‘It is better to marry early for it helps you adjust to the new family’. We have heard even liberal parents say this to their daughters. Marrying early was and is still (in a huge section of strata) considered to be healthy and beneficial which makes for lasting marriages. But with girls getting higher degrees and stepping into the workspace more and more opt to marry late in life rather than early. Shruti, an employee with Bonobology worked for 4 years, earned enough to pay for her own wedding, and married at 29. Interestingly she had an inter-caste arrange marriage too! ‘My mother told me to be financially independent before I tie the knot and I will tell my kids the same”, she said.

According to the Census of 2011, Indian women now prefer to get married at an older age than the last decade. Late marriage is a reality for the woman of today. Even though there is still a huge section of the population considers late marriage, especially of women to be almost shameful, in the urban and even small-town India, things are changing rapidly.  This is welcome news from what we usually get, women make the headlines for the crimes committed against them – rapes, domestic violence, dowry deaths, and child pregnancies. According to an article in The New York Times the median age of marriage has risen to 29.5 for men and 27.4 for women in 2017, up from 23 for men and 20.8 for women in 1970

Despite living in a society where marriage is considered to be the priority for a girl as soon as she reaches her 20s, so much so that from relatives to nosy aunties in the neighbourhood – all start asking about her wedding plans, this shift which was much needed, has come.

Late Marriage – Causes And Effects

The latest statistics on marrying later in life confirms that the long-held definition of ‘marriageable age’ has changed. According to the released data, the mean age for women getting married has increased from 18.3 years to 19.3 years.

1. The change was slow but steady since the beginning of this century as women started focusing more on getting a good education and becoming financially independent, rather than using marriage as a meal ticket
2. Parents are positively shifting their focus in upbringing from getting a good groom to making acquire education and skills to be self-sufficient.
3. This has led to economic empowerment of the women and they have more say in their own future
4. Effects of women empowerment, urbanisation and access to facilities are also responsible for this positive change in perspective
5. Fear  of commitment, change from nuclear family to joint family  system have also influenced girls to delay their marriageable age till they are very certain of the choice they are making
6. Effect of globalisation- The internet and TV has brought in western culture to our doorsteps as people watch more shows like How I met your mother and Friends which typically show late marriages
7. With more individualization and focus on romantic love, girls want an ideal life partner and are  willing to wait for the right person

What Is Meant By ‘Late Marriage’?

Also known as Delayed Marriage, late marriage gives us a peek into the exciting progress of women empowerment worldwide. Until the last century, women were expected to get married right out of high school and start a family soon after. But the trend is changing now.

Women of this age are more excited to explore other options for themselves, such as getting a well-paid job, travelling abroad, fulfilling their personal materialistic desires with their own income, ensuring a comfortable life for the parents after retirement, than focusing on marriage.

Late marriage indicates the rising trend of pushing the age of marriage into the late 20s and higher among women, by personal choice and preference. However, based on the marrying later in life statistics as published by the International Centre for Research on Women, UNICEF, early marriage and child marriage is still a problem, albeit reduced in number than the previous century, in rural communities of Bihar, Rajasthan, and Haryana. But urban women equipped with good education and well-paid jobs are now more likely to postpone marriage. Read about the different countries like China, Germany, U.S, Indonesia, etc and their average age in which their citizens tie the knot. 

Reasons women are opting for late marriage

Marriage is a highly personal decision and thanks to the change in society, women these days have found the footing to take their own sweet time before tying the knot. There are five major late marriage causes among women.

• Because establishing a career comes first
• They are opting for love marriage. There is Tinder, speed dating and other options of matchmaking
• With rising financial independence among women, a sense of personal independence has also grown. Women now want to take charge of their personal decisions
• Being in a live-in relationship no longer raises eyebrows like before.
• Science can now take care of the biological clock with solutions like IVF and surrogacy.

For instance director, Farah Khan got married post 40 and had triplets through IVF.

Advantages Of Late Marriage For Women

If we want to know the pros and cons of late marriage for women, the advantages in terms of personal growth outweigh the late marriage problems women often face.

1. You have enough time for self-discovery

It’s important to know the ‘self’ before deciding to share your life with someone else. It gives one time to introspect and understand what one is. By delaying the marriage age, women can now explore what they want, what their dreams and aspirations are, and what goals do they want to achieve. They understand how many kids they want or what kind of a life they envision, one with or without in-laws! Knowing yourself leads to having a good sense of what one is looking for in a relationship!

Related Reading: 6 Things Men Are Obsessed With But Women Do Not Care About

2. You get time to grow and change

With age, our perspectives change, we mature and start seeing shades of grey rather than white and black. We understand why people do what they do and have in one sense more tolerance. As we move through years our likes and dislikes change too. We may be impulsive at 20, but learn and control our actions by 25. We may question everything our parents tell us at 19 but understand their reason behind it at 27. Our personality grows and we become more patient and understanding which helps us make better decisions as we cruise along with life. The 20s bring many firsts, the 30s brings a new kind of confidence and assurance based on all that you’ve learned throughout the 20s.

3. You can enjoy personal freedom for a longer time

With marriage comes a truck-load of responsibilities, but if you take your time to go down that road, you get enough time to live life on your terms and do the things without looking for validation from your spouse and in-laws and be able to explore life just the way you like it. Time for personal hobbies, trips with women friends add memories for life.

4. You get wiser and find maturity

As we age, we get to have more experience in life, and with that comes wisdom and maturity. One of the most beneficial effects of late marriage is that when you do decide to tie the knot you become more capable of handling the marital duties since you have matured enough. One lady said because of the two boyfriends she had she knew what she did not want in a life partner and hence she was in a better position to recognize the right one when he came along. You also learn from the marriage of your friends, see what they like or not. One girl wrote that she realised she wanted to marry within her city when she saw a friend having a hard time adjusting to a new city and felt hat her personality was closer to that friend.

5. You become surer of what kind of a life partner is right for you

With that wisdom and maturity, you build a clearer idea about what kind of life partner is most suitable for you now that you have been enough action in the dating zone. Do both of you like adventure sports? Does the ambition level match? Are you both okay with working full time? Are you both outdoorsy or indoorsy people? It greatly reduces your chance of marrying the wrong person for the wrong reason.

6. You find financial security

Now that you are financially independent and live life on your terms, you can pay off that educational loan, invest in a car or house, and make investments for your future without thinking of how your new family might look at it. By marrying late, you find enough financial security for your future.

Related Reading: He Sends Money Back To His Parents. Why Can’t I?

7. You can pay undivided attention to your parents

Even though you have your heart in the right place, after marriage your attention gets divided between your parents and your in-laws. But as one of the most significant effects of late marriage, you can have more time to look after your parents’ happiness and their future security.

8. You will be more appreciative of marriage

If you have enjoyed enough as a single girl and had the most fun time, you will no longer feel like you have missed out on anything, as and when you do decide to get married. You could give yourself enough time to take the plunge. One lady wrote that she had loads of experience living as a single in a world designed for couples. Sometimes it was annoying to be the one to show up at weddings without a plus one especially when others danced to the bhangra music with their partners!

Lekha Menon wrote this piece on how married people should understand the single happily ever after. 

Disadvantages Of Late Marriage For Women

Waiting too long to get hitched, however, is not free of risk either. There are a few disadvantages of getting married later in life. The marriage market gets thinner as you get older for one and you may end up settling for someone who isn’t’ the best match. 

1. You find it difficult to make adjustments

Now that you have been single and self-dependent for a long time, you find it difficult to adjust your life following another person’s needs and likings. It becomes impossible to adjust to someone else because you have been living on your own for too long now.

Since you have been set in your ways for a long time now, you give your personal freedom too much importance to build a family. This leads to marriage problems.

2. You are no longer as zealous as you were in your youth

In general, with age, our zeal and enthusiasm fade. If we look at the pros and cons, it’s important to spend your youth with the utmost freedom, but marriage also needs a lot of crazy enthusiasm to build its foundation happy and strong. Most people in late marriages have had all the fun earlier and are now too busy to care for their spouses and make their marriage strong from the beginning.

3. You start giving too much priority to finances

Finances are always important, but if you decide to marry too late, it means you have been taking care of your finances for a long time now; in such a case most often money matters take precedence over a lot of things and your married life takes a back seat.

4. You don’t have enough time to spend together

Now that you are overly focused on your career, it becomes hard to shift career lines and find enough time to spend with your spouse. You have deadlines to meet, meetings to attend, and are pretty much busy leaving you with very little or no quality time with kids.

5. You have to rush for kids

One of the major late marriage problems women face is about rushing into the ‘kids discussion’ soon after the marriage.

Babies are one of the most discussed concerns of delayed marriages and it’s impossible to ignore the topic.

Many people will suggest you not to wait and have the baby as soon as possible, leaving you with little time to enjoy the ‘just married’ phase. Another issue could be the possibility of dying off while your kid is too young to be independent.

6. You might face complicated conception

Even though science now allows for various methods of conception, if you want to go for it in the all-natural method, some complications could arise. Women who marry late panic and fret about having children. Their anxiety can also delay achieving pregnancy. Plus it’s more likely to cause genetic problems in the kids once you are over your prime biological time for conception. However, both of you may decide to be childfree too and there are benefits to that too.

7. Your sexual activity is compromised

As a result of the diminishing zeal and enthusiasm and pressure of balancing your life, your sexual activity also often gets compromised. Imbalanced sexual zeal among the two partners could lead to issues in the marriage. However, there are many ways you can spice up your life though.

8. You start feeling weird about yourself

When you look at your friends from school and college with kids of school-going age you start feeling weird about yourself. You are also the odd single out who everyone is beware of. In our culture being married means normal hence the weird looks that relatives give you can get annoying and start influencing the way you see yourself. There are harsh truths to singles living of women who are in their 30s. 

So it’s important to weigh all the effects of late marriage subjectively before making up your mind on which way to go.

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