I was pondering a question this morning that really gave me some pause.
Should two consenting adults under the age of 21, given that they are mature enough to handle the situation, go ahead and get married? Of course they should.
If the two adults are mature enough to handle the situation then age is not a factor. The only thing that is important is that each person has seriously thought about his or her relationship with their partner. Is there a mutual commitment?
One of the biggest obstacles to overcome is the feeling of being “tied down” and trapped. A commitment. It’s difficult to be young, still unsure of what you want out of life, and face such a commitment. But you must remember that it is voluntary and that the commitment is being made to someone you love. That is one terrific commitment.
For two people to get married, there must be some sort of emotional dependence, or if you wish, love. Love is an abstract term. It has many levels and intensities. However, love in its simplest form is an emotional attachment to someone; you care about and respect that person, you worry about them when they are away. But most importantly, when you are in “love,” you put the other person’s happiness above your own…
Maturity is the key to marriage. It does not depend on age, social level or education. The only important thing is that two people want to share a life together and are ready to settle down. It makes no difference if they are 17 or 103.
By now you must be bewildered at my view of marriage, given that I have been through several now and have lost more loves than I seem to have found.
I can hear you now, howling simultaneously in disbelief and amusement at the nonsense that has just poured out of my mouth. Has Robb lost it you ask?
Well, these are indeed my words. I wrote them in a November issue of my college newspaper. The year was 1978. I was barely 20.
I was sure full of it back then. I really did believe Captain and Tenille when they Tenille crooned:
Love will keep us together,
Think of me babe whenever
Some sweet talking girl comes along singing her song
Don’t mess around,
You gotta be strong
Just Stop [stop], ’cause I really love You
I believed it so much and so fully I got married a year later.
Obviously, I came up a bit short in the maturity department. I probably didn’t know what love was either come to think about it. At least I I did have some emotional dependence, only to find out later that that was actually a bad thing.
It is hilarious looking back at the words I wrote now. I felt so strongly about the subject that I was willing to engage in a battle of wits with the witless wonder, editor Kevin Gunning, who argued that marriage was a dated concept and that couples don’t really need to marry one another to be committed in a relationship.
I thought him daft. So I took him on and squashed him like a bug in the Point-Counterpoint we wrote in that November issue. But I guess old Kevin had the last laugh. Though I don’t know if he ever married or married more than once, I can safely say I was full of shit! I had no idea what I wanted when I was in my late teens and early 20s. Hell, I’m still not sure I do in my 50s.
Instead, I grabbed the brass ring of love with a girl I had met in high school. I thought that she would be my one and only and that as of this writing, we’d be celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary this year. In truth, we never made it to our fourth.
Looking back, I think I was just trying to convince myself that marriage was a good idea at such a young age. My brothers had both married young and survived it; Brian at just 17 because his wife had a bun in the oven (well, a Carina in the oven). They too had the last laugh, because they are both still married to the same women.
Good for them. Me, I’ve had the pleasure of loving several women in my lifetime. I married three and for various reasons, they didn’t work out. For the most part I was just too young and idealistic. Plus, I didn’t seem to ever remember the key ines in the song at critical junctures in my life.
I did OK with:
Love will keep us together
Think of me babe whenever
Some sweet talking girl comes along singing her song
But I kept messing up at:
Don’t mess around,
You gotta be strong
I never was good at remembering lyrics. Damn! 🙂
I’m sure most of you don’t have these odd reminders of your innocence haunting you regularly. Lucky me: Writer. I can even pull up things I wrote for the Hazen Highlife newspaper and revel in the memories of my immaturity in high school at any time, day or night.
To everyone who is young still and to parents of youngsters who think they’ve found their love so young, write down all their feelings in a journal somewhere and save it for them.
Then one day, like me, they can eat their own words, recalling a simpler time in their own lives when love could conquer all, Prince Charming was sitting next to them in Spanish class, and they never had to worry about fighting about such silly things as mortgage payments, the new motorcycle your spouse bought on a whim, how to raise your child, or what to do when your now teenage child doesn’t come home one night when she was already grounded.
Ah, the magic and curse of young love.
Out on the Treasure Coast, reminiscing, not pining, for the “good old days,”
– Robb