by Ash Jackson, contributor
Everyone has heard the average rate of divorce is close to 50 percent. There is a 1 in 15 survival rate for a marriage to last 10 years. The statistics all go against the idea of “happily married” as the number of marriages decline year by year, and the average ages that men and women marry have risen by three or four years since the ‘90s. So it is no surprise that people don’t always congratulate me when I tell them that at the age of 22, I am getting married. I get remarks about missing out on my early 20’s, and moving too fast by strangers who ensure me that I’ll regret it. Often times it is assumed that I am pregnant because, then and only then, would I be making the right decision to be married at such a young age.
They have no way of knowing that I am marrying a man who will be 28 on our wedding day, or anything about our challenging, though brief, relationship. For a year and a half we have not gone a day without speaking, since the day we met. Assuredly, we would know enough about our relationship and ourselves by now to decide after over six months of living with each other that we are ready to get married.
When I was 20, I told people that I was never getting married, and I was absolutely not having children. I had many reasons but after listing a couple people generally understood my side. When I realized that I was not only refusing these things because of my badly informed ideas of men but also because of my badly informed ideas of feminism, I began teaching myself that it was okay to fit into the categories that I was once afraid of like wife, mother and unit. I had to realize that the man I was with didn’t want a maid or a baby-maker. I can be independent, strong and a career woman while embracing that I can also enjoy cooking for my family — and I can do these things now. We aren’t going to wait on marriage because others tell us there’s a chance I’ll wake up at 23 and regret it.
On Facebook a few weeks back I shared a screen caption of a Tumblr post that said, “Yo, getting married at 22 sounds a lot like leavin’ a party at 9:30 p.m.” The next blogger reblogged it with the response: “Yeah, but you get to leave the party with your favorite person on the planet, and take off all your makeup, and put on your ugly comfortable clothes and make popcorn and curl up in your bed and watch a movie, and have sex and go to sleep, Idk how that sounds like a bad thing.” Then one more blogger responded, “And everyone else just wakes up alone and hung over.” This simple simile described all the feelings I tried to express in the weeks after we announced our engagement. I don’t mind being the person who leaves the party early. Honestly, I was unapologetically that person before my engagement. The only difference between then and now is I’m not leaving alone. Hell, I don’t even have to go to a party ever again.