Marriage should happen when you want it to

I was shocked when I learnt from Alka that a girl from one of her neighbours was allegedly kidnapped and killed a child. The reason of the killing was cited to be the marriage of the accused. Yes, the girl who was only 26 years old was going through depression because of not getting married. Some witch advised that if she kills a child, she will overcome the bad-luck factor and then, marriage will happen soon.

Well, this is not a rare case as far as India is concerned. We come across many such crime stories that involve witchcraft and other superstitions related to marriage.

The questions that arise here are that “should a girl at the age of 26 be considered old enough to get married?” and “who will decide the right age for someone’s marriage?” I believe, virtually everyone who made the girl believe that she is old enough to get married is partly responsible for the crime.

The water goes over the nose when your own family members curse you because your marriage is not happening and hold your “bad-luck” responsible for this. Their concern is obviously contributed by the opinions of the people they are surrounded with, which carries them away; but that can never be presented as an excuse. Life should be how you choose to live and not following the footsteps of billions.

After crossing the legal age of marriage (18 for women and 21 for men), one can get married any time and there shouldn’t be any virtual social bar against it. After all, for marriage one doesn’t need to attain a certain age but he or she has to meet so many other requirements such as being financially stable, finding a perfect partner, mental preparation, getting ready to have a family, and many more.

This case was a pure consequence of the concept of compulsory marriage – the girl was convinced that she has no other choice but to get married one day and that too before attaining a certain age. Anyway, no logic of this sort can justify such a crime, and especially in this case when the accused is old enough to take decisions for herself.

Putting an end to compulsory marriage

In India, marriage has always been defined as one of the most divine relationships. A man and a woman (let's talk about inter-sex marriages only) tie the knot promising each other that they are going to dedicate the rest of their lives to each other. In the process, they adjust with the nature, mood, character, attitude and intelligence of each other investing every effort to hundred percent in order to save their bondage. This is the simple theory of this so-called tie-up. Sounds very sweet! It would have sounded sweeter, if the same characteristics had been visible in each and every marriage.

India is a country where from the very childhood, everyone is fed with the notions that once grown up, he or she is going to get married. Therefore one grows up with the dreams of his or her marriage. But even then, marriage is marked by many negative thoughts by a group (though very small) of people.
This part of population might either have got fed up of the bad marriage of their parents or seen only failed or bad marriages around them, or else for any other particular reason. But one thing is clear that they don't want to get diverted by sacrificing their lives to an unpromising marriage. There are even people who prefer some other responsibility or social work over getting married.

All these people who are reluctant to get married are forced to do the same and to live a life they never wanted. By ‘force', I don't mean ‘physically'. There are many social factors that make them available for an unwilling marriage. These factors may be described as:

• The persuasion of parents who want their dynasty to continue existing.
• The narrow narrow-minded society that considers a man Impotent or Effeminate
• The conservative society that considers a woman as cursed, if not married.
• The wrong notion of the parents who think it's a divine achievement to give away the daughter in marriage.
• People who want to get their children married, so that they can make arrangements for the same with grandeur and show off their status.

This is high time these factors created soon-to-be broken relationships spoiling many lives. Now, the time has come to set people free to live in the way they want. Just think, if we are not sure whether the marriage of two people who have been in love for years (as we have already seen many cases earlier) is going to work or not, how can a marriage having any one or both reluctant partners work? In simple words, this is a risk that is taken by putting two lives at stake. Is it compulsory to be taken, I mean, to get married?