I heard about Lipstick for Women on campus at OU recently and would love to learn more about writing opportunities for your magazine. To start, I have included an 897-word editorial piece about teenage brides, the reasons they marry so young and what they miss by doing so. As a 20-year-old, I think my opinion as a peer instead of an older adult gives it a unique perspective. If you'd like to see other samples of my work, I am published at Blogcritics.org and Amazon.com. Thank you in advance for taking the time to consider my article. I hope to hear from you soon! By the end of this year, I will have watched three of my friends walk down the aisle in beautiful white dresses to an exuberant man at the altar. I will have smiled with wistful tears in my eyes, watching their lives change forever. I will have sincerely wished them the very best. But in the back of my mind I will be thinking, “I’m 20. What are these people doing getting hitched?” Love; that’s what the young brides will say with a shrug when asked what the hurry was. Marriage seems like the obvious next step when you’ve been with someone for a while. You’ve gone through the usual firsts: first date, first kiss, first fight, first…well, you know. You’ve met the parents.. You’ve bonded with his/her friends. You can tell how the other person is feeling just by the sound of their voice. They always know just what to do to make you feel special. And that’s enough. But apparently it isn’t. According to marriage guides Sheri and Bob Stritof (About.com), more than half of the couples who marry in their teens will divorce within 15 years. Why do those so eager to wed split so fast? Statistically, intellectual maturity isn’t finished developing until age 25, says pediatric psychiatrist Jay Giedd in an About.com article. Women may reach this age a year or two earlier, but that still puts the youngest wise bride at age 23. Because the rational part of the brain still growing, teens think with the instinctual and emotional part of the brain called the amygdala. It makes me cringe to admit this but it is proof we’re just too immature to say “I do.” The biggest problem with marrying so young, however, is the lack of life experience. During your late teens and early twenties you’re at a crossroads. Most likely, you’ve finally moved out on your own but still have the benefit of an allowance from Mom and Dad. Away from your family’s rules and biases, you finally have a chance to think for yourself, decide who you are and how you want to live. That time of discovery is taken away when you trade ‘Me’ for ‘We.’ Suddenly you aren’t allowed to be selfish. You have someone else’s needs and feelings to consider. Now you share responsibility for the both of you and a host of things you haven’t had much time to learn. Juggling jobs, finances, planning for the future, and still finding time to focus on each other is tough but vital. Women, especially, make themselves vulnerable by marrying before they have had a chance to establish themselves in society. By marrying before ever trying living alone and off their own paycheck, they are left helpless when the marriage doesn’t work out as well as they had planned. In situations of abuse or infidelity, the wife is more likely to stay with the husband when she doesn’t know how to survive by herself. In reality, there are lots of bad reasons people chose to marry. Some would rather be taken care of than have to face the big bad world alone and take the popular “MRS” degree route. Again, this backfires when the relationship becomes unhealthy and they can’t see a way out. Others don’t want to be separated. A popular example of this is in the military. Eighteen to 21-year-olds bond over their shared conditions and attraction is inevitable. But once basic training is over people are assigned to other bases across the country, sometimes across the world. New relationships are separated before they have a chance to really begin. Instead of testing their commitment in a long-distance relationship, they tie the knot. By getting married, you can insure you and your sweetheart are almost always a package-deal. Until, that is, the honeymoon period ends and you realize you’ve legally bound yourself to your new boyfriend or girlfriend for life.. Still others are aching to be an adult. They’ve lived with their guardians for too long and are ready for some real-world action. They want the white-picket fence, 2.5 kids, and dinner at six. Stability of their own making appeals to them perhaps because they couldn’t control their childhood home. But the time and effort it takes to build that sort of trust and balance cannot be instantaneously attained. Those who wish for it are soon frustrated and often jump ship just as quickly as they boarded. What teens have a hard time wrapping their heads around is that romance is a tiny part of marriage. Your spouse is also your business partner who co-manages the money. They are your roommate who has equal ownership of the remote and bathroom counter. They are your best friend, who deserves first spot on your social calendar, first shoulder to cry on and first call for news. They may be the parent of your children and help decide how the next generation perceives the world. Admittedly, people rush into this serious commitment at every age. Instant gratification tells us if we want it now we should secure it immediately. But if your love is forever, what will a few years of ‘me time’ hurt? That way you’ll already know how to take care of yourself by the time you need to take care of someone else. Love is supposed to be “patient and kind,” so it shouldn’t mind waiting. |