ALT-10 Views on Marrying Young
I actually think there can be a lot to be said in favour of marrying young in many cases. I don't necessarily mean it's advisable to marry as soon as you're out of school (or even before then). However, there have certainly been plenty of young people who have entered into marriage before they were 20 and made a go of it. Indeed, it would surely be true that many of the now all-too-rare couples celebrating 50, 60 and maybe even 70 years of marriage would have been married very young.
If they are more mature than average and are genuinely in love and committed to each other, then they may well have an even better chance of making marriage work in the long run than others who leave marriage till much later. It really is an individual thing. In some cases those who marry young will have been childhood sweethearts and always knew they were meant to be together for life.
Having said that, I feel that it should be the exception rather than the rule to marry in your teens. Also, I think that in this day and age, even getting married at 20 or 21 would be considered marrying young.
One of the reasons for this is that young people want to do so many things before they settle down - and they have so many more opportunities to do such things than they used to. Generally speaking, they are likely to spend more years completing their educational qualifications. Then they may want to travel abroad and/or establish a career first. Many young people are far more ambitious than they used to be and want to advance considerably in their chosen career before marrying and starting a family. Also, many want to even buy a home and get a considerable amount of money behind them first.
There are, I consider, pros and cons associated with these modern trends though. It's great for young people to get a sound education, a good career and financial stability at an early age. I also envy the young people of today who get to see the world when they are young and have so many amazing experiences.
However, it has to be said that for many all these other things do take priority over their relationships in the long run. They often go from one temporary relationship to another and never truly commit or settle down. Even when they are more mature in years, they may not necessarily have the level of commitment to marriage that younger people did in generations past - and that some younger people may well have today.
We know a number of couples who have married young. I don't doubt that their decision to marry in their early 20s has been largely influenced by their commitment to Christian values regarding marriage. Because they don't believe in sex before marriage or just moving in together, they were more motivated to commit to somebody. Such couples are often inclined to mature earlier in ways that other young people often don't.
On the other hand, couples who are more casual about marriage often end up drifting in and out of relationships for years. Or else they may have a long-term live-in relationship where they never really make a full commitment to each other and end up separating about the time they would have expected to be marrying and starting a family.
Indeed, it seems to me that many young men in particular, can develop very irresponsible attitudes to long-term commitment and never really grow up. It's not uncommon for them to have a few live-in relationships, father a baby, then when the going gets tough and they leave the mother of the child, they move back home to "good old Mum". By then they can be in their late 20s or early 30s and Mum is doing everything for them while they live a life of leisure, free of the responsibilities they have never matured enough to handle. This is a terrible flaw in our society today which is contributing to the disintegration of the family unit. More mothers need to get tougher on their sons in particular and make them take more responsibility. Our society can't cope with too many Peter Pans in it.
Because of our modern western society's desire for instant gratification of all our desires, there is a prevailing view that marriage is more likely to work if a couple has lived together first. However, studies have found that this does not really hold true. While marriages generally are less permanent than they used to be, those who have a strong belief in and commitment to marriage and its traditional guidelines are most likely to make a go of it in the long haul.
Sadly, in so many cases where couples just move in together it's a case of "easy come, easy go" in what has become in countless ways a "throw-away society". Even relationships that should be sacred have become like disposable commodities that are too easily relegated to the scrapheap.
So marrying young can be a positive thing if it means that the young people involved have a healthy attitude to the commitments of marriage and have deeply-established values on which their lives together are based. Too often young couples actually undermine their future in this high-priority area by adopting lesser standards in early adulthood.
Young married couples may still choose to spend several years in a career, do some travelling and develop some financial stability before starting a family. However, there are also those who are keen to start their families early too. I personally think this can be a very positive course of action too and these couples don't really miss out on anything that truly matters in life.
So many couples put everything else ahead of starting a family - and then find they have left their run too late. In these times we think that, because so many older women are having babies, it's relatively easy to do things that way. However, that is far from the truth. Once a woman is over 30, her fertility decreases every year that passes - and the risks increase for her and any baby she may manage to conceive. She is far more likely to experience multiple miscarriages - and the risks associated with a difficult pregnancy and labor are increased.
There is also an increased likelihood that she will need fertility treatment to even give her a chance of falling pregnant. Then she won't necessarily succeed. Even IVF does not really have the high success rate that many people believe it does. We hear glowing stories of the wonderful cases where it's been successful - but for every one of them there are many others who have one heartbreaking experience after another. Some couples spend years - and a fortune - trying to have a baby and then have to give up when its taken too much of a toll on their souls and their finances. Occasionally they end up falling pregnant naturally after all that - but in many cases they never have the baby they dreamed of. This can also put a great strain on their marriage.
So I believe there is a lot to be said for marrying young and having a family relatively young if you can. It's not always possible, of course. I met the love of my life when I was nearly 29 and we married when I was 30. After a few years of marriage we decided to try for a family. By then I was 34 - but it was four years and several miscarriages later before we had our firstborn. Then it was another three years - when I was aged 41 - before we had our second child.
While we could have rushed straight into trying for a baby as soon as we married, we really didn't delay things terribly long, considering the time line and circumstances we were given to work with - and most of the agenda was beyond our control.
I must say though that my pregnancies weren't easy. I did experience pre-eclampsia in the last stage of both and such serious complications with the birth of our firstborn that she was profoundly disabled as a result and we lost her just before last Christmas, less than three months short of her tenth birthday.
That's not to say that young people don't also have complicated pregnancies and childbirth experiences that go very wrong. However, statistically their chances are better. So, if you have a say, I reckon marrying and starting a family earlier rather than later is a jolly good idea. I certainly wish I could have done that myself.
