mature enough to take control of your sexuality and understand the consequences and you're also a little more equipped to take them on if you’re faced with them.’

I agree & disagree, that could be true about girls as they are more responsible and have better control on things and superior decision making capabilities then most boys of their age.

In case of men, most of us lack the ability to feel responsible, own and stay committed when we are young. I think guys need to be slightly older for both their brain and dick to grow a little bit more. Of all the divorces and separations I’ve witnessed 90% of the time it was because of the man. He was cheating or could not sexually satisfy his partner, surely that has to mean something, it actually proves most men aren’t 100% committed unlike most women. When grown men don’t feel the sense of responsibility imagine some guy at 16, 17 or even 20, I don’t think so…

Having said that, everyone is physically ready as soon as they reach puberty, which is usually 13 to 15. Some reach puberty as early as 7 but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready for sex. It’s like a game that can run on your phone but your phone gets too hot and shuts down. If you are not physically ready, then you’ll shut down like your phone. Btw If it keeps shutting down either you keep the phone and get a new game or change the phone altogether.

Financially ready:

Nothing comes for free and if you thought hiring a professional was expensive wait till you hire an amateur. Weddings are expensive, really fuckin expensive, the average amount of money spent on a wedding in India is 1.4 million rupees (7 Lacs per side). If you want a fancy wedding, then whatever you think right now is your budget multiply that by 10 times. I was part of a discussion once a friend of mine was planning her wedding, she wanted to keep it simple with just some friends and family, what started out as a $5000 event became $25000 event by the end of it. And that actually is just the beginning…

Most people don’t even know where they spend their money. I am not going to tell you to save before you get married, what I want to express here is don’t marry if you are currently struggling to pay your bills.

If you know how it feels to be broke, when you don’t have enough money to buy food and groceries for the rest of the month, you’ll know the value of money. And when you have it and when you have enough, when paying bills is not a problem anymore you’ll save yourself.

Back to my point:

If you marry and you aren't ready or you’re not done with yourself yet, you start to feel that you are losing out on a lot and you are right, you never had the chance to experience things and now you're married.

You got to achieve what you want, live your life, make mistakes and correct them. Go out, travel, fall in love and break up, be broke and earn well. Get drunk and be sober. Do weird shit, be selfish and arrogant, start to care and keep your feet on the ground.

When your spouse is waiting at home for you on a Friday night hoping to spend the weekend with you and a bunch of friends who want to go out for a drink the same time, it's a difficult call to make when you haven't had enough time for yourself. On the contrary if you have had a fair share of fun and you've learnt the value of dedicating time for your loved ones then you can make that decision quite easily.

You need to give in and you definitely need to be willing to compromise. Nobody finds a psychological twin, there is never a perfect match and you will never find Miss or Mr. Perfect for yourself. The challenge is you have to become that Ms. /Mr. Perfect and it is easy to do so when you are done with yourself.

"Preparing for marriage is like going to war, you may prepare as much as you like but there’s always an element of surprise."

- Zafar.

Resources:

The numbers are taken from census data and an article by the Times Of India. 1.21 crore (12.1 million) or 1.89% of the 64 crore (640 million) married populace were less than 10 years when they got married.

These numbers were validated against the numbers on the below sites and arrived at a population of 1.25 billion people.

India Population (2016) - Worldometers

Demographics of India - Wikipedia

Population of India