Question: As other students are too shy to ask this question, I would like to ask it. When should we marry? Around what age shall we marry? And what qualifications should one have to marry?

Answer: You can marry early. But you may encounter many obstacles. You don't know so much about marriage yet. Once you are married, you may want to study hard. Even though you may be determined to study, it is not possible to do so. If you marry after graduating from high school, studying for university is a hard thing to do. Do you understand? Even after you graduate from university, getting a Ph.D. degree will be very hard. It is much harder to study for a Ph.D. after you marry, than to study before marriage. It may be four or five times harder. That means that if you marry before studying for your Ph.D., then you have a very slim chance of attaining a Ph.D. Do you understand? Marriage takes all your time and effort; therefore, it can be said that it is the fruit of all your work. Once you marry, it is final.

After marriage, if you try and study in a place away from your wife, it will cause a lot of trouble. Your wife will not stay calm. She may say something like this: "Well, loving darling, please come back, I don't need the Ph.D." Furthermore, children are born, and having many children makes things complicated. Men who think of doing something like this are not fulfilling their portion of responsibility. Once you are married to a woman, you should take responsibility.

You should take responsibility for your wife for your whole lifetime. When she gives birth to a baby, you should take responsibility for the baby. This kind of responsibility is expected of you. No one can help you, and you cannot ask anyone to help you either. Is that right? After marriage, can you keep depending on others? Only the two of you should share the responsibility. That is why you don't like having any other responsibilities. You then wouldn't like to study, would you? So, before marriage, you should accomplish everything.

At what age do you graduate from high school? You may be eighteen or nineteen years old. (Nineteen) Nineteen? If you marry at nineteen years of age, no one will employ that kind of person. If you give birth at nineteen years of age, how many babies can you have? You may already feel burdened. In this time and age in Korea, will people view with favor one who has just graduated from high school and says, "I am now married," or see him as a naughty person? "Oh, he must have eloped." If they see this, it will be hard for you even to get a job.

In principle, the age people should marry is over twenty-one years of age. It is okay for women at eighteen years and over, but men should be over twenty-one. So please forget about getting married; rather, think about what you should do, and do it in five years if it normally takes ten years to complete. If you want to have a Ph.D. after graduating from university at the age of twenty-one, you might have to study till the age of twenty-eight. While others do this until they are twenty- eight years old, completing it over five or six years, why don't you finish it in two years time? It is possible if you study twenty-four hours a day. That's the only way to finish it quickly.

So if you want to marry early, study hard from now on. You may not need six years to finish middle and high school. With two years of study, you can pass the exam to enter university. Government examinations mean that you can also pass through the university very quickly. If you pass the government exam, you can complete university study even in two years time. So you take only four years for middle and high school and for university studies. Next there is the Ph.D. course. If you study and research, you can get a Ph.D. As you study hard like this, you can shorten the time needed, and all things are resolved without much worry. But if you are in school, mucking around wasting time, six years in middle and high school, and four in university, the next two years in graduate school, getting a Ph.D. for two and a half to three years, if not five years, then you can't get it even at thirty years of age. But you cannot marry at that age. Men should determine themselves saying, "I am not going to marry before I accomplish my goal." (100-141)