Spooler

Ok 2 of my friends are getting married within a year and they are only 23 and 21.

So first question is why do people want to get married at such a young age? I'm loving living the single live right now and can't wait to live my 20's. There's just so much out there that I haven't yet discovered.

Second question, I mean this in no offensive way and hopefully it won't be taken offensively. But in today's society I see a trend of the man needing the woman more than the woman needing the man, what's up with dat?

So what are your thoughts ladies???

nowthen

You are assuming that getting married = end of all the fun. The fact is that life is often a hell of a lot brighter when you have somebody to share it with

Edit: PS I know I am not one of the Ladies, but I still stand by what i wrote!

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lafemmefatale

1. diff people are ready for marraige at diff times...there are those who arent ready for sex at that age...and then there's thsoe who can't wait to settle down with a house dog and 2.5 kids...

2. I think both sexes need each other desperately...the deal is now women are more financially independant, thus not so much as men needing women so much as women can go off and do their own thing...

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MacGnG

1. if i found the right person and it was the right time then i see no reason not to.

2. it's acceptable now.

Fallon

I know I'm not one of the ladies, but I fall into the first question so i feel I should probably answer at least that part.
1) Why do I want to get married at such a young age? To tell you the truth, I don't know. It's what feels right to me. I just feel right about getting married to her. I've had all the single experiences that I could ever want. Another part to it might be that I basically grew up when I about 13. So basically this is me mentally in my mid to late 20's, which if I'm not mistaken is about the time that people start getting married. Someone else above said that marriage is not the end of the world, it's an opening to another door in life. The experiences, I believe, will be more enjoyable because I can share them with someone who I care about deeply.

2) Someday, you'll learn on this one as many others have already learned...=p kidding aside, like everyone has said, we've always needed each other. Throughout pieces of literature from the past, some of the ones that I've read have talked about it. Maybe now though, it's more prevalent because the information exchange is a lot quicker then it used to be.

lurkette

What's right for them doesn't have to be right for you. Enjoy your single life, and be happy for them enjoying their married life.

As far as men needing women more...that I can't speak to. I think relationships have certainly changed in, say, the past 50 years for social and economic reasons, but maybe men are just more open now about needing women, emotionally? Just a guess.

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

Rainwulf

I guess i am one of those guys who holds the opinion that i dont derserve or want to get married....

I am 25, and i have been engaged twice in the last 3 years....

to think of getting married before 30 (even if i wasnt against the idea) is pretty young.

Even at my age, i still feel like a kid with so many things.
I couldnt imagine getting married 3 years ago! i knew nothing!

anyways, i am too neurotic, no girl can stand me anyways hahahaha

Spooler

Thanks for the reply guys and gals.

By all means I'm very happy for my friends getting married. I just don't understand getting married young.

Yes, women and men need each other, but I now see it like Men needing women more. I suppose I only see it this way because I live in Colorado and in Colorado you mostly have a bunch of wealthy people running

mew

I think people are just ready to get married when they are ready. Doesnt mean you have to be as soon as they are. Dont rush or it wont be worth it.
I think guys are "needing women' more than the vise versa is that guys are no longer feeling the strain of having to be tough and independant.They can be themselves and its ok to be needy and touchy/feely. No longer men strong and tough, but individually themselves..Non?

Bobaphat

I can't believe anyone would get married at that age. Why?

Also, why do you think men need women more than women need men? I haven't seen anything at all to suggest that this is the case.

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Atropos4

I married alpha phi when I was 19 he was 28. I didn't feel like I was missing out on partying or doing wild things because I never really did party hard anyways. If I did party it was with alpha phi. I married him because I knew he was my soulmate.

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Janie

1. My mom was quite young when she got married. My friends' parents are all a fair bit older by comparison. When they're ready, they're ready. That's all there is to it. And +1 to marriage doesn't equal end of fun.

2. Don't know about this one. In my experience, it seems to be the other way round. Apart from those times when the men are getting desperate after months of no action, they're pretty independent of a female presence in their lives, while the women are really needing the men.

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Erik-the-Red

1) i'm not married, but i'm in a serious relationship that's been going on for over a year with open discussion of marriage, ie. we are getting married once we're settled and finanicially stable. it's just a question of "can i live without this person in my life". wait till you meet a person you feel this way about. but forks had a lot of good points too. he seems to do that a lot

2) sometimes a man may depend on a woman more, or vice versa, it just depends on the people involved.

eg. is the man involved a pussy whipped mamma's boy? :P

as i like to say about my girlfriend and i, and quoting the famous Brody off Mallrats, we're both retarded for each other.

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lurkette

Ratbastid was 21 and I was 22 when we got married. We had been together for almost 4 years, and for us it was just the right time. We had been through enough together that we were confident of our relationship, and wanted to declare our commitment to each other to the rest of the world. What should we have done - broken up to see different people just for the "experience"? That's a choice some people make, and if it's right for them, god bless. We were lucky enough to find each other early on in our lives, and weren't about to throw that away for some ephemeral fun and, more likely, dating, heartbreak and misery. I don't think age has as much to do with it as just the timing of things, the particular relationship, and the maturity/desires of the people involved. There's nothing particularly special about being 20, or 25, or 30 that makes it the "right time" to get married, it just depends on what's right for the people involved. For us, it was the best decision we ever made. And I'm willing to bet we have sex more often than most single people, whatever their ages

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

SiN

depends on the person, totally.

for me, when i was younger, i couldn't imagine getting married...i just knew it wasn't the right thing for me.

i needed to play around a bit.
(ok, so i actually played around a lot)

besides, i'd not met anyone who i'd care to marry.

until now. my current bf is the one and only i want for the rest of my life.

funny thing is, he's 5 years younger than i am, and was a virgin until i took care of that.

and, for quite a while in the beginning of our relationship, i kinda worried about that, because we've been talking about marriage almost the whole of the relationship (as in, planning on it, when the time is right)

took me a while, but i eventually came to the understanding that is just different. people are different. thats all.
is ok for some, not for others.

is just up to the person to kno what they'd be happiest with.

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Mel

True

People get married because they love eachother... it doesn't matter what age they get married at.

Most of the time single people are only going out with the purpose to meet somebody who they are attracted to.. and possibly have a future with. Your friends were like this once and they don't need or care about the single life anymore. You can love living life with someone just as much as you love the single life.

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Fireshiru1

i definately agree saying that it's just modern society and culture evolving.

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suviko

I am 23, been living with the same man from '98 after dating him some time before that.. And we are not even engaged. I have gotten disillusioned with early marriages and commitments as the few couples I know who have married before 20 have gotten divorced by now and one couple who dated from high school, 7 years of dating and living together for the latter part, got married and then she found a new bf and got divorce in the same year. Some young people have idealistic view on the marriage thing, like it makes stuff more real and adult and solves problems like boyfriend running around with friends in the bars late every weekend. Right. People need to grow up and sometimes it means leaving behind a person who is going to act like a teen till 35 if you want a family early in your life. Common-law couples are pretty standard phase from dating to marriage in Scandinavia and I think it's a good way to see will the life together work out. I have never even considered not having sex and not living together before marrying.

Quote:

Second question, I mean this in no offensive way and hopefully it won't be taken offensively. But in today's society I see a trend of the man needing the woman more than the woman needing the man, what's up with dat?

The EOCD research studies on reading & state of education & learning just came out. Girls are doing better than boys in all countries in all fiels but maths. Just my idea of what is happening: boys are trained to become good fathers and workers and girls are brought up to be mothers and workers. But in many societies, being a dad is same as being a good worker and earning enough money outside the family. Usually any given woman doesn't want a father like that for her kids but thinks the man should also be around and help raising the kids & around the house. Men haven't yet adapted to this change since women started working outside the home and got independent and started voicing their opinion what sort of father/husband they want.

viejo gringo

was married and had my first child when I was 19---

did I miss out on anything?? not a bit, and I had
someone to share it with---hell we just finished
redecorating our kitchen togather....and I talked
with my first born today, also--it's been a great day!!!

Derwood

I've always said to people who say "I can't imagine getting married," that this was good, because it means they haven't met the person they should marry. When you are with the person you should marry, you just know, and it doesn't matter what age you are.

I was 22 when I got married (and my wife was 20). SOOOOO many people questioned us getting married "so young" etc. etc. Well guess what? Now it is 6 years later, and all those doubters are pushing 30 and are still going to bars to find dates. They are miserable. Now that they are out of school, the only place to meet people is at work or at bars. They are getting desperate, and when they see my wife and I with our condo, new car and beautiful baby girl, I'm doubting that they question when we got married anymore.

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crayzeeredhead

okay this one is tough for me, I got married young and regret it for the heartache we caused each other. so I dont agree that rushing into a life long commitment at a young age is a good thing no matter how ready you think you are. I think this because when you're young and age you learn more about yourself as you get older so, there is alot you don't know about yourself. By the time you realize what you want out of life your "spouse" isnt it !!
2.) it is true men need women more these days but its because we women are tired of making bad choices where men are concerned and tired of getting hurt because lets face it most guys are players and only want sexx. whereas we want a commitment

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lurkette

Seeing peoples' conflicting anecdotal responses (mine included) made me curious about the actual statistics about age at marriage and quality of marriage/likelihood of divorce. Here are a few things I dug up: (To simplify things I only looked at stats for U.S. marriages - apologies to the rest of the world.)

Adolescent marriages are more likely to end in divorce than are marriages that take place when people are in their twenties or older. This is true for both whites and African Americans. After age twenty-six for men and age twenty-three for women, however, age at marriage seems to make little difference (Glenn and Supancic, 1984).

"Figures released last year from the National Center for Health Statistics found nearly half of marriages in which the bride is 18 or younger end in separation or divorce within 10 years. For brides 25 and older, half as many marriages break up."
--From an Associated Press story printed as "More teens jumping the broom" in USA Today; "Sharp Increase in Marriages of Teenagers Found in 90's" in the NY Times

There were a lot of other un-referenced statements to the same effect: Low age at marriage is positively correlated with higher probability for divorce IF the people getting married are younger than X (ranges from 20-26 depending on race and gender, see above).

However, it looked like most of the studies were correlational studies and didn't take a lot of other variables into account, such as socio-economic status, whether the people getting married were from divorced families (leads to + divorce - intergenerational risk transmission), religion, etc.

So what does it all come down to? Sounds like it's better to get married when you're both economically stable and emotionally mature. For some people that correlates with age, for others it doesn't.

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

StormBerlin

I am eighteen and almost engaged. I dont think there is really much of a diff in baing married or just a serious commited relationship. Besides the legality of it, anyway. But emotionally speaking, living with my b/f, it feels like we're married, and I'm ok with that.

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hobo

Men and women need each other pretty equally, it is just than men tend not to show it. It's the whole tough guy image. I would love to have someone to share my life with and if I met that someone at the age of 23, I'd marry her.