Marriage
is for life, think long and hard beforehand
Jenna
McDaniel
It
is a very bizarre feeling to watch your
friends getting married. You look at
them making this serious commitment and
know you are not much younger. So how
far off are you from locking yourself
onto a ball and chain?
Marriage seems to be the natural flow of life. Most people, when asked the
question, “Do you ever think you will get married?” will respond
with a vague, “Yes.” The next question is when? At what point in
time is it appropriate to look at your boyfriend or girlfriend and start imagining
them with wrinkles and a walker?
Being in college means a wide age group of people surrounds us. Some of us
are 18 and 21 while others are 25 and 30. It is not uncommon to glance over
and see a sparkling ring on the left hand of a classmate. This is a time when
we are going to, or already have, watched our friends tie the knot.
In contrast to the buzz of marriage talk found amongst our friends, it seems
as though all we see in the tabloids are couples breaking off their marriages.
Five years, three years, one month, these people are married for significantly
short amounts of time.
Carmen Electra’s nine-day marriage is one of many that rival Britney
Spears’ 48-hour marriage. In these short-lived marriages one would think
there would have to have been a problem previously evident that should have
been examined closely before getting married. Yet these people still get married,
as do many other young people.
Knowing exactly when to get married is a hard call. Society seems to accept
that once we have reached a specific age, it is then appropriate to tie the
knot. However, some people make the argument that if you have found love then
it doesn’t matter what age you get married at.
Love is a key factor when choosing the person you would like to spend the rest
of your life with. I mean honestly, if I am going to have to wake up next to
an old wrinkly man who is sagging in all the wrong places, I think love might
be the only thing getting me through the experience.
What is key in choosing the time to settle down is deciding whether or not
you have established yourself.
College is all about finding out who you are and what you want to do with the
rest of your life, so why would you want to throw it all away and settle down?
What a waste of five years of hard work. Now you have a pretty piece of paper
that is just as good as the fondue set you received as a wedding gift from
your smelly aunt, who, from her gift choice, still seems to be lost in the ’70s.
I am not saying it is impossible to fulfill your dreams while married, but
I am advocating it would be easier to find a career and be stable on your own
before trying to be stable with another person.
Sure it is easy to get all caught up in the excitement of a wedding, but it
is only frilly white dresses, romantic first dances and a hot and steamy honeymoon
for a very short time. After that, till death do us part kicks in. The enormity
of marriage is often forgotten in the romanticism.
Now, I am just as romantic as the next girl, I like my candle-lit dinners,
love notes and cuddling, but lets face it, when we think about getting married
we think about the wedding, not the time after it.
My parents were young when they decided to marry the first time, and they ended
up divorcing. I am not saying all young married couples will end in a divorce;
there are some people who get married at 19 and end up extremely happy for
the rest of their lives. It is rare to have completely found who you are as
a person at a young age. Often, when you grow and change it is possible that
you discover that you and your significant other no longer function together
as a couple.
So, why not grow together as a serious boyfriend and girlfriend, establish
who you are as individuals, live together and discover that love does not clean
their bathroom, work though problems (this is where you would talk about the
bathroom and explain the grossness of mold caked in the shower), then get married.
The romanticism of marriage is there for a reason. Growing old with a special
person whom you have shared life experiences with and have been there for one
another through thick and thin has to be one of the most fulfilling parts of
life. If what you have right now, while you are in college, is real love, then
it can stand the test of time and waiting a few extra years to get married.
Giving it that test will only make the love and the marriage stronger.
Jenna McDaniel is a sophomore art major.
|
