Eighteen is really no age for marriage

getting married at an early age? Matsya and Garud Puran set a woman's marriageable age at 20 years, much better than 15 or even 18!

An early marriage often stymies a woman's aspirational growth and her all-round development. Sociologist Meera Kosambi, who worked extensively on child marriages, early marriage of girls and marital dissent, wrote that, 'When a woman gets married before her 20s, she somewhere thinks of herself as a cumbersome commodity to get rid of by her parents. This kills all her dreams and hopes and a sense of unbelonging and being undesirable overwhelm her.' Very true. Early marriage of a girl is an example and exercise in social and familial commodification.

We're living in an age of social equality and gender egalitarianism. At this age, a woman getting married in her teens is not just unfortunate, it's also against the spirit of ancient India's uprightness and gender parity when Lopamudra could say, nay thunder, in the 4th century: Na hante paripakvam parinayastu netinam (Until a woman is mature in all respects and on all fronts, she must never marry). What an epochal thought and a seminal exhortation so many centuries ago, that too, by a woman who was a philosopher discoursing on a par with scholarly men!

It's therefore, time to realise that a woman can be truly empowered only when she has the age on her side to be prudent and sane enough to decide on marriage.

Finally, to quote Hindi humorist Kaka Hathrasi's pithy words: Tabhi shaadi kare ladki/Jab samajh mein aaye uski (a woman must marry when she comes of age).

Marriage is not child's play, to tie the knot without understanding its far-reaching complexities and implications. Ergo, it's really laudable to increase the existing age of marriage for women by three years. We all need to endorse this revolutionary proposal sans any political bickering and mud-slinging whatsoever.

The writer is an advanced research scholar of Semitic languages, civilizations and cultures.