If you missed it, I recently wrote my Defense of Early Marriage. I listed the five main objections that people commonly have against early marriage, with the intention of responding to each of these objections.
The first objection I want to respond to is that of economic insecurity. Naysayers often point out that young people are not financially stable, and thus marrying at an early age spells poverty for young couples. Here’s what I have to say about that.
1. Being Poor Isn’t So Bad.
I would know.
When we started off, I was still doing my undergrad and Ben was working for little more than minimum wage at a label-printing factory. I had no savings to speak of, as I had been in school all my life, and Ben had a few thousand dollars in his bank account.
We know poverty. And it’s not as bad as you think.
Obviously, there is a point at which poverty is very bad. I’m not pro-homelessness or starvation. But I think we in North America have an unreasonable standard of living. We believe that we ought to be able to afford much more than we really need. If we would be satisfied with less, we’d be able to see that two people can live off much less money than is commonly believed.
See, I belong to a close-knit group of friends made up of nine couples who all married under the age of 25. (We’re all Mennonite. That’s what Mennonites do). Eight of these nine couples are poor like me and Ben.
Almost none of my married friends went to post-secondary school, and most are struggling to keep from dipping below the poverty line every year. Most of my friends went straight to work after high school, picking up manual labour or factory jobs. Several have recently been laid off and are going back to school. Some of these couples already have babies. Most of us dream about the day we make a combined household income of 50-grand a year, but for many of us that will never be a reality.
But my friends are happy. No less happy, anyways, than my university friends of the same age who are still living with their parents or living in dorm. My married friends are in happy, committed relationships, and are part of a vibrant community of friends. It’s not heaven on earth, but it’s not bad, either.
Indeed, the fact that we’re all poor together makes it easier: we have nothing higher to compare to. We’re all struggling to feed and clothe ourselves. The fact that we’ll never have paved driveways or in-ground pools or even two-bathroom houses doesn’t really bother us because it’s what we’re surrounded by and it’s what we grew up with. For the most part we’re all rather proud of ourselves, to be honest.
I would even argue that being somewhat poor has its upsides. It has taught us as a couple to be frugal. It has taught us to have a deep appreciation for luxuries that other people feel entitled to, like air conditioning and double-ply toilet. And it has strengthened our marriage by giving us an adventure to share. Survival is a challenge that we have taken on together. I think it has brought us closer.
2. Help from Parents
But for all the good things I have to say about being poor, I know that we at least have to survive, and that some couples simply cannot survive if they get married and move out of the house in their current stage. That’s why I say that parents and faith communities ought to financially support young married couples, especially if they value marriage in any way. Early marriage shouldn’t be a death sentence in communities that hold marriage sacred – it’s unfair. If churches truly value marriage and want young people to keep sex within holy matrimony, they ought to help make that financially feasible.
Again, Mark Regnerus makes the clear-sighted argument that if parents are willing to support their unmarried 20-year-old children through school, they ought to be willing to support their married 20-year-old children. Parents should not suddenly withhold their support simply because their children have found their life-partners early. It doesn’t make any sense.
There needs to be a cultural shift wherein parents and faith communities are just as willing to support their married young people as their unmarried young people.
3. Marriage vs. Living Together
Several commenters to my last post suggested that at least one spouse should be done school before getting married.
The thing that gets me is that people never make the same objections to a dating couple that lives together while going to school, or even to living with roommates.
My question is: financially speaking, what is marriage but two people moving in together, with a ceremony tacked on to the beginning? If young people can afford to live together as roommates or cohabiting couples, they can afford to be married. The state of “being married” doesn’t cost anything extra. In fact, this article points out that married couples tend to save more money than do cohabiting couples.
Again, there needs to be a cultural shift in thinking where people understand that being married costs no more than living with another young person under any other circumstances. Married people can still go to school after marriage just as well as they could before. The fact that they’re living with their soul mate doesn’t change that.
Although, sure, it would be ideal if at least one spouse was working full-time.
4. The cost of weddings
-
Here’s the real issue behind a lot of these objections.
Many people argue that they can’t get married because they can’t afford the lavish wedding ceremony and reception that they think they need. And that is a problem.
To put it briefly, we need to change the way we do weddings.
I think it is absolutely grotesque that we believe that weddings need to cost $20,000 to be any good. That is an absurd amount of money to drop on a single day of events, and in my opinion it just has to stop.
All of my friends managed to get married for less than $10,000 each, and some of them for much less than that. All of them had beautiful, meaningful ceremonies and enjoyable receptions. They wore lovely, stylish wedding gowns and held excellent banquets. All of my friends are still happily married and have not had to face a penny of debt from their weddings. Guys, it can be done. Weddings do not need to cost so much.
If we could change the way we think about weddings, more people could afford to get married. That extra 15-grand could make a nice down payment on a house or pay for a year or two of rent. Or it could be used towards school tuition. In short, saving that money (that would otherwise be blown on flowers and centerpieces) could do so much to make marriage more feasible.
In Conclusion
Early marriage doesn’t have to be mired in poverty. If we as a culture changed the way we thought about marriage, we would come to see that it’s much more financially feasible than many people think. But even if it does mean being a little poorer for a few years, I don’t think that makes early marriage foolish. To me, marriage is worth it.
What are your thoughts?
Next, I’ll be tackling the objection of immaturity.
Notes on the photos: I’m going to post photos from some of my young friends’ (gorgeous) weddings throughout this series. Second photo courtesy of Suzanne Clayton. That’s my sister’s Jane Austen wedding again. I just wanted to show off our sweet homemade dresses. I’m the one on the far right.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
The point about “marriage vs. living together” is a really good point that I don’t think ever gets brought up. And my wife would definitely agree as far as the cost of weddings. As best as I can tell, our wedding cost less than $5k. If her parents hadn’t been around to help out, we would definitely have been able to do it still as well.
We didn’t have to hire a DJ because I had a connection with a church I worked at and we were able to use their PA system. And all the music was on my MacBook. And a close friend was our emcee which meant no names were gotten wrong or forgotten when we were introduced as married to the party.
Much of the cost of a wedding can be deterred by clever use of connections.
And I married my wife at the age of 19. We’ve got one year under our belts and a little baby girl now!
I beleive I am included in the “poor friends” catagory. We might have less money than the average household but I don’t consider us to be poor. We have a house, three cars, food on the table and many things that we don’t need. (satellite, PS3, Projector)
When we first got married, I was working and my husband was in school. that was our first year. It was hard but we made it. After he graduated, I got laidoff from my factory job. It was back to school for me. He worked, I went to school. It might take longer if only one person goes at a time but it works. Money should definitely not be the excuse to not get married.
You just need to be committed to making it work. Sacrifice some things. And just one more thing. I loved our low cost wedding. It was off in tennessee, took place in a chapel that was filled with less than fifty people. Up in the mountains, stayed in beautiful cabins. Little bit of travelling but not expensive at all. To me that’s more memorable than someone having nice flowers and cool centerpieces. Just my thoughts.
Hey, I love this mini series you are wokring on. This is a topic I like to argue (why people should be able to get married young). I am 23. Have been married for almost 2 years, and I think my husband and I are making it just fine. We started off our marriage with pretty good jobs. He was making like 12 bucks an hour, working tons of hours a week, and I also have a well paying job. He got laid off a year ago and we have been struggling since. He is in school right now, and it’s been really hard. We have to trust each other and trust in God with all our money. We have been using credit cards for some things, but for the most part we are OK. He is almost done school, and I see a light at the end of the tunnel. He is probably going to get a job where he is doing a placement.
So… would it have been worth it to wait, say, 5 years until we were both making more money, and saved more? NOPE! I wouldn’t have wanted it that way. I love marriage, and it has ALL been worth being able to be with my husband! Money doesn’t make everything easier either… we had alot more of it last year… and it didn’t make too much of a differece.
I completely agree with your ideas on weddings – more and more young women plan weddings, not marriages, and that’s a shame.
However, the research shows that “the more financial independence and education a woman gains, the more likely she is to stay married.”
Of course, there are exceptions, and I love that you’re doing this series, but I think it’s dangerous to push people into early marriage when so many cues say to run the other way.
I agree that you don’t need to be exactly where you would LIKE to be financially when you get married. Not having cash out the wazoo is GOOD for young couples, especially at the beginning, you get married for richer or poorer anyways. Having little money ties you together.
Now, that being said, I do not agree that once you are married you parents should help you financially. You leave and cleave, and that would be hard to do if you are either living in your parents basement, or are depending on them for your next rent cheque. I was blown away when people assumed my hubby and I got his parents to help out with mortgage payments, I was actually mad. We live within our means and SAVE and work darn hard to have a house. It makes it sweeter too, that it has just been the two of us. No one else was needed. If a couple falls into hard times, that is different if their parents help. But a married couple should be at at stage where they can support themselves.
I see your point about parents supporting young marrieds, but unless it was a dire situation I would never dream of taking money from either of our families. It would be an insult to my independence as an adult, and if I’m not functioning as an adult, what business do I have making a commitment like marriage? I know there are exceptions but for the most part money comes with strings, spoken or not, and life is WAY easier without strings
I’m with you 100% on the other points, though. Our wedding flowers were lovingly made by my fiance out of coloured duct tape, at the whopping cost of $50 (10 for duct tape, 40 to ship it from the US). 90% of our baby stuff was borrowed from family. And, we eat a lot of pasta!
While I was mid-20′s, my wife was 19 when we got married. We’ve done just fine, and both of us are students.
We’re careful with our money, and the only debt we have is school loans, which we have a plan to get rid of as soon as we get jobs. Sure, we’d like to have more money (and more stuff), but we don’t need it. We have a great apartment, a good car (yes, one between us), plenty of good food (we do like pasta), and lots of friends. What else do we need? And why would we have waited?
Eva and Michelle:
I agree that after a certain point, parents shouldn’t have to help their kids out financially any more. I just don’t personally think the line needs to be drawn at marriage.
My parents never supported me financially: even when I was 18 years old and living at home I had to pay room and board plus all my own expenses. I’m all for growing up and taking responsibility of your finances at a young age. However, some parents do help their adult children by paying for their school or living expenses. I’m arguing that if parents are willing to help out their 22-year-old child through school if he’s unmarried, they should be just as willing to help him out if he’s married. It seems like an absurd double-standard that unmarried children should get help through school but not married children of the same age.
My main concern is that if a couple truly can’t get married because they wouldn’t be able to survive if they did, maybe parental or church help would be a reasonable solution. This was a suggestion made by Regnerus in the article I’ve mentioned, and I’ve only been thinking about it for a couple of days, but I thought it was an idea worth mentioning.
I think if couples go into marriage with the right mindset about money and have their eyes wide open as far as what it takes to “make it” financially, then being without financial security doesn’t have to be an impediment to marriage. The fact is, though, that money issues are major cause of marital strife and divorce, so it is essential that you go into it with a common outlook on spending habits and priorities. Pulling together to make ends meet can actually draw you closer together. Being poor, in that case, isn’t so bad, as you so aptly put it.
As for parents helping out? Nah, very bad news. It creates an unhealthy tie that prevents the whole leave and cleave thing. It would have to be emergencies only in my opinion.
As a father with three daughters, I will just say AMEN! to your comments on the cost of weddings. Now please excuse me while I send them a link to this post…
Scott:
I’m noticing that a lot of people are a bit hung up on the suggestion that parents help their married children out.
First, I’d like to point out that I mentioned parents and faith communities. If it’s such a big deal that parents shouldn’t help their married kids, maybe churches could help young struggling couples, since they’re the ones telling us how important it is to save sex for marriage.
Second, the reason I bring up the whole idea is because my generation faces a problem that previous generations haven’t had to face: the absolute need to get higher education to obtain any kind of career. It’s a sad truth, but a Bachelor’s degree has become almost worthless today: most of us need to go on and get a Master’s degree to get anywhere. We’re faced with a unique challenge, then, if we want to get married before we’re 25, because many of us aren’t out of school before then. I’m not sure if two Master’s candidates could financially make it on their own without help. That’s why I suggest it as a possible option. I personally didn’t need help because I married a man who was working full-time, but others might not be so lucky. Members of earlier generations may have a harder time accepting this idea of parents helping out their married kids because they weren’t faced with such an inescapable conundrum.
I didn’t mean to come down so hard on the parents helping idea. You make some valid counter-arguments. For example, we are funding the college education of all three of our daughters, and if they chose to marry before graduation that would not change. Also, good point about faith communities helping to take care of young couples And you are right about the new financial realities of today.
Hi there!
I stumbled to your site through a Google search of NFP which took me to the Engaged Marriage site, and then here! I love, love, love everything I have read so far! I will definitely bookmark you and come back often.
Happy Thursday!
Hello, just wanted to say that I am new to your blog and I absolutely LOVE what I’ve read so far, especially this series defending early marriage. My sister got married when she was 23. She had a Bachelor’s and job/paying graduate school prospectives. He had a Master’s. Yet my parents still said they were too young. They also talked all the time about how they couldn’t wait for my sister to get married so they could stop paying her cell phone bill and car insurance and all that. My parents paid the rent on my sister and her then-boyfriend’s apartment that they lived in together for 3 years before getting married. Even when they both were working while going to school and had plenty of money, my parents still gave my sister money. But now, all of a sudden they are married and the generosity completely stops. My parents obviously value marriage (they’ve been married 25 years). Yet financial support completely stops the second you say “I do”. It’s almost that rather than showing how much they value marriage, my parents are shunning or punishing my sister for getting married at a ‘young’ age.
And, responding to what Scott said above, my parents told me that if I got married before I finish my Bachelor’s, that they wouldn’t pay for it. Yet they give me a monthly living allowance now, even though we are co-habitating. Go figure.
Thanks for stopping by, Amanda! You’re right – it’s as though parents are punishing us for getting married. It doesn’t make any sense! Thanks for “getting” it.