Like a majority of little girls, I tend to have my head in the clouds and daydream about my wedding-to-be. I’m not engaged, and, while I enjoy substituting my current boyfriend into the equation, know that I probably won’t be for quite some time. It’s just something I do when I’m bored. The kicker is, I’m not sure if I want to get married, and I know I’d be happy in the long run with or without a spouse.
I know friends of mine who are engaged and planning on marrying either straight out of high school, or a few years down the line. Good for them. I’ve seen the teen marriage thing work (granted, the case was my grandparents, but still), and besides, who am I to pass judgement on their lives? They know themselves better than anyone else does, so who am I, an outsider, to look down on the choices they make and the chances they take? If they’re happy with their decisions, then so am I. So what if marrying at 18 or 19 is something I don’t agree with, but they do?
Who knows, maybe my viewpoint will change. I’ve seen a guy use the old “I want to marry you” to get into girl’s pants – I once dated the guy (thankfully, I didn’t fall for it)… But now he’s “settled down” and is planning on getting married to his girlfriend of a year and a half. Yes, there’s a baby involved.
Which kind of brings me to point number two: I don’t think that two people should be forced to marry because of something like a pregnancy. The threat of it has happened to more than one of my friends. Usually, I ask of them, why base a commitment so deep on something that won’t guarantee a utopia? Yeah, you’ll love your child, but what about each other? Will there be trust, stability, and happiness, or fights, lying, and anger? Why put a child through something like that, when the two of you being separate could easily be just as advantageous, if not more, that the both of you being together? Why rush it?
Point number three: why rush something as major as matrimony? I plan on only being with one person (unless said person is abusive/neglecting) in a commitment such as that (again, if I even decide that I want to), because I’m old-fashioned. I believe that marriage is something to be experienced by two human beings (regardless of gender identification, age, or race, among other things), and that those two are bound to each other forever. Yeah, I’m silly like that. I, myself, would rather take my time getting to know someone, seeing how they fit into my life, and if I know in my heart that they are The One, than base my decision on high school fantasies. My viewpoints from Freshman to Senior and even Junior to Senior years are radically different. I’m extremely indecisive – I don’t even have a favorite food, because I adore many kinds (oink-oink)! I don’t believe I’m mature enough to promise myself to someone for the rest of our lives.
Of course, like I said, I can’t pass judgement on others. Even though I question my friends as to their reasoning behind what they want, I realize that I don’t have any major influence over them. They are their own people, just like I am mine.
You write very clearly. They're a fun read. I want to challenge you to pick a more difficult topic, focus your argument a bit, and let us have it! I'd like to see what you can do! Yo could be a powerhouse!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Thank you very much. :) The thing is, I don't tend to choose my topics; they choose me, you know?
This post really resonated with me; I agree all the way through. It's weird though: all the teen marriages I've seen among my friends never worked out, but then, my grandparents got married straight out of high school and have been married for 60-some years... Could it be just different value systems or different views of divorce that keep the old-timers together in more cases? Hmm. I don't know. It's sad that you--and I!--have to think of ourselves as "old-fashioned" because we want marriage to last. It'd be faaaaantastic if that was just the norm.
You're quite right, I don't want to think of myself as old-fashioned, but it seems that, in the present time, that's what the ideal of 'til death is.