quote:I can think of a couple dozen happy people over the age of 70 right off the top of my head.
I guess I have been in too many "old folks homes" and hospitals that take care of the elderly. Half of them look like they want to escape life, and the other half look like they don't remember what life is.
It makes me very depressed and even sick to my stomach. Not to mention, watching my grandparents die the slow death of age was very, very sad.
I will accept your experience as true for your observations. From mine, however, it has been the complete opposite. You can see it in their eyes the question of what is going to go wrong next and who is going to die/leave me/forget me next?
posted
As for the real topic of getting married young, I think it is both theological and cultural reasons. First, Mormon theology states that unless you are married in the Temple, no one (Man OR woman) can be eligable for the Highest Salvation of Heaven. Unless, through no fault of your own it just never happens.
Culturally, this tranlates into getting married as soon as you can to complete your Earthly Ceremonial (or the Catholic term, Sacramental)requirements. You then become, for lack of a better description, completely adult. The sooner you are married, the sooner you are considered a fully spritual and social member of the community.
The problem is a question of maturity. At the younger age they may be seen as adults, but mentally and experientially they might not be ready for the responsabilities required by that role. The official statements made by the leadership of the LDS Church has backed off a little on the subject of early marriages. Still, not a lot and not enough for a huge change in the social remifications of a theological ideal.
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Occasional, I've found that Nursing Homes were terribly depressing places until I stopped picturing myself in them. Because I was healthy and completely self-sufficient, I would go insane being there. Which is why, of course, there are so few healthy and self-sufficient people there.
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I was also taught, Occasional, that having children was a requirement. It wasn't enough to just get married. Has that changed?
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Puffy Treat, while your experience is certainly valid, may I point out that it's not always "a load of crap"? I have a few memories from before my parents were divorced. My earliest memory with sound attatched is one of my parents arguing, me running in my room, slamming the door and putting the pillow over my head-- and still hearing the yelling.
I always thought there was something "wrong" with me because people kept telling me that it's normal to fantasize about your parents getting back together, and I never did that. Wished they'd stop fighting, sure. Wished I wasn't related to either of them and lived in a different time and place, yeah. Wished sometimes that I was an orphan and didn't have to deal with all the stuff they dumped on me, yes. But never that.
So I think the experience of divorce is very different, depending on the situation.
I honestly think that Anne of Green Gables is the reason I'm able to have a healthy relationship. That, and my husband is the most loving, forgiving, patient, supportive guy I've ever known.
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I read the whole series-- and the Emily books, and The Story Girl and The Golden Road, and everything else by her I could get my hands on, not to mention lots of Alcott-- whenever I got stressed and needed to escape from my life. (Which was a lot.) I think I picked up much more about how the world should work from those books than from my parents.
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Allow me to pipe in by saying I was raised in a single parent home and I found that I wanted to wait a while rather than get into a hasty marriage. I had seen the harm of divorce, and wanted to make sure it would never happen to me.
True, I was still young (24) and my wife was only 19, but that was an unexpected relationship that proved to be better than I anticipated. And she came from a two-parent, very active LDS home.
Clearly the quality of home life does have an influence. Social pressures, sexual behaviors, and other factors all play into it. The social part, expecially, must be taken in stride--regardless of the pressures, we are free agents to choose our companion when and how we wish. For me, it came down to that I found the right person.
Thirteen years, two kids and counting...
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quote: I guess I have been in too many "old folks homes" and hospitals that take care of the elderly. Half of them look like they want to escape life, and the other half look like they don't remember what life is.
If you go into locations where older people with health problems go...it makes sense that the older people you see will be in bad shape. People who are healthy don't generally live in nursing homes.
As for the marriage thing, I think many times people escape a family situation by going into a marriage...regardless of religion.
I don't think it is a sex issue...because in general Christianity is against premarital sex and it doesn't always lead to early marriage. I know most of the core members of my Methodist church hold those beliefs...and none in our group were married young.
I don't know much about Mormon culture...but others have mentioned the push for Mormons to get married soon after their mission. I would think that this pressure would account for the early age of marriage since it is something that non Mormons are not exposed to (unlike the desire to escape from the home).
quote: they are less interested in vapid and promiscuous relationships. While many people today have several long term sexual relationship before getting married
I realize you put qualifiers in there, but its things like this that tick me off. Do you realize how arrogant and condescending you are being to non-LDS? Not being married does not necessarily make a relationship vapid or promiscuous. I realize you guys have a moral code, but if someone doesn't follow that particular moral code you can't judge them by it, and have it mean anything.
AJ
(ok, I over reacted a little bit. I went back and reread and the way vwiggin worded the post, is such that they may not be LDS themselves. In which case, portraying LDS as being that judgemental is also a stereotype, but more understandable.)
AJ, I want to say that my initial reaction to that post was the same as yours.
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I find your theory accurate in some if not most cases. There are and always will be exceptions to any rule.
My mom was 18, my dad was 20 when they got married which lasted almost 40 years until my dad died. They had more than a handful of children, I being the last dealt with my fathers death harshly, if not dealing with it at all. Sometimes I think that if they had divorced I would be better off, because I would have had someone I still completely-trusted that simply understood how things worked, and could help others understand.
That being said, I'm almost 22, and I'm not married nor plan on being married any time in the near future. Nor have I had long lasting relationships with anyone other than friends. (Especially that of a sexual nature)
I would think that I have placed great importance on family, but since I don't have one of my own, I am my family.
I was brought up LDS, and still consider myself LDS although I have been less active recently. In my family several of my siblings got married young, and they are all very happy families, I do also have a brother that just recently got married. (He just recently turned 38)
Kat: You've got a good start on this theory, people tend to be carnal in all senses of the word, that could very well lead to LDS kids who want to experience sex to get married. (I am not stating that they get married only to have sex, but when they find someone that they are compatible with they would probably want to settle down.) This theory is going to be really hard to pin down because people do things not only because of thier surroundings, but because of thier personalities as well. So to determine which, you will need more data than you would in a case if the environment was the sole catalyst.
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rav, you're right. It's not really a theory I can test without a great deal of legwork and the kind of guessing that makes people wrinkle their noses at the thought of sociology as a science.
Part of the fascination is figuring out why people do the things that they do, especially the major things. There is so rarely a single explanation, but the stories and songs usually deal with only one or two discrete explanations. I'm trying to figure out the other kinds, and also wondering what kind of effects a broken up family has on people.
*hugs rav* You're very good at being a friend.
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quote:I don't think it is a sex issue...because in general Christianity is against premarital sex and it doesn't always lead to early marriage. I know most of the core members of my Methodist church hold those beliefs...and none in our group were married young.
Christianity may be against premarital sex, but it sure didn't stop any of the Christian kids I knew growing up in the bible belt. I knew so many kids in high school who loudly proclaimed their faith and condemned those who disagreed, and then proceeded to ...well, party hearty when mom and dad weren't looking. I saw a similar situation in college at the Baptist student union, where everyone made a big deal about being chaste at functions, but socially it was an entirely different ball of wax.
It may not be a sex issue for some LDS kids who marry early, but I certainly wouldn't assume that spiritual matters are the guide for everyone who marries early, either. I think we have to accept that people in their late teens are going to be very, very curious about sex, and unless they have explicit and helpful parental guidance, are going to find some way to satisfy that curiosity.
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quote:Christianity may be against premarital sex, but it sure didn't stop any of the Christian kids I knew growing up in the bible belt. I knew so many kids in high school who loudly proclaimed their faith and condemned those who disagreed, and then proceeded to ...well, party hearty when mom and dad weren't looking. I saw a similar situation in college at the Baptist student union, where everyone made a big deal about being chaste at functions, but socially it was an entirely different ball of wax.
I grew up in the Bible Belt as well. While I certainly saw some behavior like what you describe, I also know many people who curtailed their sexual activities (sometimes completely, sometimes not) because of their beliefs.
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Sorry, mph...I misspoke when I said it didn't stop any of the Christian kids I knew. It just didn't stop most of them. Now, this may have something to do with where I was growing up (affluent suburbia), but I knew ...just tons of people who made a big deal about their purity, only to find out that they didn't curtail pretty much any sexual activity--or if they did, it was along the lines of "everything but penetration is ok."
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I think I must have been especially lucky to grow up around kids who were not gifted in hypocrisy.
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My aunt and I were talking about this; we both decided that "if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's a duck". We don't understand why so many kids think that way...
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KQ: Yeah, well...According to the kids I knew in high school and college, it's only a duck if you look at it from a very particular angle.
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