Chapter 6 - How Old Should One Be To Marry?

Judy danced divinely, and Bob had a good line of light chatter. Beside being tall and handsome, he was very useful during the round of social activities which Judy's mother planned that spring when her daughter was graduating from a nearby private school. "Bob is such a nice boy," said Judy's mother. And so, although both were only eighteen, their engagement was announced at the time of the last scheduled social event. "Isn't it exciting," said Judy's girl friends, not entirely without envy. "Bob's a wonderful boy," said her parents, and her mother particularly sighed contentedly, now that Judy would be married safely and so soon. "I had hoped Bob would go to college," said his father. "He could do worse," said his mother. So they were married in the fall.

Bob forgot about college and manfully went to work in a gasoline station, pumping gas and servicing cars. He and Judy lived with her parents, but he was working and soon they would have a home of their own. Judy's pregnancy a few months later increased their desire for a home of their own, even though the expenses that loomed ahead made the prospect recede further into the future. Judy's parents were helping the young couple, but let it be known that this was temporary, since Judy's two brothers were coming along and were headed for college.

The service station where Bob worked was located on a main highway. Each day boys and girls of his age, many of whom he knew, would stop for gas on their way to the nearby university. At first Bob enjoyed their stops, with the light banter that followed. Gradually, however, he began thinking at odd moments—about himself. No college. A wife to support. Soon a baby. His friends were in college, he was in a grease pit. Soon he became a bit petulant, even irritable with Judy. And the presence of her mother, who hovered over her now, was of no help. Meanwhile Judy became more and more uncomfortable, carrying the baby. Last year's commencement seemed a long way off*. And those wonderful dances. Other girls her own age were still going to dances. Bob was very tired when he came home from work. Besides, they had to save their money.

Then began rationalizations, that king of mental sports by which we find justification for thinking what we want to think. With Bob it went something like this: "If I weren't married, I'd be at the university now. Perhaps out for basketball or track. Or living at a fraternity house. Why did I get married? I was too young. But Judy seemed so anxious. Yes, that was it. It really was her doing. And her mother's too." Soon Bob became sort of surly, even to Judy's mother, who now said: "I'm afraid I misjudged that boy." And Judy was rationalizing, too. She really hadn't wanted to get married-just engaged. But Bob had swept her off her feet. Yes, that was it. He had gotten her into this mess. He had made her pregnant, too. If it weren't for Bob, she'd still be going around having a good time dancing, like the other girls did.

Bob and Judy were nice young people. Every one said so. Their difficulty was that they were married when they were too young. They were not ready for such a step, on every possible count. They had had no experience with life. They were school children, actually. They had not looked around enough. They were not prepared to settle down to a lifelong relationship. Bob was not prepared economically, and Judy-had not been prepared domestically. So this is the story—married at eighteen, disgruntled at nineteen, separated at twenty, and divorced at twenty-two.

Bob and Judy are but two of a large and increasing number of very young people whose marital failure is due, at least in part, to their marriage at too early an age. We propose, then, in this chapter to examine the facts of early marriage, the direction in which we are moving, the reasons for this development, how early marriages turn out, how early marriage compares with what we permit youth to do in other areas of life, and what would seem to be the proper age for marriage.

Ages at Which Marriage Occurs

Ages eighteen and nineteen are now the favorite ages of marriage for women in the United States. One-third of all first marriages are concentrated at these two age levels. Of all women marrying for the first time, one out of every thirteen (7.5 per cent) is sixteen years of age or less, one out of every six (16 per cent) is seventeen or less, one out of three (34.6 per cent) is eighteen or under, and one-half (49.3 per cent) are less than twenty years of age.

Men are customarily older than their wives by several years. Of all men marrying for the first time, one out of every thirteen (7.5 per cent) is eighteen or under, one out of every six (17.2 per cent) is nineteen or under, more than one out of every four (27.1 per cent) is twenty or under, and two out of five (40.2 per cent) are twenty-one or under. Ages twenty-one and twenty-two are the favorite ages for first marriages for males: one out of every four falling into these two age groups.*

* These summaries are based on a report from the National Office of Vital Statistics, published in July, 1956, and summarizing data on more than a quarter-million first marriages, reported by twenty-one states.

The critical reader may raise the point here that these ages are those reported by the persons who marry, and that some of them may have falsified their ages when applying for a marriage license. This is undoubtedly true. How important these falsifications may be is suggested in a careful study of 1,531 cases studied by Professor Harold T. Christensen, of Purdue University. Dr. Christensen and his associates compared the ages reported in these cases at the time of their marriage with those reported by the same persons after the birth of their first child. They found errors in more than one-fifth of the cases, and in more than three-fourths of the cases these involved an upgrading of ages after the birth of the child. In the judgment of Dr. Christensen, most of these were cases of young people misstating their ages in order to enable them to get around legal-age requirements at the time of their marriage. This suggests, then, that the percentage of persons marrying in the early age groups is even higher, and by a considerable proportion, than the stated statistics show.

It is hoped that these statistics have not been boresome to the reader. They have been cited to drive home the basic facts concerning marriage at early age levels in the United States, for this is one of the distinctive features of the American marriage pattern, and one in which we differ decidedly from most other countries. In no other country of the Western world do people marry so young. In the age bracket twenty to twenty-four, the United States has twice as many married men and 50 per cent more married women than will be found in England and Wales. In comparison to Ireland, we have nine times as many married men and four times as many married women in that age bracket. The only European country that comes at all close to our record—and not very close at that—is Yugoslavia.

What gives added point to these facts and comparisons on age at marriage is the direction in which we continue to move. This has been steadily in the direction of earlier marriage, and consistently so since 1890. In that year, for instance, the median age of first marriage for men was 26.1 years and for women it was 22 years. By 1950, these ages were 22.8 and 20.1 years, respectively. The most marked drop in any one decade was the one from 1940 to 1950.

Some Reasons for Early Marriages

A number of factors can be identified which have been responsible for, or at least definitely encouraged, early marriage. First, there is every reason to think that World War II, and the continuance of large-scale military service since, has had its effect upon the age of marriage. Wars always affect the marriage rate. With the imminence or start of war, the rate rises rapidly, due to the large number of marriages of young people that are moved forward in point of time. After dropping during the war, especially if it is of any considerable duration, peace brings a swift recovery of the rate, particularly in countries not ravaged by war. World War II established the pattern of early marriages for the United States, coming after the drab depression years. Then, in the years following the end of the war, young men in considerable numbers continued to go into the service, and the pattern continued. Why? Well, the reasons are obvious. Young men going into the service thought it best to "get" the girl before going out of circulation. And, of course, the girl might think so, too. Also boys, often fresh out of school, received a good, regular income from their service pay, enough, in their estimation, to marry on.

But various other factors have operated to encourage early marriage. One has been the marked prosperity of the nation, and particularly the widespread economic well-being of a large proportion of the population. Inflationary developments have favored many people, just as they have penalized others. High inflated wages in particular have had a lush appeal to young people, after having grown up with earlier lower-price levels. To earn seventy-five or eighty-five dollars a week on your first job after leaving school, which is the experience of many a young man to whom an allowance of fifty cents ten years earlier meant a lot of money, creates an illusion of economic income considerably above its actual purchasing power. All this transforms the romantic urge into legal wedlock at an early age.

Nor is it only young men who enjoy these opportunities for full-time employment and high wages. Most young women now work before they marry. Currently, more than twenty million women are in our civilian labor force, constituting about three-fourths of such workers.

This influx of women into the labor force during the past generation really is a major social revolution. Not only has the proportion of women working increased, but the tendency has manifested itself particularly at middle- and upper-class levels, and among married women. This latter development is peculiarly significant in connection with this volume. Roughly one-half of all women working are married women. Of all married women, some 30 per cent are now holding jobs away from home. In the case of couples living together, more than 26 per cent have double employment, both husband and wife being in the labor force. This is more than three times the percentages of a generation ago.

It is easy to see how this encourages early marriage. Young couples, planning to be married, pool their earnings to make possible that which the man's wages or salary could not achieve for the time being. That this may create problems of various kinds for their marriage later on, including also the effects of a double burden of being a wage earner and a home-maker which this imposes upon the wife, is forgotten in the eagerness of the moment.

Incidentally but of great importance, the employment of young married women is accompanied today in many instances by the nonemployment of husbands, who may be attending college, professional school, or undergoing some other kind of training. In some areas of the country, such working wives are spoken of as working for their P.H.T. degrees, meaning Putting Hubby Through. The senior author recalls how, as a graduate student fifty years ago, he and others were counseled regularly by their teachers to postpone marriage until the doctorate had been earned. Today graduate students tend to marry working wives.

Another development involving married women has been their increasing employment after the birth of children. Formerly most married women in the labor force were either childless or their children were grown. Since World War II, the percentage of cases where both parents were working and had children under six years of age has been rising markedly until by 1955 it was 16 per cent. This means that, in more than a million and a half homes where both parents are working presently, there are children under six years of age.

The Pressure To Marry Early

But there are other factors making for early marriages in the America of today. One of these is the attitude of many present-day parents. Young people who marry have not been living in a vacuum. They have been living in the homes of their parents, at least most of them have, and in these homes certain influences and pressures prevail. Some of these influences and pressures are open, direct, perhaps even blunt; still others are subtle, and operate below the level of consciousness. It isn't always what mama or papa says but what you somehow feel they expect.

It is our distinct impression that in many homes, and it would seem in an increasing proportion of homes, the children, and especially the daughters, are under some kind of pressure to get married as soon as possible. Life today is rather hectic, the "pace is terrific for many people, and to see the children safely married is to step out from under great responsibilities.

Some of these responsibilities are clearly economic. Children today are liabilities, speaking in terms of dollars and cents.

Gone are the days when a large family is a good financial investment because the children can be put to work, as on a farm or in a small business, thus allowing the parents to "coast" into easier schedules of work. Today the child, and especially the city child, is no such asset. Child-labor laws do not permit him to go to work. He must go to school, increasingly up to a higher age level. Many of the schools' extracurricular activities may run into money. An increasing proportion of young people going to college accentuates the economic drain upon the parents. Going to college is an expensive business, as many parents know. Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service and other tax-collecting agencies are breathing down the necks of the parents, taking a good-sized share of each dollar. And the more the parents apply themselves to increase their income the larger the share that goes to the tax collectors. Small wonder that early marriage offers a solution in many cases, and particularly for daughters.

While there are parents who are thus motivated to encourage the early marriages of their children, there are others who are influenced by economic circumstances of quite a different sort. These are the parents who are well off financially, in varying degrees, and who encourage or enable their children to marry early—at the parents' expense. These are the indulgent parents, who gratify the desires of children who have not shown as yet the ability or disposition to do so on the basis of their own efforts.

Here one finds, for example, the daughter of wealthy parents who marries a student in college or just out of school. They are set up to an attractive home, a station wagon and sedan, and a maid or two. The young groom is given a place in his father-in-law's business, at a salary not necessarily related to anything he contributes to the business. Or there is the dilettantish young man, who "just hasn't found himself," whose mama decides that if he were married it would do so much for him. So he marries on the basis of his mother's largesse. Or the parents of both bride and groom, so pleased with their children's application to work and their devotion to each other, chip in to make their marriage possible.

If these cases are selected from top-level economic classes, the reader will have no difficulty in finding illustrations on a more modest scale. Certainly parent-financed marriages of young people do occur, and their relative numbers reflect both the business barometer and the prevailing philosophy of financially able parents. What their meaning is for the character development of the children, and the outcome of the marriage, is still another matter.

Finally, there are the influences and pressures of the larger society which envelop young people and their parents, and these, too, have their effect upon the age of marriage. We have in mind here certain characteristics of the modern mass mind, and in particular some of its prevailing anxieties. These anxieties in large measure seem to result from a certain sidewise view of life, so typical of contemporary people, especially of those massed in our urban industrial centers.

This sidewise view of life can best be understood by contrasting it with what we shall call a lengthwise view. In the latter case people's behavior is governed largely with an eye to the past and the behavior of earlier generations. In the realm of family life, this means that the measuring-sticks for your conduct are what and how your forbears have done. How do you wish to live? What do you want to achieve? When do you want to marry? How many children would you like to have? What are the proprieties of behavior? You answer these questions to a large extent in terms of what your parents and other kinsfolk have done. Family continuity is the dominant influence, family tradition is the chief rod of measurement, kinship group behavior is the norm to which to conform. This is the way of life that flourishes in a staid and settled society, with little change from one generation to another. Sociologists speak of this as a sacred society.

The sidewise view of life is the exact opposite. Here the measure is to be found in the mode of the moment, in what others do—your friends, your neighbors, "people." In regard to the care of your very young children, for example, you do not consult your mother (who seems to have raised you rather successfully) or, under no conceivable circumstances, your grandmother (who raised thirteen without a loss). Instead, you go to the pediatrician, or listen to what "the man on the radio says." As the child ages, you turn to a book on child development, which will tell you how your child ought to behave at any given age (the book cites a mathematical average which irons out the individual variations in a not very large number of cases, but you don't know this). If your child is below this abstracted average, you rush to the clinic, perhaps to have his intelligence quotient determined (another standardized average). Of course, your child is an individual child, with special circumstances, abilities, disabilities, but you are not interested. You are looking sidewise, at the other mothers and children down the block, and your little darling must conform to "the other children."

It is the same in adult life. Status comes on the basis of conformity to others, not from being different. What "people" are doing, and saying, is much more important than what the Smiths (your family) have been in the habit of doing. It is even more important than your own judgment. The values of life are determined comparatively, by looking sidewise at the others—down the block, in your "crowd," at P.T.A. and labor union meetings. Thus, too, arise the major anxieties—of not being able to conform, of not keeping up with the Joneses, of not doing what "everybody else" is doing.

The meaning of all this for age at marriage should be obvious. When should you marry? When you have found the right mate? When you have a good job, a sufficient income, and a "nest egg" laid aside? When you are sufficiently grown up to be a responsible person? How very naive. You marry when the others do. You know how it works. Jane, a popular high school senior, flashes a ring on the finger. It sparkles. She sees to it that you notice. Ethel, her social rival, is not to be outdone. Soon she, too, displays her ring. Now Evelyn's mother begins to worry. With "all" the girls getting married, why not Evelyn? Perhaps if Evelyn's papa bought the ring for George, he would give it to Evelyn, now. "Oh, Mama," cries Judith, "all the girls are getting married. Three in our class." And Wilma, Carolyn, Esther, Ann, and Theresa are telling their mothers the same thing. The race is on. The pressures are under way. Note to the reader—Jane, Ethel, Evelyn, and all the others have just passed seventeen.

To be sure, there are other reasons than this sidewise habit for the anxieties of modern parents about the marriage of their children. We are living at a time when social and moral standards are uncertain and confused. Many of the controls of behavior in these areas are changing. Modern methods of quick transportation offer their own temptations and opportunities. Their sons and daughters know so many "other people," about whom they know little or nothing. Parents do their best, they are hopeful about the behavior of their young ones, but there are uncertainties. If only the children were safely married, they think. Marriage for them seems such a comforting prospect, in the light of many perplexing parental responsibilities.

The very impersonality of city life, especially of the larger cities, creates its own anxieties, and feeds others. In the modern city one knows many people but has few close friends. The lonely person against the crowded thoroughfare is a typical city picture. You meet a somewhat personable young man or a fairly presentable young girl. Who knows when you'll meet another, or a more desirable one? Better hang on. Play it safe and quick. Grasp your opportunity. It may be the last one. That's what the "others" are doing. Bigness creates its own anxieties—in the school, the workshop, and the city. For parents and young people, many of these revolve about the latter's proper launching on a career. Marriage is such a career.

How Do Early Marriages Fare?

The record of the outcome of early marriages has not been good. Students of marriage seem to agree that the chances of happiness are less in early than in later marriages. One well-known authority, for example, has found that the divorce rate was six times higher in marriages where both spouses were under twenty-one than in cases where both spouses were thirty-one or over at the time of their marriage. Other students of marriage lay less stress upon the age factor, stating that it is accompanied as a rule by other circumstances which make it difficult to say how important the role of age really is.

One glimpse into the results may be obtained by looking into the data on marital status as found in the last federal census. In this cross-section enumeration on a given day, there were almost a hundred thousand women and more than half that many men who reported themselves as having been married, divorced, or separated from their spouses before the beginning of their twenty-first and twenty-second year, respectively. It is reasonable to suppose that both of these figures are under- rather than overstatements of the facts.

Early marriage and early divorce have been changing our pattern of remarriage, and in several directions. First, the proportion of remarriages among all marriages has increased to a considerable extent; second, those remarrying are a good deal younger than formerly; and third, the marital status of those remarrying has changed. A generation or more ago, from three-fourths to four-fifths of those remarrying had been widowed; now the proportion is less than half. The other half have been divorced. Early marriage, early divorce, then remarriage—this is the all-too-evident pattern that is emerging.

Nor are the results surprising. Early marriages do not, permit the experimental contacts, the testing out of persons of the opposite sex, the utilization of courtship as a preparatory prelude to marriage which we have stressed as essential in Chapter 3. Similarly, it does not permit an awareness and weighting of factors other than romance in mate selection, as we have pointed out in Chapter 4, to be essential for wise marriage. Early marriage, coupled with an acceptance of the privilege to choose one's own mate, spells youth running riot, matrimonially speaking. And the cost is clear.

How Do We Safeguard Youth in Other Areas of Life?

Facts often get their meaning from their, relation to other facts. It will help, therefore, to see early" marriage in better perspective if we look at the way youth is regarded and safeguarded in other areas of life. One way to do so is to consider the legal safeguards which society establishes.

One of the traditional concerns of the law has been the protection of the young against their exploitation by elders and against their premature treatment as adults. Because most young people behave in certain ways at certain ages, legislators have formulated these protective measures into laws which stipulate specific ages before or after which persons have or do not have given rights and privileges. A good deal of this legislation involves a judgment as to the age when the young are able to make valid judgments for themselves, and thus become responsible in a given area of conduct. Some illustrations will serve to make quite clear the nature and variety of these laws.

Let us begin with the problem of rape. At what age does a girl become responsible to the point of giving consent? The commonly established age limit here is eighteen years. In one state, however, the law fixes the age at twenty-one, thus creating the rather curious situation which permits a girl to marry at eighteen, be divorced or widowed at twenty, and raped, according to the law, before her twenty-first birthday.

Laws relating to child labor, aid to dependent children, and juvenile court jurisdiction in the event of delinquent behavior constitute a complex of legislation which draws the line of economic and/or occupational responsibility. Child-labor laws state the age when a young person may legally go to work. Aid-to-dependent-children laws, now a part of our Social Security program, fix the age when their care, in the absence or incapacity of their parents, is no longer accepted as a public responsibility. Juvenile court legislation determines what might be termed the age of legal responsibility for criminal behavior, before which time juvenile delinquents must receive special treatment in specially designed and conducted facilities. Speaking in general terms, the age limits for these three types of legislation vary from sixteen to eighteen years, with eighteen as the most generally accepted age.

This complex of laws makes particularly clear the principle underlying the establishment of age standards for social behavior. These laws are not meant to handicap or limit young people in any way; their aim rather is to help and protect them —to keep them in school, thus contributing to their development; to protect them from exploitation and harmful occupations; and, in the event of delinquent behavior, to provide for special consideration and treatment. The underlying principle may be said to be that of a social or state guardianship, operating in the event that parents fail or falter in their duties and responsibilities.

It is in keeping with these legal safeguards and the philosophy underlying them that marriage laws have invariably included age limitations of one kind or another. Of these, a fixing of the age at which marriage may be contracted without parental consent is the most uniform and stable. In thirty-four states and the District of Columbia, girls may not be married without the consent of their parents until they are eighteen years of age; in thirteen states, it is twenty-one years. Only one state places the age limit at sixteen. For men, the age limit is twenty-one in forty-two states and the District of Columbia; one state fixes it at twenty; and five states at eighteen. Most of the age limits have remained unchanged for a number of years.

Another series of laws concern the age below which the parents are not allowed to give their consent. For girls, twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia fixed this age at sixteen years, nine at fifteen, eight at fourteen, one at thirteen, and two at twelve. For boys, the age range is higher. A total of twenty-six states and the District of Columbia draw the line at eighteen years, three at seventeen, a total of thirteen at sixteen, two at fifteen, and four at fourteen years. Changes in this category made within the last generation have been in the direction of raising the age limits.

These, then, are the outstanding ways in which society seeks to safeguard its younger members. These are the facts concerning the trend of development in these areas of legislation. Quite clearly they all point in the same direction. Whatever changes have occurred in the last generation or two have been aimed at raising the age requirements. Youth must be older to give consent in vital matters and to enter regular employment. Particularly urgent is the insistence upon going to school for more years as a preparation for later life. In the last half-century, the percentage of high school graduates per one hundred persons seventeen years of age has been multiplied by more than eight; and college enrollments per one hundred persons eighteen to twenty-one have multiplied by almost five. Currently, educational leaders are seeking to enlarge the proportions of persons going to college, so that in the near future as many as one-third or even more of our young men and women will be going to college.

Equally clear is the social philosophy underlying these trends of development. Society must protect the young during the years of immaturity, so as to make possible and facilitate their normal development. Society, through its collective instrumentality, the state, must serve as a wise and friendly guardian. Moreover, since life is becoming more and more complex and competitive, our young men and young women need more and longer training to prepare them for the challenge of contemporary life. Thus, this period of protection and preparation must be extended through increasing age limitations and standards.

All this is in curious contrast to 'what is happening in the field of marriage. Here we find quite the reverse patterns and trends: more young people marrying, and at earlier ages. And this in an area which involves the assumption of life's most intimate relationships, its most exacting responsibilities, and contracted supposedly on a lifelong basis. In other words, we protect, we coddle our young people, we accord them special treatment and safeguards on the grounds that they are immature and need our protection longer to prepare for life, only to find that in regard to life's most important step youth elects to reverse the trend. All this calls for some very serious thinking. Either we (society, that is) are proceeding on false assumptions in our social legislation and programs, or a substantial proportion of our young people are doing so with their early marriages, flying, as it were, in the face of the collective judgment of their elders.

When Is Old Enough To Marry?

Years serve only roughly as an index of the growth and development of the individual, and it is in these latter aspects that we must find the answer to the question posed above. A person may be forty years old by the calendar, and yet meet everyday problems like a typical twelve-year-old. On the other hand, we see at times teenage boys and girls who by disposition and training are already able to grapple with life on a normal adult level. To be grown up is to act grown up, and to act grown up is the acid age test for matrimonial fitness. What, more specifically, does this mean in the individual case? First, it means the ability to get and to hold a job. Obviously, this is a test in turn of many things. It means that one has a salable ability—skill, know-how, application, conscientiousness, sense of responsibility—in sufficient degree to be a good, employable risk. It means an ability to take and/or to give orders, to work under supervision, to accept censure and/or praise, to face competition and respond to pressure, and to accept discrimination or promotion in reasonable stride. The occupational world is often a grim world, and one must needs survive in it.

Most of us have to hold down jobs—for income purposes, to be sure, but also for some less tangible but also very important other reasons. In a society where most people work, the ability to obtain and to hold a job involves one's self-respect, as well as the respect of one's fellows. It is very important that young men remember this, both those with independent incomes of their own and those to whom the prospect of marrying money seems highly alluring. There are those who consciously seek the latter as the easier path. It really is not easier, it only seems so in prospect. Marrying money, says a wise old friend, is the hardest way to earn it, and the least satisfactory. We are speaking here, not of cases where inheritance comes to one or the other mate in due course of time, but of persons who plan a marriage and subsequent life on the financial resources of the mate.

Earlier, this ability to get and to hold a job was emphasized mainly as a male requirement. Today, as we have pointed out, most girls go to work before and increasingly after marriage, so that the test of occupational maturity applies to both sexes. And, in the truer sense, it applies to women whether or not they join the labor force. The modern wife, who manages a home, a husband, and several children, holds down a job more challenging, more exacting, and often more fatiguing than that of the woman employed in an office or store. Besides, the housewife's responsibilities have yet to adjust to the shorter day and the five-day week. Being a housewife and a mother require special skills, too.

A second test of age which often disregards the calendar is the development of the ability to get along with people. This means getting along with people socially, among one's acquaintances, in church, at parent-teachers meetings, as well as at work. Particularly important is the ability to get along with people in your family circle—your mate, the children, the help, your mate's "people," your own kinsfolk. These relationships are not different from those found elsewhere except that they are more intimate, more incisive, more revealing, more continuing, and also more vital to your happiness.

We do not live in a social vacuum, even when we are married. There is a social competitiveness in the life of all but the most isolated which puts a premium upon a person's ability to get along with his fellows, both at work and elsewhere, and the line between these two areas is often impossible to draw.

A third test of proper age for marriage is the capacity to deal with life's problems on an adult basis. Many grown-up persons cannot do this. When confronted with problems, they cry or sulk or hide or run home to their parents, or act in some other manner suggestive of the ways of childhood. Crises are the lot of everyone—grief, failure, disappointment, frustration, defeat, sudden change, hurts that are either physical or psychic. Particularly are they apt to come with the establishment of one's own family and the responsibilities of parenthood. The young husband who leaves his six-months pregnant wife and goes home to his mother because he cannot face the shadow of forthcoming events, and then returns to his wife and child several months after the latter's appearance, is a well-known type of family deserter. He is also a good illustration of an immature person, whatever his chronological age may be.

Many writers and students of behavior have emphasized this combination of abilities or disabilities to deal with life's problems at an adult level. Often some term like emotional or social maturity is used. The emotional aspect is the one most generally stressed, and the hard core of the meaning given to it is the presence or lack of an adequate insight into life, into human nature, and into one's own emotional reactions. To be emotionally or socially mature, one must be grown up enough to be able to step aside, as it were, to look at one's self, one's problems, and other people and to deal with them, at least to some extent, on an objective and realistic basis.

There is one other kind of age which we consider of the utmost importance. This we shall call the experience age of the person. Its measure is not a matter of years but the extent and range of one's contacts with the realities of life. It is really this kind of age that people have in mind when they speak of one person as old and another as young for his years.

Such a measure of age raises one very interesting and important problem. What about the experience age of this increasing proportion of young people who go to high school until they are eighteen, to college or university until they are twenty-two, and then to the professional schools? Of their sexual drive toward mating, there is no doubt. But what of their immediate readiness for the realities of married life and parenthood? Do our high educational standards create problems in this area?

These are the years of idealism, when youth builds castles in the air, dreams, and revels in a welter of theories. And the school environment is not the best place in the world to check these ideals and theories against the facts of life. Let it be emphasized that we are not talking here about the intellectual development of our youth; we are singling out their experience history with life and people and problems and responsibilities as they are, and suggesting the significance of this kind of preparation, or its lack, in marriage. The young, and especially our ivory-towered young, lacking experience, are guided by theory, but experience keeps another kind of school which revises many of the theories of youth. For the glibness of tongue of our educated youth, for their keenness of intellect, for their knowledge of the classroom's ready-made answers, and for their sophisticated assurances, we have nothing but appreciation. But for their need for a further seasoning period from exposure to post curriculum life before they are ready for marriage, we have considerable certainty.

To jump overnight from the sheltered life of the school environment into the stark realities of maintaining a home and family is a very, very big change. Consider how this works out. Yesterday he was a campus Big Wheel, living at the Epsilon Chi Omega house, on a family allowance. She was one of the dating favorites at dear old Siwash, invited out to all the dancing, partying, and theater-going that she could possibly wish. Now they are living in a two-room flat in a large city. It is hot and humid. Today his boss was unreasonable, as bosses so often seem to us in our youth. She had trouble with the vacuum cleaner and the gas range. Perhaps there is a baby that frets from the heat. That night he muses: "If this dame hadn't chased me, I'd still be in clover." And she sulks herself to sleep with memories of last year's Senior Prom. It is a big transition for these two, on many fronts, in a very short time.

It is our conviction that many persons marry when they are too young, not necessarily in years but in maturity, in experience, and in the ability to meet the many responsibilities of family living. Such marriages are "bad" marriages, not perhaps because the couple is unsuited to each other, not because of any deficiencies in the persons concerned other than those which time can erase, but because they have assumed life's major responsibility before they were ready to do so. It injures a young horse to do heavy work too soon, the best automobile should not be overtaxed when it is new, a plank breaks when it is overloaded. "Never send a boy to do a man's work" is an old bridge-game maxim. It is good matrimonial advice, too, and for both sexes. A child should not undertake an adult's job. Marriage means much more than the legality of sharing a common bed.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...