Married Young: How to Fight Stereotypes for Young Couples

Ideas about marriage vary all over the spectrum. Discussion on the topic ranges from who should marry whom, how old they ought to be, how long you should know someone before you marry, religious or secular ceremony and of course, the question of aesthetics, i.e. wedding colors and the style of the brides gown. For some, especially those to whom the right marriage has been legally denied, marriage is a touchy subject. It seems as though every single person has formed their own opinions about marriage, and they definitely differ between the married and unmarried. One of the most common (and heated) discussions I've had or witnessed deals with the issue of age; how old is too old (as in, is there a deadline?) and, more commonly, how young is too young? As a young married woman, I offer up a discussion of this age question, specifically the adversity that couples under 25 are faced with.

Two years ago, my husband and I got engaged. It was our sophomore year of college and we had been dating off and on (mostly on) since our freshman year of high school. The whole thing was beautiful; it was Valentine's Day, and we were all dressed up at a fancy local restaurant. He had arranged the whole thing with the waiter, who placed the ring on a dessert plate and played dumb. Right there, in front of the patrons crowed into that restaurant, including a table of beaming high school girls and their shocked-looking boyfriends, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Too happy to speak and in tears, I said yes, and was looking forward to planning the wedding and spending the rest of my life with the man I love. Little did I know that with all that blissful happiness would come judgment, adversity, and apocalyptic predictions of the future of our young marriage.

My husband and I live in a small town, and I work at a local grocery store. It's a small, independent store, so I know most of the customers. This was the place where I would learn that I would spend much my time, engaged and married, defending that choice. I never thought I'd have to do that; it wasn't strange to my self or my husband that we had decided to get married. It was strange to everyone who didn't know us. At the grocery store one day, about a month after that special Valentine's Day, I experienced the first of many assumptions about my marriage.

A customer that I don't see too often, but did recognize, noticed my diamond engagement ring and said, "I see that you're getting married," to which I replied with a beaming smile, "yes." She nodded, and asked, as though it were her business, "Well, you're very young, are you pregnant?" I immediately lost my smile. I was fuming mad, but seeing as though I was at work, I had to remain composed. "Not that it is any of your business," I calmly replied, "but no. I am not pregnant."

I could not believe this stranger had the gall to ask such a personal and invasive question. What made me angry was that she was assuming that the only reason a young woman would be getting married was because she was pregnant. This marked the first of many rounds of this question. It makes me wonder what this world is coming to. Is it so unusual that people would marry for love? Suddenly pregnancy is a prerequisite for marriage. I know that it happens, the baby comes first, or the couple wasn't even talking about marriage and suddenly a baby comes a long and they get married because they think they have to. But some young people actually do get married for love.

Second only to the pregnancy question is blatant judgment about our age. Throughout our engagement and our marriage thus far, we have been judged because we are married and 'young.' If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me "aren't you a little young to be married?" which happens on a nearly daily basis, I'd be rich. Customers at the store would notice my wedding rings and make that comment. Professors and peers at school would say the same thing.

The college students I understand; for most of them the idea of settling down and committing to one person seems far off, but I did not expect it from people twice or three times our age. Neither of us thinks that 21 and 22 is by any means too young to be married. Our parents don't think so either. I wonder, then, why every one else on the planet seems to think so. Who are they to tell us what is right for us? If people think that, its fine, but to say it out loud; to presume that they have the place to actually say something to us like they are right and we are wrong, is absolutely unacceptable to me.

We faced this same problem before we were even engaged, back in high school. People would hear us say "I love you" and tell us that we were too young to be in love, that we couldn't possibly understand what love is. Does love know age? None of them know what we feel in our hearts. And even to this day, people still tell us that we are too young to know how to make a relationship work, or to be in love. If we aren't old enough, who is? And I know for a fact that being over 30 doesn't automatically mean you know how to make a relationship work.

And then, if that's not enough, we have to deal with an onslaught of doomsday predictions about the longevity of our marriage. Since our wedding day, we've heard everything from "good luck making it last," "I'm so glad you found a nice man to be your first husband," to my personal favorite "I think this will be a good starter marriage for you two." Starter marriage? First husband. More like first and only. There seems to be this idea that all marriages of people under 25 are destined to fail. And sure, there are statistics that may support this notion, but I can guarantee that we are not one of those stats. My sociology professor my junior year, before I got married, told me to pay extra attention on the day we were talking about divorce statistics, and during the entire class, she singled me out and more or less told me that statistically, my marriage would fail. A Ph.D. holding, 40something woman that I really respect, made a complete mockery of a situation she knows nothing about. I can't understand it.

Other couples we know that are engaged or married have had similar experiences, so its good to know we aren't alone. I feel like I ought to make a t-shirt that says "Yes I am 21. Yes I am married. No I'm not pregnant." When we meet new people, we always have to defend our marriage, telling people that we've been together for about 7 years and have figured out how to make our relationship work. In some pre-marriage workshops we did, we were told by professionals that we are more stable than some of the 30 and 40something couples they've met with. People look at us as a young married couple and come up with all kinds of assumptions, namely that we are completely clueless about 'adulthood' and how to have a healthy relationship and that we will probably be divorced in six months (the end of this month marks six months, and we're still going strong).

This is a call to all the young couples out there. Stand up for yourself. Sure, listen to good advice, and don't stay in bad situations, but if you know it can work and are constantly told that it will never work, or are looked down upon because of your age, speak up and share your story. There's got to be a way to end the stereotyping, the negativity, and the assumptions. Let's make love the point, because I think people are forgetting the love part of marriage and relationships.