I don’t know about you, but I feel like all my friends are getting married right out of their teens, long before they’ve given themselves a chance to fully understand life and love. I won’t pretend to be an expert on either, and I don’t doubt that those who marry young are really in love, but I do think there are many reasons to wait longer than 20 years to give yourself up entirely to another person for the rest of your life.
Utah is different from other states in more ways than one. Aside from our cultural history of polygamy and a traditional political bent, people often recognize us as the state where people marry young, have babies until their count has reached double digits and never think twice about living their entire lives in one county with Grandma next door. Here in Utah a large portion of the population is LDS; within the LDS faith, everyone is instructed in God’s name to postpone sex until marriage. Well, I think I speak for everyone when I say that waiting until marriage to have sex isn’t exactly easy, nor is it necessarily the most responsible approach to sex and love.
I realize the LDS church is trying to keep sex a sacred and special act while also keeping teen pregnancies in check. In other words, they’re trying to do the right thing. I don’t think, however, that their regulations work the way they’re intended to. Sex is a natural step in a young person’s path to adulthood and a part of his or her evolution to maturity. It is something that should be explored in a respectful and responsible manner with probably more than one partner. It is something with meaning and intent that will change through someone’s adult years. Early on, it’s exciting, new and liberating. But as time goes on, while still fun, it becomes something intended to intimately bond two people through one of the most powerful expressions of passion and love. I don’t think most 19-year-old Utah virgins have the experience and emotional capacity required to respect and understand sex beyond its physical thrill.
There are more issues with marrying young than intimacy and raging sexual desires. As young adults, people are still working their way out of the years of familial pressures and involvement, self-doubts, insecurities and uncertainty about their future. The years between becoming a teenager and advancing into your early 20s are arguably the most important and formative years you’ll go through. People generally change more during these years than during any other time-span of their lives, and it’s hard for me to think that two people will happily last through that as a married couple. I know, personally, that I change so much even from month to month — I change my mind about my future, what I want and my opinions. How two people stay together, happy and committed, while they undergo such personal changes and developments is difficult for me to fathom.
Not everyone finds it necessary to pursue alternate perspectives, however. Challenges that could potentially change them don’t bring them much appeal. But to me, experiencing as much as possible without any barriers or limits, and being introduced to as many things as possible that could alter current perspectives or understandings, are necessary components of adult development. For people to resist these things by potentially sheltering themselves from anything that could alter their held perspectives or idea of what the future could look like in order to preserve their marriage is disappointing to me.
While these circumstances don’t make for the most promising set-up for a happy, healthy and long-lasting marriage, it is true that sometimes it works for the long haul. Sometimes people grow old with their high school sweethearts and never even consider what “could’ve been.” To those lucky few, congrats. But it’s a rarity. Take these years to learn about yourself and the world. Grow and allow yourself to change. Experience all you can and don’t limit yourself because marriage is intended to be forever, and forever is a big word when you’re looking at it through 20-year-old eyes.