The topic of debate on the editorial page of today’s Sunday Times is — Should boys be allowed to marry at the age of 18?

What the fuck? Current age of marriage in India for boys is 21 years (18 for women) and if I had it in my hand, I would raise it to 25 years. Seriously, even the thought of marriage of boys at 18 is totally absurd!

What makes me think so?

1. Where is the maturity? When I was 16 years of age, I did some stuff that I can not even think of doing today. At 18, I did some stuff which also I would not do today but it was much better than what I did at 16. I know that I will still make some screw-ups when I turn 40 about 20 years from now but what I can safely say is that I am folds smarter today than I was at 16.

The school of hard-knocks is the best of all the Ivy League universities out there. Life has completely funded your education in there, so grab this opportunity — this is what will turn you into a Man and show you how to deal with life.

A year of street-smarts is much more valuable than 10 years of book smarts. What a few years of living life by yourself will teach you is much-more valuable than what 10 years of dad’s advice will.

2. Where is the financial stability? Marriage will mean an additional responsibility to offer and maintain the best possible lifestyle for your wife and perhaps your kids (you may decide to delay) along with yourself. Do you think that you can do it at 18?

Unless you have a filthy-rich dad who gave you a gift of a multi-million dollar bank account when you turned 18, you will have to either get yourself a job or start a business. And both things take time.

Also, you can never get rich unless you build yourself some assets which can fund your liabilities (I stick to the definition of both as given by Robert Kiyosaki in his excellent book Rich Dad Poor Dad). This takes some real time and effort.

Go out and make some real moolah before you get yourself that additional burden.

3. Give yourself some time to find the right lady. Deciding who you are going to marry is not an easy decision to make. You are going to life the rest of your life with your wife (divorces are expensive so you know you want to avoid them at any cost) — find the one who you will actually enjoy your life with.

If you have read my earlier blog posts, you might have realized that I live for the moment and enjoy each day and moment as if it was my last. This is my lifestyle and I will never-ever stop living life this way. Because of this, I would want to marry someone who already has the same values as me. Why? I don’t have time to mold someone to my beliefs and thoughts.
Do you think it will be a snap decision? Hell no! What about you?

In conclusion- Marriage is much more than just sex. This is one decision which affects the rest of your life. I think that 18 is a age when 99.99% people can’t make the right career decisions, forget the right marriage decision.

There are so many ways to chill your testosterone other than marriage — explore them. Enjoy life as much as you can and make sure that you don’t give yourself excessive baggage as your wedding gift which you will repent the rest of your life.

You want to live life not survive life.

As for me, I am going to wait till I am in late thirties before I even think of getting married. There’s still a lot I’ve got to accomplish.