Marry Young Or Marry Later? Relationships Are Not 'One Size Fits All'

I used to be that annoying auntie—the one preaching from the rooftops: “Work first, become independent, don’t even think about marriage until you’ve got your own bank balance and a solid job profile.”

Then my neighbours’ 24-year-old son, Nishant, flew in from the US with his 23-year-old fiancée, Tejaswi, announced they were getting married next month—purely, voluntarily, because “we want to do this”—and quietly dismantled my entire ideology in one polite, jet-lagged conversation.

I couldn’t help myself. I tossed out the classic millennial/Gen-Z bait: “Why not date a few more people? Live together for a bit? Test-drive the relationship like responsible adults?”

They both looked at me like I’d suggested pineapple on pizza for the first time.

Nishant just shrugged and said, “We met at our first job, our first big project. We liked each other. We like hanging out. Why pretend we need to sample the entire buffet when we’ve already found our favourite dish?”

Tejaswi, without a second’s hesitation, added: “I’m super ambitious. My parents are still young and cool. I want kids in my 20s. By the time I’m gunning for that middle-to-senior-management leap, the baby phase will be behind me, and I’ll have two full sets of grandparents on speed dial for childcare. What’s the hold-up?”

I stood there blinking like a Windows 98 loading screen.

Nishant—whom I’ve known since he was a scrawny kid with a side-growing moustache and a cracking voice—now casually dropped wisdom like:

“I don’t want to date random women just to check a box. I like her. She’s the one. Why drag it out for another year, hoping something randomly falls apart? Life in the US is already a daily boss fight. Having her next to me just makes the grind feel survivable.”

They weren’t doing it because society said so.

Watching their zero-drama, full-send, we-already-know-what-we-want vibe felt disgustingly wholesome—like someone handed my cynical heart a warm gulab jamun and said, “Shut up and eat.”

When it just feels right

One size never fits all when it comes to love and timelines. I’ve watched both ends of the spectrum play out in real time, and it’s left me quietly convinced that marriage isn’t a race with a universal finish line.

Take my childhood gang—the ones who tied the knot in their early twenties. Twenty years later, what I see isn’t a slow-blooming rose garden; it’s two people who’ve quietly grown in opposite directions, tethered mostly by log kya kahenge.

Another couple, though, is still deeply in love—having stood by each other through thick and thin, evolving personally and professionally together.

Then there’s my friend in the UK who stayed gloriously, deliberately single until 35. I swear, every time I call her now, I catch myself whispering touchwood under my breath.

She’s become this serene, unhurried version of herself—fifteen years of dating different flavours of chaos, kissing a few frogs, learning exactly what she would and wouldn’t tolerate.

And then she met him—the quiet harbour in her storm. Today, she’s a fiercely present mom and a partner completely at peace with her life choices.

As strange as it may sound, when you’re shopping for a sofa or a saree, what do you do? You traipse through six or seven shops, flip through a hundred options, haggle over prices, and finally pick the one that feels just right in your gut. You don’t overanalyse the thread count or the warranty card for three months. You trust the vibe.

But when it comes to a life partner, suddenly everyone turns into a PhD in compatibility metrics—checklists, red flags, green flags, attachment styles, sun signs, credit scores, “does he wipe the floor after bathing?” Meanwhile, the heart is sitting quietly in the corner, going, “Hello? I’m literally built for this part.”

I keep telling you younger lot: marriage isn’t a logic puzzle to be solved with a spreadsheet. It’s a heart thing. 

When someone clicks—really clicks, the kind where silence feels cosy, and laughter comes easy—don’t torture yourself with “but what if there’s someone 7% better out there?” Sometimes the right response isn’t “let me conduct due diligence for the next 18 months,” but “okay, let’s do this.”

On a lighter note, marriage gives you built-in stability, someone to share the Wi-Fi password with, and a morning cup of tea. You can’t keep blaming the government, traffic, or Mercury retrograde for everything. So yes—get a spouse. Ha ha.

More seriously, though: stop treating love like a never-ending job hunt. If you stumble across someone who lights up the right corners of your chaos, who makes an ordinary Tuesday feel like Friyay, who you can ugly-cry in front of without a filter—don’t overthink it into oblivion. Marry them. You’ll figure out the rest.

Kids will come when they come, careers will zigzag, fights will happen—but you’ll have a teammate. Things fall into place far more often than we give them credit for.

So please, my dears, don’t be so militantly anti-marriage that you miss the person who could turn you into the happiest Santoor mom on the planet—zero regrets, zero FOMO.

Sometimes the best decision isn’t the most calculated one. It’s the one that feels like coming home. Trust the heart a little more. The mind can catch up later.

Article by Radhika Dhingra, Freelance Writer | Views expressed by the author are their own.