By Sarah Horsley
As the chimes of wedding bells fade away and wedding season comes to a close after a superstitious bout with lucky dates and times, college students start to ask, how young is too young?
Parents are notorious for refusing to let their children go, even when they there are anchored into adulthood approaching their mid-twenties. But parents are not the only obstacle to early nuptials.
Peers of engaged college students are changing their ways and looking at college as the wrong time for marriage.
Often, they believe that there is no rush or that you can’t really know someone until you’re a bit older.
While these may be reasonable arguments, how is it constructive to confront people who are engaged with such complaints? Should friends and families be more supportive of the feelings of engaged couples?
Weddings are such a touchy subject with many and unmentionable to others.
What happened to love? To commitment? To devoting ones life to another? Has the fear of failure and the high divorce rate skewed so many peoples view of love and fidelity?
This I noticed this skepticism when I witnessed a conversation between two college-aged women.
One on them was married, the other single. The women discussed how there is no such thing as a relationship without infidelity.
What are these views based on? Is there hope for our generation and a future of love? Seeing as these two women have been friends of mine for the past 15 years and this happened to take place after my bridal shower, I was floored by the lack of confidence in the institution to which I was committing.
We shouldn’t be so skeptical when it comes to marriage. Our generation is basing views of true love and lasting relationships off of our parents’ mistakes. It is appalling that more and more young people feeling this way.
Love is a beautiful thing and marriage is a commitment for a lifetime that should never be broken or mistrusted.
If our generation goes into relationships with this attitude of distrust and misleading then how is a marriage ever going to last? The attitude suggests a normalcy to infidelity that can legitimize the action, blurring the immorality.
The fact that many relationships have failed in recent history doesn’t mean that all of them will. People should be free to make their own decisions and be given the benefit of the doubt when they are the ones in the relationship.
Any decision can potentially be a mistake, but friends and family shouldn’t intercede. If for nothing else, to ensure that they still have support with things do go bad.
Expressing disapproval can quickly add tension to a friendship.
It is impossible to predict the future, but it is usually people in relationships that have the best insight to it.
If your peers are suggesting that it is an inappropriate time to marry because of youth, they may just not understand how powerful love can be.
Trust your instincts, trust your heart, and go for it.
