Love Sets the World On Fire
Earlier this week the 1flesh blog posted an article titled “We Are Young.” While the blog entry focuses on early pregnancy, the author makes some good points about early marriage. The article begins:
When you’re 21, and you look 16, and you walk up to the CVS counter with a pregnancy test you’re bound to get stares.
But they stare even more when you look happy about it.Now I know there are plenty of good reasons why you wouldn’t look particularly happy about it, even within marriage. My husband and I are learning how to grocery shop for two people on a budget. Add in diapers and frequent doctor’s visits and life surely wouldn’t get any easier. No. Babies certainly don’t make life easier.
So why in the world would we look happy about it?
The most frequent concern ever raised to me regarding my early marriage, or now my acceptance of the possibility of early pregnancy, is not usually something concrete and practical like finances or experience with children or a steady job.
It’s the fact that my husband and I are young. And when you’re young, you need to live. When you’re young, you shouldn’t settle down. You ought to be traveling the world, discovering yourself, discovering ideas and new friends and new places. You should be having adventures. Doing daring things. Taking chances. Taking risks. As the song goes,
We are young– so let’s set the world on fire.
And I feel that vibe when that song comes on. And I turn it louder. And louder. And louder.
But here’s what I don’t understand. We can climb all the buildings we want, we can go to different countries and meet new people, start fundraisers, protest, drink, dance, dance on tables but the greatest adventure of all always seems to come back to love. I mean, the singer in that song is referring to one thing in particular that fulfills that youthful burning. It’s his somebody. He may set the world on fire in all sorts of ways, but he can’t ever set it on fire quite like he can with the one he loves. We all know that the greatest adventure we can have is in love, and it’s what we, the young, all want. In the end, I want someone to carry me home tonight.
What are your thoughts on early marriage? What about early childbearing?
Comment
Register for a Marry Well account today to join the discussion. Even basic members can comment.
What age a guy wishes to marry at particular ages:
Age 18: 25
Age 25: 35
Age 35: 45
Age 45: 60
Age 60: 18
What a woman looks for in a guy at particular ages:
Age 18: Tall, dark and handsome
Age 25: Tall, dark and handsome with money
Age 35: Tall, dark and handsome with money and a brain
Age 45: A man with hair
Age 60: A man
LOL Mike!!!
I guess the focus is on getting married & having a baby early. But there’s so much in the article that I really liked about passion and enthusiasm. And I’m loving the different fire analogies that have been in the couple of threads thus far.
Even though this may sound like a rougher critique, I really like how she encourages zeal, and doesn’t want to manage it away. It’s life on that bleeding edge. And I agree with her: “Jump. Fall. For only in falling completely and vulnerably will any arms be able to truly catch you.”
Here’s the problem.
Interestingly enough, I read this while discovering Katy Perry’s new song, Wide Awake. And I think it highlights the flipside:
I wish I knew then what I know now. Wouldn’t dive in. Wouldn’t bow down.
Gravity hurts. You made it so sweet, ’til I woke up…on (on) the concrete.
I didn’t mind her advocating taking a chance. And she did acknowledge risk and pain. What troubled me was that she depicted the usual advice so negatively. Is it sometimes misguided, depending on the particular couple? Sure. But it’s not impractical and immaterial. It’s advice, at times, birthed from a well-worn path that the person knows 1st hand.
If you paint by the numbers, namely stats, several studies show a marked decrease in probability of a marriage lasting when the couple is young. And it’s not something magical about the age; it’s for all the usual reasons that tend to sink a relationship: unstable finances, the burden that comes with child-rearing,etc, that are, on average, more prevalent with younger couples.
But there’s another reason people advocate waiting, that I think she misunderstands:
“Indeed, the world tells us that freedom comes in “finding yourself.” In going on escapades of selfishness and self-indulgence.”
I’d disagree that finding yourself in inherently selfish, or self-indulgent, but that’s another convo. The reason why so many advocate it is because many know that we change (which is partly what Katy alludes to in the 1st line I quoted). Some of us may change a little, while some may so radically change they are no longer recognizable to the people around them. It’s not something you can anticipate; it’s not something you can even prognosticate. How many of us who’ve walked on this earth, well, a bit, are the same people we were at 20 or 25? Unless of course, you are 20 or 25?
But even for them, have you not really changed in even in just that short time? For me, that was the difference between being a child of darkness, and being a child of light.
The reason why it’s important for marriage is because so many dissolve based on that fact alone. These unions don’t have to. But people grow apart, become embittered that their spouse is not the person they married, and want out. You can either go two ways: You can go into it, like the author suggests, as an adventure, knowing that your vows are really for better, for worse, and for “different”; or you wait a little while, try to get a better handle on who you are and what you want, maybe strengthen those things that point towards successful marriages; or, if that’s too secular, really get a beat on what God wants for you. But considering all the different, and numerous, criteria people hold (that threads here have discussed), marrying young can be a recipe for disaster, because at least some of those qualities are almost certainly going to morph, if not outright disappear. And if the marriage was based on them, it places the couple on potentially shaky ground.
So, in a nutshell, what are my thoughts on early marriage & childbearing? For marriage, have at it! Sometimes there is a sweetness in younger love that, when it occurs, I find brilliant. But count the cost, and know that you will change, your partner will change, therefore the marriage will change. And of course, all of this is dependent upon the actual couple in question.
Having kids is easier to answer. To use the analogy of the entire 4 elements, you may want to burn, and set fire to the world, but many (dare I say most?) children don’t want fire, even if they are fiery themselves. They want earth. They may tease parents about being boring or stuffy, but let that parent actually start to burn a bit, the children are not, generally, too thrilled.
There’s a line in the song that says I guess that I, I just thought, maybe we can find new ways to fall apart. I wholeheartedly think you can do that as a loving couple. That becomes so much less an option when kids are involved.
Again, really nice piece. Thanks for the thread!
Maturity over age
Bang!! Point Blank Syntyche, you have presented a very raw freedom of assured founding, at least from the perspectives I have come to know about myself and where I have come, I Praise the Lrod I was not Married prior to even two years ago, I cannot imagine the troublesome challenges my would be spouse would have been burden with or how I would have dealt with all the trnasforming I have gone through, ten years or fifteen years ago FORGET it, I was a very Complicated mess, in more ways than I should have every overcome.
Although, I would put forth for the younger crowd out there who would be looking to get Married at an Early Age whether it is Mid Twenties, Early Twenties or 19 even. ‘Know yourself so well that standing before a Mirror you can evision standing before the Lord, That He All Knowing KNOWS you to your most private and hidden core; a Good Marriage exerts many pressures upon each other for openness and transparency, this is a growth and journey for which there is much struggle today; however a Great Marriage is one that supersedes the shadows and vanquishes all distrusts, moving along from that Sacred Threshold of Vows before the Lord and becoming Truly One entwined ina Braid of Intelligence and Emotions, Epiphanies and Convictions; developing as a Unit of Ministry’ This is something not to take lightly. Getting Married IS NOT the end all be all for a Man and a Woman, I liken it to be something of a Beginning of Who they are becoming and becoming great in the Hands of the Lord displaying a Unity, Stength, Faith, Passion, Hope, Love, Reforming Foundation upon which the GLory of God is exhibited as a Brilliant Casting Of LIGHT and TRUTH. anything less will result in fierce trials of seasons of suffering and ONLY By the Grace of God will they Survive.