Underage Marriage/Engagement

thats what seperates you

maturity
at 15 ur about as mature as the soft porn u find so amusing

^
My fiance is 15 [almost 16] I'll have you know.
And she is more mature than I am [19 almost 20].
Maturity fluctuates between each person.
You can't say 'at fifteen you are immature and at sixteen you magically become mature'.
It's a personal thing, not something with age.

S713:

My mom has said the same thing.
Except replace 15 with 31
A lot of adults have.
My point is, that that happens anyway.
You can be 15, 20, 50, 78, 132 (132? )
But usually the majority of relationships you go into fail.

So, by your reasoning, 12-year-olds should be allowed to drink alcohol because some adults have problems with it; 10-year-olds should be able to get driver's licences because adults have car crashes too; and 7-year-olds should be able to take out bank loans because sometimes adults don't pay them back?
Perhaps a bad analogy, but I trust you see my point. Adults are classed as adults for a reason - they have far more life experience, foresight and self-assurance to be able to measure the possible consequences of their decisions and deal with them effectively, or they can choose to not make the decision and therefore avoid consequences.
Yes, a lot of relationships in this day and age fail, and do you want to know why? It's because adults are so used to being their own person, or making decisions for themselves, that they enter a marriage and find that they cannot compromise on their beliefs and feelings, and refuse to let their partner take any responsibility or make any decisions because, in their minds, 'they know better'. They're far too selfish to live for another person, so the relationship fails, or they only got married in the first place because they feel that they're getting old and need to start a family before they die alone, so they marry the first thing that comes along, rather than finding the most suitable person for them.
Which, if you look at it this way, are very childish attitudes, and the reason children aren't permitted to make major life decisions such as entering a binding legal contract.

The thing is, the divorce rate amongst adults is already at 50% or more (I haven't checked the statistics in a while), so what on Earth makes you think that a stupid teenager, who knows nothing about themselves or other people, can find the person they are going to spend the rest of their lives with and make it work? If, as you've stated, plenty of adults who know their own personality, beliefs, attitudes and goals can't make a marriage work, how the hell can a child, who has no life experience, no relationship experience, no idea what their goals will be in five years etc, make a marriage last?

Teenagers dont, they just wanna hang around and use new hight tech shit like Internet, cellphones, ipods, thats what normal kids do, not get married, i mean i got engaged in kindy 2 my friend that was a boy, but we broke it off in primary school, all good 4 me and him. engaging is fine but marrying isnt. whos gonna pick up the pieces when it all falls apart?

^
No net speak or cursing in this forum.

*

And teenagers don't what? My fiance is fifteen. We're not getting married until she's 18, but there's nothing wrong with it. Love can't control when it happens.

Looking back to when I was 15, I know for a fact that I was not prepared for marriage or even engagement. You simply cannot comprehend what it means to be married at that age. Like I said, it's way more than just being in love with someone and wanting to spend the rest of your life with them. There's much more to it than that. It's something that comes with age, not necessarily maturity. My father (age 51) is no more mature than my eighteen years old brother. For me, it was the many years of experience learning to communicate with my partner that prepared us to take the next step. It's psychological. I would say that love is only half of marriage. Love will only get you so far. Patience, understanding, willingness to communicate really make it.

^
You just said it yourself.
Your father is no more mature than your brother.
Maturity doesn't have to do with age.

I don't think it's wrong but it's dumb
You have your whole life to get married why do it at such a young age?

Easy Mac:

I don't think it's wrong but it's dumb
You have your whole life to get married why do it at such a young age?

Maybe because the whole idea of marriage (in my opinion) is to build a life together, rather than trying to merge two separate lives later on, where the participants already have their own house, their own car, perhaps their own kids, and then they have to work around how to effectively put everything together.
Perhaps the couple wants to start a family young, like my husband and I did. Even before we started dating (we were living in the same unit with another guy, so we got to know each other very well), we had both sat around together and had long deep and meaningfuls about our goals in life - and we found that both of us wanted to start families and have children before the age of 25. We both see a lot of people putting off marriage and children until they're in their 30's or 40's, and we think it's sad that people are so self-absorbed that they put off having a real life so they can pursue some dumb money-making exercise (a career) or holiday in some foreign country so that they can brag to all their friends about it - and then, they either marry the first old person that comes along because they know time's running out, and they find they can't have kids without spending thousands on IVF or adoption because their biological clock has ticked itself right out of the stratosphere. Either that, or they conceive a child naturally, but their age is such that their genes have mutated and the child is born severely handicapped.
My husband and I feel that starting a family young is a good way to live - our first baby is due in a couple of months, and I haven't yet established a career that I need to work around with regards to maternity leave, when I can come back etc, which works for me because I planned on beng a stay-at-home mum at least until she starts school. Then, when she does, I can go out and get a job and start my working life, rather than having a productive career unterrupted or ended because I decided to have a child mid-way through. It's also good because I don't have pressure from my boss to put my baby in childcare so I can go back to work earlier, in case he gives my position to someone else who doesn't have a child and is available all the time. When she graduates high school, we'll be young, able-bodied and still in full control of our mental faculties, and be able to watch our grandkids grow up too. Our grandparents usually married very young, in their early twenties, and by their mid to late-twenties they had a few kids, and it never did them any harm. The divorce rate back then was insignificant, and couples made their marriages work no matter what the difficulties - something my husband and I are dedicated to. Yet, if we'd pursued our own interests and careers until our mid-thirties, we might find that we had become too independent and selfish to make a relationship work because we were used to doing it on our own.

I don't agree with teens getting married, but if they want to wear a ring and start planning a wedding for a few years' time, go for it. At least there's no legality involved if the relationship does end, and if they're still together when they're of age, they can wed with no obstacles in their way.
The only reason I don't agree with teens getting married is simply the fact that I doubt their motives a lot of the time (it's a form of getting one-up on all your peers), and that I don't feel they have the necessary knowledge of themselves and the foresight to know what they want from a partner and what they themselves are going to be like in five years.

Coming from a country of rampant illegal child marriage, I completely disagree with it.

Engagement, fine. Be engaged to your boyfriend/girlfriend a few years before your 18th birthday and be in love. That's fine. It's not legal. It can easily be called off. It's not set in stone. But marriage underage is just horrible.

I want to be married young, but not now. I don't like the idea of putting off marriage and family until you're 30 or 40 because then you're so old/busy you won't have time to play with your kids and stuff. But asking a child to bear the responsibility of another human, taking care of a husband, a household, a child.

That's not right. And neither is arranging a marriage for children. Like sometimes, a family will betrothe their children to those of another family. You know "Oh, my daughter's going to marry their son because we're such close friends". That sort of thing. It ain't right and it ain't legal but it happens anyway.

I dont think that any adolescent should be liable to make that decision. We're still teens and we're still trying to figure out where we belong in society. Marriage or engagement is a decision you make as an adult, when we're ready to make said decision. No teen is ready. You can say you are. But you're not.
My sister in law [my best friend] is engaged. I dont agree with it. Because in my opinion, anything that has a begining has an end. Relationships end at some point in time and i dont want her to get attached to her fiancee and then he decides he isnt ready for marriage.

^
So, basically you're saying nobody should ever get involved in a relationship because they will all end?
All relationships do end, some with death. [Death do us part.]

Marriage or engagement is a decision you make as an adult, when we're ready to make said decision.

And if you're ready as a teenager? I mean, I know you said no teenager is, but do you really know every teenager in the world? I highly doubt it.

I never said i did, because i dont. Teens arent ready, most of them arent. There may be a SMALL percential that is. Im just saying, that people change their minds..alot. And teens change their minds more than adults do. I mean, we change friends like every week and start drama over someone saying you were a slut.
Every relationship does end. Whether its death or a break up or a divorce or adultory.

druscilla; in rags:

And if you're ready as a teenager? I mean, I know you said no teenager is, but do you really know every teenager in the world? I highly doubt it.

Please don't take this as personal, as the person above me stated, yes, there may be a small percentage of teens who are ready to make such a huge decision, but it's a simple fact that the majority aren't, no matter how convinced they are that they are ready, or that they are capable. So, to change laws to allow minors to marry would be stupid because then we'd see all these dumb-ass 'Omgz lyk don'tchu no how mature I am?!' teens getting married, and then divorcing a month or so later.
The teens who are mature enough and capable enough to make such a decision should have the maturity to see that it's sensible to wait, not demand that the world change to suit them because they're one of the special ones.

99% of marriages wouldn't work at this age like most people said. But if you think your ready go for it..

i don't think it's wrong, i just think it's stupid. people don't allow themselves to grow and leanr about themselves, they learn to depend on other people to feel a sense of completion. the reality of it is that you really have to feel complete on your own...no man or woman can change that or do it for you.

Cigarettes And Suicide:

druscilla; in rags:

And if you're ready as a teenager? I mean, I know you said no teenager is, but do you really know every teenager in the world? I highly doubt it.

Please don't take this as personal, as the person above me stated, yes, there may be a small percentage of teens who are ready to make such a huge decision, but it's a simple fact that the majority aren't, no matter how convinced they are that they are ready, or that they are capable. So, to change laws to allow minors to marry would be stupid because then we'd see all these dumb-ass 'Omgz lyk don'tchu no how mature I am?!' teens getting married, and then divorcing a month or so later.
The teens who are mature enough and capable enough to make such a decision should have the maturity to see that it's sensible to wait, not demand that the world change to suit them because they're one of the special ones.

this basically explains my opinion.

Venom Dried Bones.:

i don't think it's wrong, i just think it's stupid. people don't allow themselves to grow and leanr about themselves, they learn to depend on other people to feel a sense of completion. the reality of it is that you really have to feel complete on your own...no man or woman can change that or do it for you.

Really? Because love completed me, meaning another person did.
Yes, I think you should know who you are before you get married.
My fiance and I will be engaged for five years before we get married.
That's a lot longer than adults who wait six months, get married, have a kid, and then divorce.
If you get engaged when you're young, you can't get married until you're older. You know more about the person and you're much more prepared to make a decision about marrying them if you have to wait to do so.
Because most people wouldn't wait five years to marry a person if they didn't really love them.

Cigarettes And Suicide:

S713:

My mom has said the same thing.
Except replace 15 with 31
A lot of adults have.
My point is, that that happens anyway.
You can be 15, 20, 50, 78, 132 (132? )
But usually the majority of relationships you go into fail.

So, by your reasoning, 12-year-olds should be allowed to drink alcohol because some adults have problems with it; 10-year-olds should be able to get driver's licences because adults have car crashes too; and 7-year-olds should be able to take out bank loans because sometimes adults don't pay them back?
Perhaps a bad analogy, but I trust you see my point. Adults are classed as adults for a reason - they have far more life experience, foresight and self-assurance to be able to measure the possible consequences of their decisions and deal with them effectively, or they can choose to not make the decision and therefore avoid consequences.
Yes, a lot of relationships in this day and age fail, and do you want to know why? It's because adults are so used to being their own person, or making decisions for themselves, that they enter a marriage and find that they cannot compromise on their beliefs and feelings, and refuse to let their partner take any responsibility or make any decisions because, in their minds, 'they know better'. They're far too selfish to live for another person, so the relationship fails, or they only got married in the first place because they feel that they're getting old and need to start a family before they die alone, so they marry the first thing that comes along, rather than finding the most suitable person for them.
Which, if you look at it this way, are very childish attitudes, and the reason children aren't permitted to make major life decisions such as entering a binding legal contract.

The thing is, the divorce rate amongst adults is already at 50% or more (I haven't checked the statistics in a while), so what on Earth makes you think that a stupid teenager, who knows nothing about themselves or other people, can find the person they are going to spend the rest of their lives with and make it work? If, as you've stated, plenty of adults who know their own personality, beliefs, attitudes and goals can't make a marriage work, how the hell can a child, who has no life experience, no relationship experience, no idea what their goals will be in five years etc, make a marriage last?

I have to disagree.
I'm in the fire department, and probably more mature, have more self control, and have more emotional maturity then most people in general, not just adults.
You can't do something like that without those things.

Also, a 12 year old drinking and driving has nothing to do with underage marriage

Does underage marriage directly kill people? No.
Does drunk driving? Yes

My point being, whether it is morally right or not, or intelligent or not, it is their choice.