Can age difference in a marriage become the reason for subjugation of women?
According to Indian culture we are expected to respect anybody who is elder than us in age no matter who that person is . At times it happens that if we do not respect someone who is elder than us than we may end up being judged by people and our character and values could be questioned and put on stake.
In India the legal age for the marriage of a girl is 18 yrs and for a boy its 21 yrs. The difference between the age gap is of 3 yrs. The reason given behind this is that girls reach maturity well before boys could . This is scientifically proven as well.
It is also said that according to Indian Vedas the best age for a girl to get married is 18yrs and for a boy is 40yrs which is quite surprising as well.
Wives have to respect their husbands because they are elder than them and respecting merely does not only mean respecting, it also mean to obey him and do what he tells. This also becomes the reason behind the highly prevalent domestic violence in India and wives not going against it, because again, the husband is elder in age and you cant disobey him.
This could have been different if the age of both men and women were equal in a marriage, because we have a different reaction to the same action done by an elder person and a person of the same age as ours.

It is believed that a marriage is a sacred thing and it needs equal participation by both the sides and both the sides are equal which also means that both the partners should respect each other equally and should have all the rights on each other equally.
The point here is that that if the reason for the girl being younger than man in the marriage is maturity than both should have absolutely equal rights on each other and none should be compelled to respect and obey the other in return of zero respect from the other person.
This way the husband will get no power to ever raise his hand against his wife and beat her up just because he feels that he has the right to do because he is elder and therefore his wife cannot answer him back and just keep following him. The wife can answer back and take her own stance if she understands that both of them are equal and the man is elder than him only because he would not be as matured as she is at her age. The man also needs to understand that her wife is younger than him because she is able to reach a maturity level which is equal to his at a younger age.
Henceforth there are 2 possible solutions to this; first is that both understands the reason behind the age gap and the second is that the age of the male and females should be equal in a marriage.