Of late marriage and its consequences
By: Mir Aunisa
Marriage is such a bond which connects families especially two unknown souls from opposite sex, who share every single thing with each other. Marriage is a social institution which binds people together emotionally and socially.
Early marriage is Sunnah for a Muslaim. Marriage is such an institution from where human race continues to exist. Marriage is a source of blessing for us. Marriage brings happiness in our lives.
But I have seen a trend among parents; they don’t pay attention to the marriage of their wards on right time. Their wards cross even 25 and 30 years of age but parents think that they are still little ones and they usually ask them to pay attention to their career and ruthlessly they cross their marriageable age.
When the parents don’t pay attention to this thing, their wards look for the ways to went out their desires illegally. They usually indulge in bigger sins in order to fulfill their desires. This ignorance of Parents is creating death of modesty in youth.
If any ward ask their Parents that they want to get married, parents react in a harsh way not realizing that their ward wants to protect himself from immodesty.
Infertility
Late marriage has very bad consequences like there arises the problem of infertility among couples. And unfortunately Jammu and Kashmir tops the list of regions having huge infertility rate.
According to a government survey Jammu and Kashmir has the highest proportion of unmarried persons within the age group of 15-29 years, among all States and UTs.
According to Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementations ‘Youth in India 2022’ study J&K has a highest percentage of 29.1% of young people (age upon 29 years ) who are not married than the national average.
Infertility has become a major of concern. It fell to 2.3 in 2007 and later to 2. Now it is only at 1.4 far below the national average of two since 2015-16.
Career oriented outlook
This is the reason for late Marriage trend in Jammu and Kashmir. Children are asked to focus on their career and they cross their marriageable age in shaping their career.
Children have become much more career oriented and they face consequences of late Marriage later on. Seeking a government job is another menace which is becoming hindrance in today’s marriages. Every family has been in search of a government employee for their wards and this trend is ruining the lives of many among them.
Islamic perspective
Marriage saves us from committing sins. Marriage strengthens our faith. It is reported on the authority of Anas (Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (Peace and blessings of Allah ne upon him) said : When a man has married, he has indeed made half of his faith perfect. Now let him fear Allah for the remaining half of it. Marriage develops sentiments of love, respect, kindness and also sense of responsibility.
It is reported on the authority of Abu Huraira (Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon Him) said : when you are sought in marriage by a person with whom you are pleased for his religion and character get yourself married to him. If you do not do it, there will be distress and wide spread dimension in the world.
Importantly it is the foremost duty of the parents to get their wards married as they attain maturity.
Extravagant weddings
One of the reasons for late marriage in Kashmir is extravagant weddings. We have got far away from our religion and Sharia and we are adopting western culture that is why marriages have become burden on everyone’s shoulders.
Unnecessary spending on marriages has made this Sunnah hard for us. People spend a huge amount of money on unnecessary things on marriages. But this spending and showoff has become a matter of concern now.
Prophet (SAW) regarded simple marriages as the best marriages and Islam completely forbids any kind of extravagance in all spheres of life including marriages.
The Quran also forbid us from excessive spending, as it encourages us to give to those who are in need and to prefer helping others over unnecessary expenditures.
Many social issues arise because of trend of late marriage in our societies. In my view reason behind this is that parents as well as their wards have become farther from our religion and we have adopted western culture in every sphere. Late Marriage has given rise to death of modesty in today’s youth.
(The author is a post graduate and hails from District Kupwara)
