Listened to both the podcasts. Here is my take. For people who have not had a relationship nor been married you have opinions. Opinions are good but as the saying goes walk in the person shoes for some time before commenting.

About getting married young - I am not sure whether age has to do with marraige. It is more to do with maturity.
Love marraiges seem to be subtle different from arranged ones. In Love I am not sure whether it is frendship, relating to each other or just attraction.
In cases of arranged marraiges it goes through a period of lust, attraction, gruding admiration and then love
Look at relationship it can be marraige or anything based on freedom and companionship. You make your decision on what you like better You cannot have both.
Do you need to be married to stay faithful. Not really. There has been a long backlash in Montreal/ Quebec Canada on the concept of marraiges. People talk about girl friends who they have been together with for long periods of time with kids. So it is more the concept of family - which constitute kids, loved ones together. The concept of marraige creates bonds of trust. This can be had without it but that has to be there.

On being together or married - it is more difficult than people give it credit. It is easier to separate than work together and stay together. There is no concept of walking side by side, it is more the concept of one leads the way in one situation and the other in another. How you get along without too many bruises is more important.

It is tough - do not paint rosy picturs about it nor a thorn path. It is what you make it to be.

My two cents. Being passionate about something is very good but having very strong opinions about something which you have not experienced is another. So be cautiously optimistic

Hi priya, just listened to your podcast and its a good one. some how i felt that you are afraid of suresh as if he will take this personally. i have heard all the podcast of suresh and i dont think he is mature enough to accept criticism. one more thing is you dont have to be sorry when you express your views.

Keep the good work going...

i know its too late to let my comment here but its ok anyway..

Suresh, I think the differences between our opinions on this issue largely borders on the fact that you are a man and i am a woman. Our thinking is different maybe because i have been brought up with the kind of mindset that marriage is something that is important to a woman. And the marriage institution itself largely benefits the women. Even my mother, (you know how mothers are right?) always keeps in her mind that one day i'll be leaving her. And whenever she nags at me, she keeps refering to how i'll ever survive alone when i have my own family in the future if i don't do certain kind of housekeeping stuff. So you can see under what kind of a family background from which i've grown up. But that doesn't stop me from thinking otherwise. I agree to what you have said above. I can offer no rebuttal because, first of all, i'm not offering an argument here. I'm offering my opinion, my response, with no basis/evidence whatsoever. So let's end this discussion here. My intention is not to challenge your views and break down your argument. But just to give my two cents' worth. Am i sounding pissed off here? Definitely not. Although i was a little pissed off when i saw your reply today morning, the first thing i did when i woke up! But now i'm not. I'm just sick and my mind is exhausted from thinking about it so much. I'll give it a rest here.

Moreover, i usually use 'hey' when i'm irritated with someone or angry with someone. And i thought you might think the same so i clarified it. You don't have to worry about anything. I wouldn't even imagine that you would develop other 'opinions'. It was a nice email that i got from you. Thanks for your advice:)

Revathy, thanks for replying. I understand what you are saying. Yes, i've been under such situations. I thought that swimming was an easy feat since most of my friends could learn quickly. But once it was my turn to take the 10-week swimming course, i backed away after the first few lessons. I never went for the rest of the lessons giving lame excuses. I became afraid of learning swimming and until now, i'm with the attitude that i can never learn swimming and that its not that easy as i thought. And in this case, it's true that you would never know how you would act until you are in a marriage life.