Underage Engagement

If there is already a thread like this, i'm really sorry.

i have a friend who is engaged and she just turned 17 a few days ago. i personally think that she's waaaayy to young to be engaged.

do you think its ok for teens to get engaged?
is it to soon?
what are the risks of getting married young?
even if it is true love, is it better to wait? or are we jumping the gun?
would you ever get engaged as a teen?

I think its okay. Only they can judge if they're too young or old enough for it. The main risk of getting married you is that you might not really love them as much as you think, and you also won't have a chance ot meet other people.
If it really is true love, wait a little while to see if you can stand being around eachother for longer periods of time than your used to. and if i really was in love and i knew it then i would get engaged as a teen.

I personally think physical age doesn't matter.
It's mental age and maturity that matters

If you're seventeen then chances are you haven't even out of high school. That's too young to get married. I think people that age should be concentrating on going to college or whatever there plans for the future are. I don't think you really know what you want, in terms of marriage, when you are only a teen.
If you really want to spend the rest of your life with someone and it is 'true love' then it will still be there if you wait several years. Instead of getting engaged, why not have a promise ring?

Vanya Hargreeves:

I personally think physical age doesn't matter.
It's mental age and maturity that matters

And how would one go about calculating their "mental age"? No one, in my opinion, can really do that.
Age does matter in my eyes. What if a 14 year old wanted to get engaged to her 18 year old boyfriend? To me, that's a bit, well... bordering on the illegal side.

Physical age does matter, and depsite how mature they may *seem*, laws are in place to protect minors for a reason. I was always considered "mature" for my age, but that didn't allow me to drive earlier, vote earlier, or drink earlier -- I still had to wait until I was 16-18-21 for those things. Do I think young marriages can work? Most definitely, if the couple is willing to work hard and put effort into the marriage. But I also think that if the feelings are real, the relationship will stand, and become stronger, over time. There is no need to rush into (what *should* be) a lifelong commitment.

Eponine:

If you really want to spend the rest of your life with someone and it is 'true love' then it will still be there if you wait several years.

I was certain, by my sophomore year of college, that I was with the man I wanted to be with for the rest of my life (and I was 18 - 19 at that time, so near the same age as GhostGirl's friend. And yes, I was a teen in college, I skipped grades.) Waiting two years, to marry at 21 as an adult, did not change that. In fact, it made those two years better because we were planning ahead and deciding how we wanted our married life to be, and had some time for trial and error before making it official. We are celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary this year, and our 13th year together, and are looking forward to many more. Those two years solidified a lot of our base relationship -- our own little traditions, our compromises, our dedications to each other. We are able to pursue our own interests and have friends and obligations outside of our relationship -- because we were able to build trust and deeper friendship without the bonds of marriage before we were truly ready for it. Now, we have been married longer than most people we know, we have seen friends and family members fight and divorce, but we remain happy and secure in our relationship because it was cultivated, not rushed.

Should we have gotten married as soon as we knew we were sure? Did I really want the hassle of planning a wedding while I was under a 21-credit-hour course-load and holding down a part-time job? As silly as it sounds, did I really want to give up a champagne toast at the wedding? Did I want to seal the joining of my life with another with a glass of Hawaiian Punch, like I celebrated my 7th birthday? I had classmates who had married straight out of high school. I stood at their ceremonies and wondered, are they really ready for this? Yes, they have this one beautiful day; but is their relationship going to withstand the changes that will occur as they age and mature even more? Sadly, for all of them, it did not. The longest any of them remained married was 3 years. Is that every young couple in the world? Of course not. There will always be one or two exceptions to the rule. But would it have made a difference if they had waited a few years to be sure that they were ready for a lifetime commitment? Personally, I think it would have.

Addicted2GerardWay:

The main risk of getting married you is that you might not really love them as much as you think, and you also won't have a chance to meet other people.

Marriage isn't about shutting yourself off to others completely. You can be married and continue platonic relationships with the opposite sex. Or at least, you should be able to; there should be enough trust in your relationship to allow you to enjoy non-sexual relationships with people who share your interests.

As I write this, my husband is on vacation. Without me. He is visiting his friend while they finish the video game they are working on together -- but I know that they will also go out and enjoy themselves as well. I do not mind in the slightest. My last vacation was to see MCR in Chicago, which I did alone. I travel to several out-of-state comic conventions for my job, where 99% of the people I work with and hang out with are men, simply because there are not as many women interested in comics, and only a few women who do what I do with my group. However, I have never been unfaithful, nor do I feel the need to be; my husband has never given me any hassle on any of the trips, he knows I will go, do my job, have a great time, but come home as faithful to him as ever. Have I found other men attractive? Of course I have. Have I ever wondered what it would be like had I met someone else and married them (or even just had a relationship with them)? Yes. But when it is all said and done, I respect my husband and love him enough that I would never do anything with any of them that would shame him or cause our relationship to end.

Marriage is about binding two people together for the common goal of sustaining a mutually satisfying life with the other. It is not about closing yourself off to one person for the rest of your life. Neither partner owns the other; they should take pride in the other and celebrate their successes, as well as comfort them in their failures and help them overcome their adversities. They should work to be a source of pride and encouragement to their spouse. A wedding ring should be worn as a symbol of love, fidelity, and joy.

That being said, at 17, is a person able to see that? Or are they just looking at celebrity or bridal magazines and imagining their beautiful wedding day, without thought to what comes after?

A wedding is a day. A marriage is (well, should be) a lifetime.

Mindfuck:

And how would one go about calculating their "mental age"? No one, in my opinion, can really do that.
Age does matter in my eyes. What if a 14 year old wanted to get engaged to her 18 year old boyfriend? To me, that's a bit, well... bordering on the illegal side.

That's true. It is true that some people think they're mature enough to do things when they aren't, sometimes.

If they really love each other and they think that they are ready then let them do what I want to do, the first time I was engaged I had just turned 16, and that lasted until I turned 18. I'm engaged again at 20 and now I know that I'm ready to settle down.

My sister is getting married in 5 days, and she's 18. She's sure about herself. She's a virgin, so I'm sure she'll do fine living with Ray. I'm only 13, but I would love to start life early..

^ I totally agree with you. A successful marriage doesn't hinge on whether you enter the marriage a virgin or not, any more than the colour of your eyes determines you'll be successful in your career.

As far as underage engagement goes, I don't care either way whether teenagers get engaged or not. It's not a legal contract, it's not a binding agreement - an engagement can be broken just as a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship can be ended, so if a bunch of 15-year-olds want to get engaged, big woop.
I do strongly believe that marriage should remain the responsbility of adults. A teenager may be 'oh so mature', but just because one or two 16-year-olds think they're ready to take the plunge, doesn't mean every other 16-year-old is. And, if they're so serious about being together forever, surely they can wait that couple of extra years to make it official.

I personally don't agree with getting engaged as a teenager, but I don't have a problem with it. The problem with so many engagements, underage or not, is that the people getting engaged have simply become swept up in the relationship. They think that if they marry this person, that this feeling of walking on air will stay with them forever because the first time they felt it was with the person in question. But, in reality, once you get over the walking-on-air sensation, [or, the 'fake honeymoon stage', as I dubbed it as a child], you don't always want to be in the relationship, and that's why most divorces happen. I think since teenagers let emotions rule their lives way moreso than adults, it is a better idea to wait, date the person for a while, have your share of fights, etc., and see if you still feel the same way as you did when you started the relationship. If you do, you could get engaged. But, if you love this person and they love you, and you both think that the other person is the one you're going to end up with, then what's wrong with dating through high school and college and then getting married? As a teenager, you're supposed to live freely and have the freedom to do whatever you want, to make mistakes, etc., and while I'm not saying you can't do these things whe you're married, but it does make it extremly difficult.

I believe marriage is THE ultimate way of telling someone you love them. It doesnt have to be the good old fashioned way of marriage in a church, but other forms, like a handfast, I believe, can be taken as a teenager. Even though I am only 15 I am wondering if I find anyone in the next 3 years and I decide "this is the person I want to spend my life with". Teenage marriage is possible.

personally i think that 17 is way to young but hey if your in true true love itll find a way of working out
its just getting married that young your giving up some many things and experiences, what about school and everything?
i dont hold it against anyone but its just not a choice i would make.

^ Bear in mind that these people aren't GETTING MARRIED at 17, at all. They're ENGAGED, which is an entirely different scenario.
Most people I know have long engagements while they plan their 'dream' wedding - even friends of mine that are in their late 20's and early 30's have the proposal bit, then wear the sparkly ring by itself for up to three years while they organise the wedding, new living arrangements, save up their holiday time so they can take a honeymoon, etc etc. Of course, some people - like myself - get engaged and then marry as soon as legally possible (we got engaged, lodged the paperwork and set the date at the minimum five weeks' 'cooling off' period, therefore we got married less than six weeks after deciding to do it, but hell, so far it's worked just fine for us and we were nowhere near teenagers anymore).

Getting engaged at 17 is fine as long as they're going to ENJOY their engagement and not rush into marriage.

Umm, I really have to reply to this one. I got engaged to my first husband when I was 15, married him 2 months before my 17th birthday. Although it didn't work out I don't regret it for a moment. I got 2 beautiful children out of it.
I don't think teenagers getting engaged, or married for that matter is necessarily a bad idea. It really depends on the people involved. Some people do meet that special person at a very young age and have long happy lives together.

I got engaged the first time when I was 18. Looking back, I think I was too young. But then again, we are all different.
I got out of that one a few years later thinking I had wasted a couple of years of my late teens when I could have been just a happy teen. Theres plenty of time to worry about family life later.
Every age has its charms, my mother was worried that I was in a hurry to grow up. Now when I'm 30, she worries that I will never grow up and give her grand children

I think everybody is different, so without knowing them it's hard to say. Personally I think they are too young. Why can't they wait? If they wait a while, won't they still be in love in a few years? What's the rush?

One may as well say that teenagers shouldn't date, at all, because they're 'too young'. An engagement is pretty much exactly the same as 'going steady' - there is no legally binding contract, just a piece of jewellery, and I had plenty of boyfriends buy me jewellery for occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. If the couple later decides that they don't want to be together, they break up just the same as if there was no ring. If teenagers want to get engaged, then whatever - they can always leave the relationship later with no harm done (except for broken hearts, etc, but that happens in every relationship).
I don't see the big deal with teenagers getting engaged - like I said, it's not a binding contract, there's no paperwork or lawyers or anything official involved, it's just two people who intend on being together and want to make their commitment more official, if you will. There's nothing stopping them from backing out later, and people don't realise that an engagement is not necessary for a marriage to happen - I know a few people who were just 'dating' and then one day went and organised a wedding. No ring, no engagement party, not a word to anybody that they were even considering taking the plunge.

It's really not that big a deal.

^
You make a good point. I didn't think of it that way. I guess it is really no ones business but the people involved.