Teenage marriage is much less of an epidemic than in previous years. Today there are many publicized cases which are obviously those in the media. This week the Republican party’s candidate for Vice Presidency was announced, and is Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. Gov. Palin released a statement this week that said “Our beautiful daughter came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned.” Of course the statement came out after many people attacked the Palin family and Gov. Palin’s morals. It is about her 17 year old daughter Bristol who is five months pregnant and newly engaged to the father. The statement was taken from an online article from the New York Times. The Palin pregnancy and upcoming nuptials is just one example of many unexpected families and marriages that so quickly uproot in young teenage lives.
In the 1950’s it was found, by David Popenoe, that the median age for marriage was around 19. Today when a 19 year old is married it is common that the young person is either pregnant, or going off to war. In 1998 a census was taken of married teens and only 1 percent of those 15 to 17 were married, yet when it came to 19 and above the statistics were seperated by ethnicity and were much higher. Since 1970, according to William Galston of the Brookings Institute, ages of first marriages has grown from 21 for women and 23 for men to 25.5 for women and 27.5 for men. In past decades younger people were expceted to be responsible for more. Young men were enlisted and young women had to take care of their households. Being a teenager today, we are given so much freedom. We are given next to no responsibilities in comparison with those who were teenagers before.
The difference for us is that we are forced to grow up much faster than the generations before us. We are constantly fed images of sexuality and immorality. Many young people see no reason for marriage when they are constantly “hooking up” or moving from partner to partner. A marriage takes much more commitment than our young minds are capable of grasping. I recently happened upon the book Prude, in it the author Carol Libeau illustrates the issues of America’s youth growing up too fast. Libeau sees the issues of our sexually charged youth as a huge problem for the generation even younger than us. If the youth of America continues to find marriage invalid then the ages of first marriages will be older than 25.5 and 27.5.
On her blog about teen marriage on the Alaska Teen Media Institute website, Helen Fleming reminds us that the median marriage age has not dropped below 20 in the past century. Yet, she questions how long it will stay that way. Some people believe that young love is the answer, I think we should stop trying to grow up so fast.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/fashion/04marriage.html?scp=1&sq=now%20the%20bad%20news%20on%20teenage%20marriage&st=cse
3 comments:
Great article! I love the second to last paragraph where you stated that teenagers today are forced to grow up faster because of the constant sexual images in the media. I completely agree! Comparing it to the 1950s gives us great perspective. Back then teens would get married and it was the excepted norm. Now days it is almost looked down upon because of the growing number of teenage divorce. This was very interesting and eye-opening.
Your article was very interesting. I absolutely agree with your comment, "In past decades young people were expected to be responsible for more". Also I found the truth you pointed it out to be ironic. Those before us had more responsibility yet the young generation today is forced to grow up much faster. The problem is that they are growing up faster in their sexuality but not in responsibility. Perhaps,our generation today must learn that there are serious, many times, life lasting consequences to their actions.
This was both very informational and interesting. The statistics are especially very intriguing. For some reason, to me, it has always seemed like people these days are getting married younger and younger, but clearly, that isn't the case based on what you have presented here. I also thought it was great how you related the book by Carol Libeau to the article. I definitely agree with her (and you) about the youth in America growing up too fast. I think getting married so early quite likely causes great difficulty to the newlyweds themselves, as well as the generation as a whole. I don't think such a quick and dramatic shift in one's role within society is healthy by any means.
Post a Comment