It's definitely tongue in cheek.
I'm sure he'd think society would be better off living the way he does (and has), but at the same time he thinks its too backwards to understand its virtues, thus making a scenario where people actually took his advice foreseeably less effective than it could be. In truth, it's rather satirical.
If people had the opportunity to get married at younger ages--and did--that would suggest a society that took marriage a lot more seriously than ours does at this point.
Last edited by Pariah; 2013-12-31 4:06 AM.