The Age Factor

I have had the toughest times going through the arranged marriage practices. When I look back now, I wished I had more fun doing blind, speed and regular dates on steroids. Perhaps just for that time, exclusiveness went out the door. I had no time for tenured dating for having already been slotted into the ticking ‘time bomb’ age bracket. Nonetheless, I had my share of stories, but this particular one is not about me. Also, by the time I was on an undertaking to find myself a husband, the matchmaking process had become the leading business in the contemporary matrimonial realm.

Somewhere on the other side of the world, many that I knew, all of who are way older than I am, were also in the same quest like I was. The only difference was that they had flawlessly become proficient at the knack of deceit, not in a manner of swindling money from gullible brides/grooms or in the form of wedding gifts but in very creative ways. The end goal was modest – to secure themselves a preeminent and most eligible significant other. And I get it. That is what everyone desires. Some even had unsuccessful engagements and marriages. We would only assume that the second, third or fourth time around, the parents and brood, would be humble enough to accept someone who has been through similar circumstances.

The first person in this story had two unsuccessful engagements and an unsuccessful marriage. But, for the fourth attempt they still wanted a ‘fresh’ bride which is the finest paraphrase of a virgin. Maybe, they forgot that they are not ‘fresh’ after all. Those broken relationships took a decade of their life and they found themselves in the market again and again. However, their age remained the same, no matter what. If they were 26 years when they first entered the ‘scene’, even after 10 years they would still be 26. And you were in awe watching, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’?

‘The age factor’ has over the years become an obsession. The logarithm is that wider the age gap, the more ‘fresh’ they are. Fortunately for them, there were overzealous parents that wanted to just give away their daughters to anything that walks. It is another thing if the spouses got into the relationship knowingly that they have that kind of a generational variance. To this day, I don’t think their spouses have ever figured or stumbled on their partner’s actual age. The second story is even more bizarre. These parents wanted their son’s bride to be a decade and half younger than the older daughter-in-law. That compelled them to adjust the age of their second son too. Not sure how birth certificates got wrought after they became adults – but by some means that mysteriously transpired too.

Another story is of an only daughter, whose marriage story is not that bad but the poor son-in-law does not know that his wife is three years older than he is. Not that it is a taboo where older women cannot marry younger men, but why not make it an accepted practice than snitching around with deception. I don’t know what the issue is but despite being the younger than all these fine ladies and gentlemen, I’ve heard that some have become younger than I’d ever be many times. In fact, one particular guy’s wife who found out the age discrepancy has used it as paramount ammunition to destroy their family. It is a common booster for people celebrating milestone birthdays – that thirty is the new twenty; forty is the new thirty; Fifty is the new forty and so on but for some – “Old age is always fifteen years older than they are.”