| |
the whole topography of the woman and the woman knows that she has experienced whatever is possible to experience in the man, then it is time to say goodbye to each other in deep friendliness. There is no need to hang around each other's neck.
A world completely free from any contracts between man and woman will be immensely lovely, beautiful, unboring, interesting. But we have created institutions, and to live in an institution is not a very great experience. Your marriage is an institution, although the newer generation is moving a little more freely, before settling after the age of thirty. I have been looking around the world to find a hippie who is at least of the age thirty-five. I have not found any. Nearabout thirty all hippies disappear, they become just square people whom they were fighting against before.
Seeing the situation, that living in institutions -- of marriage, community, society, Lions Club, Rotary Club -- you cannot live joyously, you have experimented. This is the first time in history that we have a younger generation. I don't mean that in the past there were not young people, but there was no "younger generation." A small child, seven years old, would start following the father's business, would start going to the fields, would start taking care of the cows; or if the father was a carpenter, would start helping him. At the age of seven he had already joined the society.
For the first time in history there is a generation which can be authentically called younger and which has created a generation gap. Schools are there, colleges are there, universities are there and it takes twenty-five years, twenty-six years to come out of the university with a postgraduate degree or with a doctorate. But by that time you are no longer young. By that time you start having responsibilities: professorial, professional, family, marriage.
But during the time that you spend in the hostels and in the universities, before entering life, there is a long gap in which you are not engaged in any utilitarian, purposive activity. That has created the generation gap. Men and women become sexually mature -- women at the age of thirteen, men
|
|
|