There it gleams, embracing my left ring finger in swirls of white gold and 21 sparkly diamonds: The answer I gave to the most exciting question of my 21 years. Yes, I will marry you.
But in the three months since I told my fiancé yes, I have grown increasingly hesitant to tell others of my engagement. I thought people would be excited. Instead, there’s a pause. Their faces go blank, carefully “hiding” their emotions, as they say, “Congratulations,” then ask, “Aren’t you kind of young to be getting married?”
When my dad told his co-workers that his daughter is engaged, they asked when the baby was due. In case you are now wondering too, no babies will be due for at least five years.
The U.S. Census reports that the average age of Americans getting married in 2010 was 26.1 years old for women and 28.2 years old for men. USA Today published an excellent article in 2008 discussing whether it is better to marry sooner rather than later. Both have their advantages.
My answer to the doubters is no. When you meet the right person, you’re not too young to get married. I think a more appropriate question is whether people are getting married without thinking the decision through. The divorce rate has skyrocketed from hovering around 10 percent in the 1960s to roughly 50 percent today, but if couples really examined their decision before making the commitment, fewer marriages might fail. There are three important areas to consider that speak to a person’s readiness to commit to marriage: the maturity of the person, whether they are emotionally ready to be in a life-long commitment, and if they understand that marriage is supposed to be forever.
An acquaintance got married last weekend after telling her friends she didn’t want to go through with it. In the time since she and her husband got engaged, they have already had a child together. In the time since their child was born, she had a month-long affair with another man. Was she too young?
No, but she was certainly not ready to marry him or anyone else.
While this 21-year-old acquaintance is not mature, my mother was when she was 20. (She still is, for that matter.) She met my dad by chance at a church that neither of them typically went to when she was 19 and he was 22. That week, Dad called his parents to tell them he’d found “the one.” They fell in love and married five months later. Although it hasn’t always been easy, my parents have been happily married for 26 years and are still very much in love. As it has been said before, sometimes you just know.
The story would have had a different ending by now if my parents had not been mature at 20 and 23. Maturity comes at different ages and for different reasons. Rather than making assumptions about maturity based on age, a better way to figure out a person’s maturity is to get to know them and think about the way they react to certain situations.
That maturity should spread to emotional maturity as well. Another friend of mine is mature and ready to move out of her parents’ house but balks at the idea of getting married so young. She has been in a relationship for two-and-a-half years but has told her boyfriend that she will not even think about marriage until she goes to grad school and has a career. By that time, she will be nearly 30, he will be in his middle-to-late 30s, and they will not have time to enjoy their marriage before they need to decide if they want kids.
A career is important, but why not have a career while being with someone who will love, encourage and support you as you work hard? No one said getting married means immediately having children. My parents waited five years before having me, and I plan to mirror their decision. That leaves my fiancé and me the time to enjoy ourselves and be young before becoming parents, but we will still be young when our kids are finished with college.
Divorces have become a common practice. Different researchers quote numbers like 45 to 50 percent of all marriages will end in divorce. Used properly, they allow men and women a way out of abusive, unfaithful or loveless marriages. An unsettling number of people are deciding to marry each other without truly understanding commitment because they feel they can back out at any time.
This could go on for pages, but it all boils down to
one thing: Do not say yes to a marriage proposal unless you truly believe that is the person you can stand to live with and be partners with for the rest of your life. Marriage is a decision that has consequences. It should be forever, not “for now.” And keep in mind what an incredibly wise woman once said to me: “Love isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice.”
Divorce is not a “Whoops, I Made a Mistake” plan. It is for times when a couple has tried and failed to work out their differences and will never be able to reconcile. If my fiancé were to hit me or to have an affair, I wouldn’t hesitate to file the paperwork myself. That part is out of my control, although I cannot see him doing either. And I have already taken the time to carefully consider whether he is a person I will continue to love, enjoy and work together with for the rest of my life.
We don’t have a lot of money, but we’re driven to succeed and great at saving up. We haven’t been to the future to make sure we’re making the right decision, but we have thought and prayed and talked to our families. We can’t imagine finding anyone who would be as right for us as we are for each other.
Are we too young? We’re just the right age for us. That might not be the right age for our friends or their friends, but sometimes, you just know.