Ugh. My initial reaction is that all the brethern don’t seem to really understand the current YA generation (and Im no basher of our leaders ok…but its been the same-old for awhile I don’t see any indication that they really understand the issue at hand or the world the current 20-somethings live in – I’m open to them proving me wrong, especially regarding this issue).
Marriage is not getting delayed because men have replaced women with Pizza take-out and porn and women have replaced men with those darned careers….people are ‘delaying’ marriage because they are smart enough to realize you should know who you are and what you want in life/family before you make an eternity-long commitment, because they have seen their parents, grandparents, and most of their friends who took the plunge at 19 get divorced, because education, healthcare, housing and just about everything is more expensive now making marriage (and KIDS) a MUCH more difficult proposition. Sure, I know people who are too picky in who they will even date, who seem to not want to ‘grow up’ etc etc…but I get told I am delaying adult responsibility because I don’t have kids yet too so I’m a little jaded to those complaints.
People need to follow the spirit in their own lives and not say ‘the sky is falling’ because people are actually getting married AFTER college instead of dropping out and having 8 kids on welfare. Maybe if the youth weren’t constantly told that they should stay single rather than marrying outside the temple we’d have more married people too. My sister would be married right now if she didn’t think she was evil for having an awesome, caring non-mo who loves her
(/rant).
This is bad, but not unexpected. We are in the culture and of it.
Enjoy those entitlement programs while you can, folks.
. . .because they have seen their parents, grandparents, and most of their friends who took the plunge at 19 get divorced
I haven’t seen this, but it may well be happening. If you know of divorce rate statistics of young people married in the temple, I’d love to see them.
I am a stat for Temple wedding and divorce. I know of 3/80 or so Temple weddings that have ended in divorce from our YSA ward. Mind you not all those 80 weddings are “great” marriages or even active.
Sorry 80 or so Temple wedding since about 1994.
In the leadership complaints about this issue, there is also a tendency to ignore the very serious factor of very limited choice. The main couple highlighted in the story *wanted* to marry earlier and really *tried* to do so. So it’s not entirely a matter of people consciously deciding not to marry; with such a limited population of LDS singles, there are inherent constraints on everybody who wants to successfully getting married within the Church..
I would advise anyone I know and my own children to wait before getting married. The BYU type culture of marry the first person who likes you is not wise in my opinion. If we really believe in eternal marriage we should be more wise, more mature, and alot more hesitant to make an eternal covenant. Then again, maybe I’m a little jaded.
I wonder how many people think that the rush to get married in LDS culture is partially based on sexual prohibitions? I don’t know of any stats but am curious if early marriage is more common in cultures with sexual prohibitions or guidelines.
I think there is a right time, person, and place to get married that is different for everyone but I am grateful that I didn’t put it off. I was just finishing up with my degree at BYU. Marrying later in life can be more difficult because you have really accustomed yourself to living on your own. Being married really helped me through grad school and I am enjoying my 3 kids. I tend to think mid-twenties is better for marriage over mid-thirties or mid-teens.
The point is David, this article and the churches attitude would suggest that you DID marry late.
When I was at BYU in the mid 90s, I noticed that there was sooo much emphasis on chastity [many firesides on other topics ended up with metaphoric videos of crocodiles eating people who stepped out of the \”safe\” zone], and very, very few talks about what it takes to form a healthy dating relationship.
It\’s true that there were classes and talks to young married people about good relationships, but not a whole lot for the singles. The emphasis seemed to be –don\’t have sex until you are married, get married, and then work it all out. For those of us who had reasons to be wary of jumping into marriage, this was problematic. If someone wants to encourage healthy marriages, there should be emphasis on helping people form healthy relationships–not just on chastity and getting the rings on.
I see a trend nowadays for better sexual communication and better marriages and marriages not based on hormonal revelations. Marriage is icing on the cake and not the cake. If you are not happy do not expect marriage to solve all your problems.
The article says this, which is probably fairly accurate: “Stanley said studies show people are marrying later in life because of an emphasis on career and personal growth before marriage, and also a general fear of failure in marriage.â€
But earlier it also states this: “But church leaders say many singles appear to be following national trends of delaying marriage by avoiding traditional dates, such as a one-on-one evening, where a man calls a woman and asks her out. Instead, singles are “hanging out” with members of the opposite sex in a group settingâ€
This is wrong. They say that because they misunderstand it. They think it’s laziness, but it’s not. It’s actually a method of getting to know a greater number of people in a shorter amount of time.
Natasha, I think that’s a very insightful comment. I’ve had non-members be shocked that–for all our church going and meetings and emphasis on marriage and family–there is no specific marriage prep counseling or classes. (I realize there is an institute class, but very few take it and it isn’t designed to be interactive with one’s fiancee.)
Eric,
If hanging out worked to help people know a greater number of people in a shorter amount of time, shouldn’t that result in people marrying sooner rather than later?
I emailed the reporters a bit of my story (and my wife’s, we were 31 and 27) and said what most of you have said here: that we each wanted to get it right the first time, that some of the leadership (local and general) may not understand the circumstances, etc. One of them responded and said there will be a follow-up article in tomorrow’s edition, covering at least some of that ground.
I’m going to try withhold my judgement until I get a chance to read that Part 2.
Julie, if it weren’t for other factors, yes. But other things, such as those mentioned in the prior quote from Stanley, bring it down. Also, I think people are just plain more picky than they were back in older days. Perhaps it’s the result of a generation raised on romantic comedies.
Or a generation raised in divorced households….
It might have as much to do with demographics as with sinister cultural memes. This article, for example, discusses the unwholesome effects of skewed sex ratios on marriage culture: in environments in which single women outnumber single men (that is, in which women wield less sexual bargaining power), marriage rates decline. That is, not only does some remainder of unpartnered women remain single, but more men remain single, as well. In environments in which single men outnumber the women, and thus the women enjoy more bargaining power, marriage rates among men rise. Single active LDS women outnumber active single men, I imagine.
Rosalynde,
Interesting. Your theory implies that in the past the ratio was less skewed among LDS. I wonder if there is any evidence for this.
#9, you are of course right, our strict sexual prohibitions are a major factor in encouraging early marriage. (When I came off my mission, I only half-tongue in cheek said that I fully intended to be either married or excommunicated within a year, and in fact did the former.) Most people aren’t going to willingly go for more than a decade from their sexual maturity before actually having sex.
I am actually a fan of the “hanging out” concept. I’ve seen my own son do it, first in high school and now in college. He has tons of really good friends of both genders, and he is very socially comfortable and confident around girls. I wish I had been as well adjusted when I was his age (of course, I was on a mission when I was 20, so dating v. hanging out wasn’t an issue for me at the time).
In 1981, for every 100 LDS single women 20-29 years old there were 89 LDS single men. Among singles 30 and older, for every 100 active single women there were 19 active single men (defining “active” as attending church weekly). See here. I would be very interested to know what the demographic data are today.
For every 100 active, high-functioning single women over age 30, there are probably 10 active, high-functioning single men. Seriously. #8 got it exactly right. *All* of my over-30 single female friends would love to get married if the right opportunity came along, but those opportunities are few and far between.
I fully sustain my leaders. When it comes to marriage, I will decide who I am interested in , how long I date and whatnot. I will take counsel as advice. The Leaders won’t be raising my children and paying my bills.
Marriage is of no benefit to men. There is no good reason for a man to marry. He can get anything he wants (sex, companionship etc) in a regular relationship. Marriage is fraught with peril for men, especially in the areas of divorce negotiations.
Yes, I am maried. But I would advise any man under the age of 25 to avoid even a relationship. The 20s are the golden years for establishing a career path that will last them the rest of their life. If they have to get off the fast track to take care of a wife and kids, he will be left behind when his friends who delay marriage.
Do a google search on “Leykis 101” for more information.
It’s worth noting that Jesus made it to 33, and no near contemporary account mentions anything about him being married. The perfect life indeed.
Fascinating, phouchg. Could you tell us if the beast with seven heads and ten horns also offers stock picks for 2007?
From the article:
“LDS Bishop Jon Hale, who oversees a ward of LDS singles between the ages of 18 and 31, said he believes selfishness is the reason many singles postpone marriage. Instead of focusing on finding a spouse, many singles want to get an education, travel and \”find themselves\” before getting married, he said.\”
I know Bishop Hale, and was surprised that he would say it in that manner. At least it came across as being harsh to me. In my case, being single has very little to do with selfishness. I would agree that, while this may be the case for a few single adults, I believe them to be the minority, unless you can tie selfishness to unrealistic expectations. For that is what I think the problem is.
Brent Barlow gave a talk last year with some good points dealing with choosing a marriage partner, and having realistic expectations.
What strikes me in the article, is the apparent lack of intercultural / international dimension. Dating traditions, age factors, familial obligations in relation to marriage differ from culture to culture. A statement like
“church leaders say many singles appear to be following national trends of delaying marriage by avoiding traditional dates, such as a one-on-one evening, where a man calls a woman and asks her out”
may be valid for the U.S. But that “traditional” approach would be pretty aberrant in other cultures where e.g. these norms apply:
– get to know many friends in group activities over a longer period
– avoid forming a separate couple too soon
– it would be considered insulting to “call a woman and ask her out” and repeat the same with another woman a week or so later
– it would be considered male-domination to “call a woman and ask her out”. The usual way to form a couple would be to start doing things together as something that grows out of mutual signals and common interests, and usually from within the participation in group activities
– “call a woman and ask her out” is therefore a step that comes at the end of a long preparation period and is already part of a serious relation. At that stage the woman could also just call the man…
Of course, there are many variations to these norms – and deviations. But the American “traditional dates such as a one-on-one evening, where a man calls a woman and asks her out” are certainly not considered normal in other parts of the world.
So, if one has “realistic expectations” what one says to oneself is “This guy’s rather dull-witted and unkind but he’s likely the best I’m going to find so I think I’ll go ahead and marry him”? How inspiring!
I don’t really think I want to marry someone who has settled for me because he’s afraid I’m the best he will likely get. I think that would be cheating both of us. I’d rather marry someone who feels about me that I’m the one he’d pick if he could have his choice of anyone in the whole universe, and about whom I feel the same way.
Doctrine and Covenants 8:2
Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.
At a certain point in my dating, this verse came to be very meaningful. Ideally, you would hope to enter marriage without mental or emotional reservations. It is possible to love a person in your heart but to mentally have some concerns. It is also possible to love a person intellectually but to not feel the emotional connection. It’s really a great thing if you can date, fall in love with and marry someone who you love wholeheartedly and “wholemindedly.”
My feeling is that those who delay marriage out of fear of repeating their parents’ mistakes are actually MORE likely, not less likely to end up in an unhappy marriage and divorced.
You start the marriage in hyper-sensitive, exploratory, tentative, easily critical mode. And you quickly find what you were looking for.
Your marriage is already over in your mind before it ever began. Even at the alter, you were subconsciously planning for your divorce.
If younger adults are waiting longer for marriage in order to avoid “bad choices” why aren’t we seeing a parallel decrease in divorces?
It’s because as “smart and savvy” as these people think their being, they are merely pressing on in the downward spiral their parents and grandparents started.
Tatiana,
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that I do not deserve the woman who “is perfect for me.”
I think very few people do deserve the perfect mate. Which makes it likely that you don’t deserve a perfectly-matched husband either.
From a common sense standpoint, I’d say you’d be better off planning to “settle” for a couple things.
People born in the later half of the 20th century have been growing up on TV advertisements constantly reinforcing the message that “you deserve the best.” Apparently a lot of them have been gullible enough to take the ads seriously.
I don’t deserve the best. And neither do any of you.
I certainly didn’t want or choose to “delay” my marriage until I was 30, but that’s just the way my life went.
“LDS Bishop Jon Hale, who oversees a ward of LDS singles between the ages of 18 and 31, said he believes selfishness is the reason many singles postpone marriage. Instead of focusing on finding a spouse, many singles want to get an education, travel and \â€find themselves\†before getting married, he said.\â€
If that’s what Bishop Hale said, then he does not understand young adults, but is basing it on his own pre-conceived notions. I lived in the Boston Longfellow Park ward for a few years. I had a good talk with the bishop there one time and he told me how many of the sisters would come in and cry to him about how they just couldn’t find a man. I know I talked with the bishop about my dearth of dates and I’m guessing other brethren also talked with him.
I remember another time the Stake president chided the sisters of the ward for not dating, and you could just feel the tension in the chapel. He really was oblivious.
Seth, you make a good point in #34, but you don’t extend it far enough. Yes, the delay in marrying amongst white, upper and middle-class American Mormons (which are the ones that these sort of articles generally focus on) has many causes, most of which are, on a case by case basis, perfectly reasonable: there is now a much greater cultural emphasis on developing a social network of peers, on “finding oneself,” on getting established professionally and financially and emotionally, on avoiding costly mistakes, etc. All these things, in the broad scheme of things, reflect what you correctly identify as a kind of “commerical” atitude–marriage is like a purchase, an investment, a merger, and so you have to find a partner that is just right for “who you are.” That is, the self, the consumer, has already been established; now you want to add something to it, and you find yourself being very careful about making a commitment that will potentially affect you for eternity. The idea that you a not a complete self absent marriage, that you need partner not as a way to exercise a vital option you possess but rather to give you options, and you have to simply take what you can get, is not commonplace in our commodified society (and with good reason).
The reason why I say you don’t extend that thinking far enough is that, if one really wants to challenge this source of delay in marrying patterns, then one would have to attack the root causes of it…which is not commercials on TV, but whole professional, financial, emotional commercialization of the self. Look at us: we’re a rich, tolerant, progressive, technologically enabled, educated, increasingly egalitarian society. Take that away–make us poor, make women dependent upon men for their standing in society, make it socially and financially obligatory for most men to enter the workforce at age 18 and stick with it for their whole lives, make children a valuable economic resource for keeping food on the table, make single people (both men and women) a suspect and somewhat discriminated against subset of the population, make television and coffee houses and a personal apartments in the city and hanging out on the internet an unimaginable luxury, make divorce a scandal and almost impossible to obtain, make us all farmers, make college educations rare, make social activities only occasional and guided over almost entirely by the church when they do happen–and I guarantee that early marriage rates would skyrocket.
It all doesn’t have to be so economically determined, I’ll grant; there’s a lot of non-economic cultural/ideological factors that can be challenged at the margins of these developments, and those marginal changes could be very meaningful. But generally speaking, Adam was correct in #3, only “culture” alone, in the way most people use the term, isn’t nearly broad enough. What we’re seeing is, very simply, that the Mormons focused on in the article discussed are members of a wealthy, opportunity-driven, individualistic, highly educated, mostly secular society with a wide range of private and public freedoms. And as much as I criticize it, there are things I really like about living in such a society, and the same goes for all of us. You do see general authorities speaking out broadly about certain trends, on occasion (Elder Bruce Hafen has denounced legal no-fault divorce, but I’m not sure anyone has ever done so in conference), but realistically, I sincerely doubt that there are many advocates of early marriage that are willing to go after the socio-economic basis for modern changes in marriage relationships entirely.
First, although I haven’t read the article, I wonder to what degree it represents the private concerns of “the brethren” as opposed to their public counsel. The rumors I have heard regarding the privately expressed opinions have been uniformly more sharp than anything that has been publicly stated. Also, in this more than in almost anything else, I think Pres. Packer’s comments about general principles applying generally should be considered. I often wonder if counsel regarding marriage rates is so sharp out of a concern for those who would justify selfishness, not out of a concern for any specific situation.
I wonder what Sherri Dew’s feelings are regarding this matter.
Second, in response to RAF, in the Church we decry many of the outcomes of the modern socioeconomic cultural order. Does this discussion, including warnings about selfishness, fit into that pattern, or does it differ significantly from other counsel that encourages us as a people to distinguish ourselves from babylon?
Finally, (again, not having read the article) I regret the divisiveness that accompanies discussions of dating habits and marriage formation. Unfortunately, I think there are a few who would ignore the importance of marriage but for the emphasis placed upon it by our leaders. I also think that the subject is one that should be approached via prayer and personal inspiration. The law of chastity and the doctrine that marriage is necessary to exaltation seems to me to be the fundamental principles that should guide us. Outside of these principles, the sense expressed above that the brethren’s comments on dating and marriage should be considered advice seems to me to be about right.
#30: Wilfried — Oo, you beat me to it. Absolutely true.
#34: Seth R. — Oo, you beat me to it. (I need to start neglecting my kids to keep up here.) In my later single days, I realized I belonged to the Groucho Dating Club: I didn’t want to go out with any woman who would go out with me.
One last thing:
When asked if he was deliberately avoiding marriage, Crook said, “That’s what the empirical evidence would suggest.”
What a jerk.
My family and I live well outside the Mormon corridor, but my daughter is living in Utah and working on her bachelor’s degree (not at BYU). She would like nothing more than to get married in two or three or four years and have kids and all that. I don’t know how typical her experience is, but she is not impressed by what she sees. Here, in rough order of what is most common, is what she says she finds among LDS guys:
1) Guys who aren’t interested in building a friendship and then seeing what happens in terms of a long-term relationship, because they feel they should get married as soon as possible. More than once she’s had the experience of going on one date with someone and the guy’s already thinking about marriage.
2) Guys who have no interest in an intelligent woman with an education and the ability to think independently.
3) Guys who have no idea what they want out of life (other than watching sports) in terms of career and that sort of thing.
4) Guys who, in private, don’t believe in the law of chastity.
5) Guys who have spent all their lives in the LDS bubble and don’t know how to relate to people outside of it.
Because she has no problem getting dates (she’s knock-out gorgeous, but I admittedly have a bias in saying that), it’s the first item in the list she finds the most bothersome.
Eric,
You want my kid brother’s phone number? He’s at BYU. I’d be interested in finding out which category he falls into.
Perhaps one of the reasons is that our culture is more fractured today than in times past. That makes it more difficult because you can’t assume that the person is on the same page as you re: marriage, kids, morals etc.
Additionally they are likely to have different interests.
I suppose this goes along with the comment that we have more freedoms and options these days.
I agree largely with the ideas expressed by Veritas #2, although with less fervor. I think the single income household is a fading ideal. More and more women in the church will need to work to support the increasing costs of middle class life. Not every man can become a doctor, lawyer, or dentist. One\’s early twenties are such a critical time to develop one\’s career and pursue graduate degrees — the investments necessary to support children down the road. It is not selfishness to delay marriage and children, it is simply forward planning.
Men in the church already start out at a disadvantage relative to our peers in the marketplace (in terms of age), having spent two years away from academia on missions. So many of our young adults graduate from college at ages 24 and beyond and many now recognize that a college degree alone usually is not sufficient to generate \’head-of-household\’ level income (except perhaps a degree in engineering).
Early marriage and early childbearing when a middle class income remains distant may be the right decision for some, but requires considerably more faith or considerably higher tolerance for risk depending on one\’s mindset. I tend to be one who thinks God expects us to plan ahead to the best of our ability while remaining open to change that plan if prompted.
Would it be politically incorrect to mention that many women have a hard time staying in good physical shape in their late 20’s? Not so hard for the guys, I believe, and they have a certain right to be attracted to that “knock-out gorgeous” from Eric’s #39. I have tried to line guys up with girls in that age group and found only a couple of girls (out of dozens, no kidding) that they would be attracted to. I’m just saying…
“I think the single income household is a fading ideal. More and more women in the church will need to work to support the increasing costs of middle class life….So many of our young adults graduate from college at ages 24 and beyond and many now recognize that a college degree alone usually is not sufficient to generate ’head-of-household’ level income…Early marriage and early childbearing when a middle class income remains distant may be the right decision for some, but requires considerably more faith or considerably higher tolerance for risk depending on one’s mindset.”
I think this is a perfect (and, given certain assumptions about the modern world, perfectly justified) example of what I described in #36. We–meaning white upper and middle-class American Mormons, just like white upper and middle-class Americans generally–are taught to, are expected to, want to, aspire to security and accomplishment and creature comforts and happiness, for ourselves and our children. (Heaven knows I do.) But remove that middle-class income and all its frills as a realistic possibility, remove it as a social (and, indeed, in many ways church-culture) expectation, and marriage patterns will follow.
Russell, I’m not sure what you’re saying. The demographic data shows that marriage is in fact central to what it means to live a middle class life—not exceptional and certainly not antithetical. Indeed the much-remarked upon “marriage gap” is precisely a socioeconomic gap: disadvantaged women are LESS likely to marry, now, than educated, prosperous middle class women (though these are, indeed, marrying later.) am I misunderstanding your point?
I’m only talking about comparative marriage rates, Rosalynde–the original Deseret News articles, and the general authority statements related in them, only make sense (at least so far as I can tell) within the context of questions about the age and rate at which white male and female American Mormons from the middle and upper classes–in other words, those people which still dominate cultural presumptions within Mormonism–are marrying. Elder Oaks’s comments about “hanging out” have little relevance outside the world of college educated and newly professional young adults, and practically no relevance whatsoever to the lives lived by the poor, whether rural or urban. In light of the actual numbers regarding poverty in the U.S., your point is absolutely correct–a relatively stable and traditional marriage is one of the most important, if not the most important, marker of whom is able to maintain middle-class living and avoid poverty, and who isn’t. But I just don’t see the concerns expressed by the church leadership in these statements focusing at all on such social concerns; they’re concerned rather with certain spiritual pathologies amongst a very select LDS population, most of whom will one way or another manage to live pretty stable and successful lives regardless.
Which is, perversely, my point: most of college educated and newly professional young adult Mormons in the U.S. are going to be fine, because even by marrying late or never, they’ll still be able to inhabit the middle or upper-class niche they (and I!) aspire to. Get rid of that niche, take us back to the 1940s (or the 1840s!), make travel a ridiculous luxury and a university education the sole privilege of those with inherited wealth, re-introduce the social marginalization and hostility towards the divorced and unmarried and re-acquaint males with the imperative of entering the workforce at age 17 in order to help their parents hold onto the farm or what little they have…and I’m certain we’d see marriage ages drop and family sizes rise.
One of the bishops quoted in the second of the Deseret News articles put it very well–marriage, he said, is more complicated today, because kids face so many choices. Of course! Modern market economies and the societies they generate are all about choice, about deciding between marriage now or education now or this job later or that job later or a mission in two years or a swell internship in two years or a shot at this top ten graduate school or that top ten graduate school or how about mixing and matching as many as possible all at once? In world of opportunity like that, the social and economic imperatives that conditioned the way in which our parents and grandparents found and committed to their spouses can’t help but appear very narrow. And they were. That’s one of the reasons why they worked–because you couldn’t easily escape them.
(I’m sounding like an economic determinist here, and I’m not. I freely grant that there are all sorts of ways in which our ideas, as compared to a previous generations’ ideas, about marriage have had consequences all on their own. But those ideas do not flourish in a socio-economic vaccuum.)
I am glad to see that this thread has taken a turn into exploring the economic factors associated with this “trend” which the article presents little empirical evidence to demonstrate. It is certainly a lot easier to blame human frailty than to look at causal relationships and is a favorite of religious leaders everywhere.
Here are a few congruent trends to consider: the gap in earnings between the educated and uneducated is as large now as it has been at any time since the 1920’s which makes the value of education precious: the cost of higher education has grown exponentially faster than inflation over the last few decades, the length of education necessary to bring in those bucks has also expanded: the cost of housing has radically outpaced inflation since 1950. All of these factors certainly contribute to the length of time that people are content being singles, because they feel that they have to prepare to provide for their families with decent housing, good schools, and the financial ability to enjoy the good life.
Are these factors as strong as the desire to find oneself, which is undoubtedly the reason that some delay marriage? I don’t know, but my guess is that they probably are. After all the Mormon ideal of having a mother in the home, paying a full tithe, having a bunch of kids without delay, is becoming more and more financially inaccesible. SOmething has got to give.
Russell, you are right in #44. I desire a middle class lifestyle and think we as a church should not lessen this expectation. In the end we as humans have responsibilities outside of providing for our own family. We need time and resources to expend on the church, we need inventors, public servants, scientists, and so on. It is difficult to create societal value outside of one’s family if one is only scrapping by all the time.
I have experience with the Anabaptist community in Lancaster County, PA, i.e. the Amish, Church of the Brethren, and Mennonites. Their culture does not emphasize middle class economics and therefore does not see the need for lengthy educational pursuits. Early marriage and early childbearing is unimpeded.
I admire some of the values I’ve seen there, but I do not wish to see this model seep into our culture. In our church, we have societal contributors of all stripes and the same probably could not be said if we all just eeked out the minimum for our families as the Anabaptists largely do.
I wonder how the trend among the LDS to delay marriage intersects with the national trend in the US to not marry at all. A recent article in the Washington Post relates social scientists’ perception of marriage becoming an elitist institution for the wealthy and educated.
I have enjoyed the subject matter of this post and the comments that have been shared. As a divorced LDS mother of three I obviously have my own perspective on the perils of marrying young (I was sealed at 19 when I was a sophomore at BYU). I wouldn’t trade my children for anything in the world nor all the lessons and insights I have gained, but I do think I could have been a much better wife and mother had I waited five-ten years. I was fortunate to be married to a man who supported me in my educational goals and was able to obtain my master’s degree while rearing a young family (which was an interesting experience in the young LDS mom culture). Given my experience and the ever growing numbers of friends and associates within the church that I see getting divorced, I am a big proponent of taking your time to make the right choice. With that said, it is also such an individual decision and everyone is so different. I have met women who at 18 were extremely mature and “ready” for all the responsibilities of married life and others at 30+ who were nowhere near ready (myself included). At 37 I still feel like I am getting my act together and am starting to finally make some headway in my career. I think we can and must do a much better job of educating our youth and young adults about how to build healthy relationships (beginning with oneself) and how to make good choices. I believe that my Heavenly Father loves each and everyone of us more than we can comprehend and I would humbly submit that he is not going to ask us if a) if we are married or b) at what age we got married when we finally get to meet Him again. He is simply going to hold us and tell us how glad He is to have us home.
Seth R. #44: I don’t deserve the best. And neither do any of you.
And yet, that\’s what I\’ve got. Isn\’t that funny?
Just out of curiosity, what is the age cutoff for ‘marrying young’ versus ‘marrying when your older’? To me, marrying at 18 or 19 is marrying too young, and marrying at age 27 1/2 or older is the (very beginning of the tip of) marrying older. What do the rest of you think?
Follow on questions: How does your span compare to general (American or international) LDS trends? How does your span compare to general (American or international) population trends?
I’ve only read about 2/3 of the comments, but here is what I see so far: The Brethren are out of touch; they don’t have a clue what it’s like to be me. While Bishop so-and-so says “many” delay marriage for selfish reasons, I choose to read that as “all” who delay marriage are selfish, therefore I reject his comment completely. Nobody is delaying marriage for unjustified reasons.
I believe it’s reasonable to conclude that there are a number of people who have no control over their marital status. I believe it’s also reasonable to conclude that there are a number of people who are not justified in their delay (I’m sure none of those people participate in this website, however). I just find it sort of humorous to see so many scramble to point out how wrong “the brethren” are on this issue.
The article didn’t mention anybody on here, so far as I know, so the defensive posture that appears so prevalent here is unnecessary.
“LDS Bishop Jon Hale, who oversees a ward of LDS singles between the ages of 18 and 31, said he believes selfishness is the reason many singles postpone marriage. Instead of focusing on finding a spouse, many singles want to get an education, travel and “find themselves” before getting married, he said.
I can’t figure out how getting an education, travelling, and discovering what you really want in life in your late teens and early twenties is “selfish”, at least not in a negative way. I married at 19, followed the prophet’s advice to not delay having children (because it was selfish to wait) and had my first baby at 20 (I had 5 by the time I was 30). Because of the financial difficulties of having both my husband and myself in college, as well as my wish to stay at home and give 100% to my children, I had no choice but to drop out. I have spent many years struggling with self-esteem issues, anxiety and depression because, I believe, I missed an important stage of development in my early adult years, when I should have been exploring the world and discovering myself.
I believe that I would have been a more confident person and a better wife and mother if I had taken time to complete my education and have some other life experiences BEFORE heading down that road. Though not impossible, once you make the commitments of marriage and children, it is much more difficult to do that. Many years later, now that my kids are grown, I am still trying to discover who the real me is, having previously been defined almost exclusively by my roles as wife and mother. I believe that by discovering our likes, dislikes, stengths and talents, we can better fulfill our unique purpose on this earth and we will be more capable of giving to others in meaningful ways. Early adulthood is the time to do this! This is not selfishness!
Although I don’t want to second guess a decision that has also brought me great joy and happiness, I have certainly encouraged my single adult female children not to get married too young, and to get an education, to travel and have lots of experiences before getting married.
Also, I definitely think some church leaders are out of touch with what is really happening in the singles wards. As my 28 year old single adult daughter remarked, “I think if church leaders (bishops, stake pres. mainly) are truly concerned about this problem, they should focus their efforts more on retention of LDS single men, rather than continually berating them for being selfish.”
I wonder if the real reason for all these marriage talks by the leaders of the church is due to a concern about the future sustainability of the church, since convert baptisms are down and delayed marriages and decline in children will translate to less church growth, tithing etc.
Yeah hanging in there,
The Church is soo in this for the money. You make some fair points, but I don’t think the conspiracy theory angle helps your argument.
World travel and “finding yourself” doesn’t have to be “selfish.” But human nature being what it is, I’d wager that 90% of the time it ends up being selfish anyway.
“Finding yourself” is practiced on such a large scale in American youth society, that I think it is safe to conclude that we’re raising a generation of narcissists. Incidentally, recent scientific surveys find that narcissistic thought patterns and behaviors are alarmingly prevalent among American teenagers and 20-somethings.
If we lived in a perfect world and nobody divorced than getting married at 19 and immediately having many kids would be one perogative.
But we don’t live in a perfect world and nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce.
If you polled any sample of 30 something divorced women who are now struggling financially to provide for themselves, I would bet an overwhelming majority would have wished they 1) had an education, 2) had marketable skills in the workplace that are valued, and 3) delayed having kids (5 or more years).
Seth R., thanks for defending the right.
RAF, you’re giving the counsel of despair. The LDS cannot reshape our economy so that we’re all poorer. But we can do something among ourselves about the cultural and ideological factors and attitudes towards marriage that make people put marriage low on the list of their priorities.
In my experience, people who put off marriage do it increasingly because they’re afraid of risks. They’re afraid of risking financial rewards and career status. They are also afraid of failing in marriage. In my mind they should re-read the parable of the talents.
I also think there’s some crazy expectations going on out there, probably because of the intersection of American romantic foolishness with the intense Mormon talk about good marriages, good husbands, and good fathers. I seriously have had someone ask me if I really thought my wife was perfect for me when I married her. No, and so what?
There is data showing that extremely young marriages often end in divorce and there is some correlation between marrying younger and increased divorce rates. But I’m pretty sure this correlation will vanish when you control for class background. I also tend to think, from anecdotal experience, that the active Mormons who marry in the temple aren’t at great risk if they marry young. The truth is that divorce can happen to any couple at any age. You can’t plan your trials away.
And if you do put off marriage, you miss maturing together with your spouse, like two trees growing intertwined. My wife is my maturity.
Interesting comments and interesting attemped inferences.
Here are some:
Cost of rising increased, expectations increased, job wage didn’t.
Many sisters were loud, obnoxious, didn’t care about the standards, poorly mannered (couldn’t count how many threw their feet over the row in front at a movie theater), wanted a trophy husband, etc.
Hanging out was great. I made many friends, some close friends, many potential partners, and a great wife.
Those who married young and got divorced, wish they hadn’t? Makes sense. It would also make sense that those who got married late and had children regretted waiting, and those that married late and got divorced, wish they had gotten married (or even divorced) earlier.
Oh–
marriage DID help with lots of things.
while the Church emphasized marriage and family, and even has the workbook, there were no marriage questions!! (I had to think of my own. About 50. Helped tremendously.) I didn’t understand why that was.
for those who do have problems about marriage, try EFT: http://www.emofree.com. I worked with one woman who was off the scale petrified of marrying and then divorcing, and then got to a state of no (unreasonable) fear at all in 1.5 HOURS.
Adam:
Some of us would have liked to be married sooner, if for no other reason than to have avoided snide remarks from people like you in church. And it’s not a matter of not finding the “right” person, or not being mature enough. Sometimes (like it was in one instance for me) it’s simply a matter of the other person not wanting it. (That other person in my case was once subjected to a guy automatically proposing on the third date.)
Both my brothers married at 22. I don’t think I could have handled it – and if you think back (I turned 22 when we crossed paths at BYU) I think you’d agree. At the website where I did meet my wife (when I was 31 and she was 27), I also met many divorced women, from about my age and a little younger, to a good bit older. The one thing they all seemed to have in common – regardless of how long the marriage lasted – was marrying at 19.
I think the bretheren are right on as always.
I do believe that modern trends towards delaying marriage and childbirth are incorrect. We should not seek to follow gentile family formation trends. We seek different entertainment, have different ideas about chastity, and live a higher law in general. Why live like gentiles in our family formation?
I also think that based on the empirical evidence that the LDS are doing better then just about any other group in the US in this regard.
We get married younger, have more children etc. I think the bretheren are looking into the future and not liking what they are seeing
“RAF, you’re giving the counsel of despair. The LDS cannot reshape our economy so that we’re all poorer. But we can do something among ourselves about the cultural and ideological factors and attitudes towards marriage that make people put marriage low on the list of their priorities.”
I don’t think I’ve said anything different, Adam. I’ve specifically emphasized several times that I believe there are cultural and ideological factors that can be and should be addressed that are not necessarily beholden to socio-economic realities. But remaining ignorant of those realities–and the ways all of us, general authorities and young single adults alike, are frequently caught up in them–will not make those cultural and ideological arguments any more persuasive. On the contrary, I think it will make them less so.
That’s part of the reason why I think it is so important to be sympathetically attuned to different socio-economic arrangements. Picking up on Russ’s comment from #48, it is clear that the leadership of the church today sees no great need for the Mormons to be Amish. I’m glad for that, since, frankly, I don’t want to be Amish. But the Amish are accomplishing at least one thing up into the 21st-century that the leadership of the church obviously fears that the youth of the church today are not, or at least not in the way or at the rate they would like them to. Hence, being aware of what the Amish opt out of, in order to sustain the ideological and cultural position, is important for our own thinking, including thinking about how we Mormons can contribute to a different socio-economic order (either broadly or just amongst ourselves), even if ultimately we’re going to make trade-offs and accommodations with the modern world, and not go as far as they.
As cultural norms shift, there are only two possible outcomes for the LDS. Either they shift along but with a time lag (later marriages, less kids, increased acceptance of diverse family patterns, etc) or they become increasingly distinct from the broader society (think Amish Lite). The Evangelicals are in a similar situation, but they seem to have chosen the former path.
dunno if this has been mentioned yet, but yes, the church does have marriage classes in Institue and also in Church. (It used tohave this integrated into the 16-18 year old SS manual too, before they switched to just using the adult ss manual)
It’s Not Me:
“The article didn’t mention anybody on here, so far as I know, so the defensive posture that appears so prevalent here is unnecessary. ”
Actually, I am referred to in the article:
“Plumb is famous within his stake at the U. for encouraging the unwed to date at least once a month. On occasion, he’ll even go as far as giving the men $25 to take a girl out or sponsor a “date auction” as a church activity.”
Bishop Plumb is an amazing bishop, and has paid for more than one of my dates, although his gallant efforts have so far been unsuccesful in getting me married.
Knowing this \”anonymous clerk\” as I do… (yet keeping in mind Elder Holland\’s comments from yesterday…) I think the goal in question is going to require slightly more that just Bishop Plumb\’s recommendation and $25…
RAF, the Amish opt out of things that would be unacceptable to most of us, i.e. health insurance, inpatient labor and delivery, and frequently rely on the governmental assistance. Our culture has always taught financial independence from the dole.
If we talk about tradeoffs and accomodations that do not go as far as the Amish, what specifically are we referring to? Renting indefinitely versus owning a home? CHIP and Medicaid versus private health insurance? Fewer music lessons, sporting activities for our children? No orthodonia? No parental assistance for college tuition? No retirement savings? Most parents I know spend most or all of their money on their children already and cutting back our financial expectations means cutting back on what children need.
The LDS church used to have a marriage program that took care of the problem of excess single women. Too bad they ended it in 1890, although it is understandable given the severe persecution. Perhaps in today\’s more socially liberal world we ought to consider taking D&C 132 more seriously, and afford these excess single women the opportunity to marry a good man, of which there are far fewer than there are good, spiritual single women. I am not joking or trying to cause trouble either. This is a serious suggestion that the Brethren ought to be considering. A good woman ought not be denied the chance to marry a good man just because the good men are mostly all married. And yes I am active LDS and in a ward leadership calling and have been for a very long time. I am not an apostate or a fundamentalist or even a fundamentalist sympathizer. But I believe, that just as in times past, the practices of the church have had to change to keep up with changing social conditions, we should consider the restitution of plural marriage as a possibility given all the single sisters who have no hope of marrying a good LDS man, otherwise.
\”Ben There,\” that is not why plural marriage was instituted back in the day. It was about raising a righteous generation of children (a critical mass on which to build the church? see Jacob 2:30), not about dealing with an overpopulation of women. It\’s more likely the church would focus more on converting new (and retaining existing) 30-something males.
Russell Fox,
I expect the difference between us is that you think some kinds of economic changes are doable and desirable. I don’t. I think that our system is free enough that anyone can get where they need to with a change of attitude. Our system encourages people to wander the country, putting career before family, local roots, and stability, but it doesn’t mandate this. One can always trade income and status for family and happiness.
RAF wrote: ” Get rid of that niche, take us back to the 1940s (or the 1840s!), make travel a ridiculous luxury and a university education the sole privilege of those with inherited wealth, re-introduce the social marginalization and hostility towards the divorced and unmarried and re-acquaint males with the imperative of entering the workforce at age 17 in order to help their parents hold onto the farm or what little they have…and I’m certain we’d see marriage ages drop and family sizes rise.”
Russell, I don’t object to your taking a structural-economic approach to the problem, indeed I often find that approach persuasive, but I wonder whether your analysis is right. You seem to be saying that if we were all poorer and had to work harder, we would marry earlier. But historically marriage rates have risen during times of austerity, not dropped; furthermore, poor people have more leisure time than middle-class people (presumably to do things like hang out in groups and find oneself). So I wonder whether the economic forces really are working the way you suggest they do. I certainly don’t have a better analysis, however; as I suggested above, I’m intrigued by the demographic hypothesis.
Fort Dodge, Iowa passed in 1907 an ordinance requiring: “That all able bodied men between the ages of 26 and 45 years, whose mental and physical propensities and capabilities are normal, and who are not now married, shall be required to obtain a license and a bride and straightway be exalted to a state of connubial bliss” Those not married were given 60 days to improve their status or receive a fine. (link)
Elder Tingey has an article in this month’s Ensign that I think addresses this issue pretty well — and very directly.
J. Findlay: Given that women are marrying later and bearing fewer children now than in the previous generation, you can be pretty certain that the church will not be growing very fast in future years, at least not from within. We do need to raise a righteous seed to the Lord, but when people marry at 35 years old, it is unlikely they will be having six or eight or ten children. I know far more families in the church who have 2 to 4 children than I know who have more than four. It is not unreasonable to believe that the average in this or the next generation may be two to three children per family. This is a fertility level that is just barely above “replacement rate”.
The attitude of the vast majority of 30-something males is–just as the article in DN mentions–one of not being interested in marriage. They can have sex with all the women they want, and have fun with the guys, and not be tied down. The current generation of 30-somethings is NOT interested in marriage, and most are NOT interested in religion, either. They see both as outdated and unnecessary in today’s world.
On the other hand, most women long for the day they will marry, and many, many more women are spiritually-minded than men. Just look at any singles ward. Just look at most ANY Christian church with an active singles group. It is easily 70/30 females to males.
Before I joined the church, I was active in Christian circles and the number of single women always was way more than the single men. I used to work at a religious employer, and unlike secular employers in the same industry, our employees were mostly females. The only male employees were married men, and most of our female employees were single females, many in their 30s, and many praying for the day they’d meet a fine Christian man they could marry and with whom they could have a family.
Among the non-Christian males in this age group, the situation is far, far worse.
I do not think missionary efforts geared toward 30-something males will bear much fruit, anymore than they presently do.
(By the way, if the *sole purpose* of plural marriage was, as you claim, to raise children, why then did Joseph Smith not have children with most of his wives?)
I forgot to add that in my own ward (we have no local singles ward), there are easily 4 to 1 active single females of “marriageable age” (19-40 maybe) to active single males of similar “marriageable age”. Single women in this age group have joined the ward, but I have not seen any single men of this age group joining.
#75 and & 74…..
All of my coworkers are evangelical christians. Either married men or mostly single females (5-8).
The five singles are constantly complaining that all the good Christian men over 25 are married. They are left with the leftovers etc. Last week one of them joking around asked me if I had any brothers. I said that the Bell family marriage age for men was 22-23. So we were all married.
The three married women all got married in their real early 20’s.
It seems to me that this shortage of marriage minded men is not unique to us LDS. It also seems that there exists a “marriage market”. Many of the church attending marriage minded men in my anecdotal exp both inside and outside the church are married off by mid twenties to similar aged women.
This is tough reality…………..
Rosalynde W.,
I’ve been thinking about your theory that an imbalance of Mormon men to Mormon women leads to later and fewer marriages. As Julie Smith pointed out, that only explains the change if the ration of Mormon men to women has changed. I don’t have any data on this, but I’m betting that the ratio of Mormon women to Mormon men at college has greatly increased and that ways for non-college bound Mormon men to meet and interact with Mormon women of that age have atrophied.
#76 Bbell: Your experience mirrors mine in this regard. When I was more in-tune with the evangelical movement, the Promise Keepers movement was getting its start (early nineties). There were all sorts of books and seminars on helping married men be good Christian husbands and fathers. But there was not much in the way of ministry aimed at single men. Why? Because there were so few, and still are so few.
This is a tough reality. But my understanding of God does not allow me to believe that it is his will that good, spiritual, Christian women with a love for the Gospel and a desire to be a good wife and mother, should have to choose either marrying a non-believer or remaining single all through her days. I cannot believe God wants this. It goes against his nature and against all that Scripture says. Which leads me to my solution as proposed earlier. God has made a way for this problem to be solved. A loving Heavenly Father who places so much of the gospel plan upon the concept of marriage does not want his daughters to go thru this mortal life in great pain and suffering while they wonder why God is not giving them a spouse.
We often hear that all this will be sorted out in the next life. But that begs that question: if good men are so few in this life that so many women cannot marry, where are these women going to get good husbands in the next life? It is illogical to decree that women must suffer as spinsters in this life and will be rewarded with an already-married husband in the after-life; yet deny her the joys and blessings of marriage and child-rearing in this mortal probation, when there is no theological difference between practice of plural marriage on either side of the veil (as evidenced by the fact that we allow men to be sealed to another woman after being widowed. I know a guy whose been widowed twice and is now sealed to a third woman, in the temple).
Ben There,
OD1 stands in the way of your solution.
Like I said its a tough reality. I do not think its a new problem though. My wife’s grandmother was the youngest of 10 children. A Young/Wells She was born in 1913. She had 5 brothers and 4 sisters.
Her 5 brothers were all happily temple married. 3 out of her 4 sisters were unmarried due to similar problems that we have been discussing. Her sisters were of marriage age around WWI-1930. They were wealthy, the family of multiple GA’s, and could not find a man to get temple married to.
Great discussion. I just wanted to add that I don’t think anyone has ever “found themself” because they were backpacking through Europe, hanging out with friends in the dorms, or becoming a grand knight in World of WarCraft.
I should also add that at age 22 I spent 50 days traveling through Europe with my wife. Marriage didn’t increase the cost of my apartment, tuition, plane tickets, hostels or tent sites. We went through the Swiss temple on our first anniversary.
bbell: you will note that my first comment suggests that the Brethren should be considering it. Surely if the Lord can reveal to rescind the practice based on persecution, and based on the prayers of the Saints, then He can likewise reveal–based on the prayers of the Saints–to reinstate the practice. We have continuing revelation, which affords us this ability to ask the Lord about these things. There is no reason the Lord cannot give the Prophet a revelation to reinstate plural marriage, just because OD1 repealed it.
I just cannot believe the Lord would prefer his daughters to be sad and single than to experience the joys and motherhood and marriage. But like most things in the Restoration, the restoration of a doctrine or principal comes when the Lord is ASKED a question. The Brethren ASKED and PRAYED about the priesthood ban on blacks, and they RECEIVED an answer which was to repeal it. The Brethren can likewise ASK if the Lord would allow his righteous daughters to marry good men in plural marriage, and who is to bind the Lord and say He could not provide that answer?
Matt E:
Matthew 10:39
“He that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life shall find it.”
I think that Seth R can interpret this for us as applicable to this thread. Seth?
Matt (80),
Your questions are aat best a bit disingenuous. No, marriage didn’t increase the cost of your plane ticket, but now you have to buy two, which effectively doubles your cost if neither or only one of you is working. Ditto tuition. You’re right about tent sites, and I have no idea about hostels (although I think you pay per person, which effectively doubles your price unless you are both wage earners).
As for apartment, if you lived by yourself, you’re right. Most single people I know, at least under a certain age, have roommates to offset the rent. I know that when I got married, my rent initially more than doubled (less than $800 a month to about $1600 a month) until we got into school housing, when it dropped a little (but not to my price when I was single).
Which isn’t to say don’t get married, but recognize that the price (both to survive and to backpack Europe) _does_ go up once you’re married.
74, 75, 76,
If this is all true (and I suspect it is) then is it any wonder that the prophets are encouraging women to get an education? Sometimes I think people want to make this emphasis simply an issue of gender equality, when perhaps, at least in part, it’s because of these inequalities that women are needing to be more prepared for what could (or, on the other hand, might not) happen in their lives.
Another thought: Elder Oaks (in his talk that addressed dating so directly) pointed out that the delay of (or at least cultural tides against) commitment is yet another way the adversary is attacking the family.
OK, so maybe 79 questions my thoughts. Oh well. :)
84: Elder Oaks is of course spot on. The question is, what can the Church do to actively FIGHT the adversary? Recognizing the problem and calling attention to it is good. But what do we do next to solve the problem?
Shoving single women into singles wards with maybe 1 nice guy to every 2 or 3 nice girls just adds insult to injury. It says: “Here, let’s make it even MORE in-your-face that you’re not likely to find a good man to marry!”
Encouraging women to get an education is a Good Thing. No doubt. I love education and believe everyone should get all the education they can, whether it be formal or informal. Knowledge equals power. But, Education is not the central theme of the Gospel. Family is. Being educated does not solve the problem of excess single, marriageable women.
From the time little girls are in Primary, the idea of Temple marriage is strongly promoted. We tell our little girls the highest calling they can have is as a mother and a wife who marries in the Temple. We have them sing songs about how they love to see the temple and how they are going there some day. Then, when the hit adulthood, they come face to face with the cruel reality that there are more of them than there are men.
In one of my son’s primary classes, he is the only boy, and there are anywhere from 4 to 7 girls in the class on varying Sundays. Good for him, not so good for all those little girls.
Ben There, I’m probably not the only single woman reader who wishes you would cease advancing your proposal to reinstate plural marriage.
You do not understanding single women. You see us as a very unattractive problem to be solved, not as individual human beings of great worth who are making enormous contributions to the world and to the Kingdom. Just look at the words you use to describe us — “excess,” “sad and single,” “suffer,” “great pain and suffering,” etc. Who wants you to dispose of us in ANY manner, when this is how you imagine our lives to be? Not I!
I don’t want to bear an absent father’s children, to be a wife in name and bed only, but without the partnership, the time, the company, the two-halves-of-a-whole unity that is monogamy. Why do you think accepting all the burdens of marriage with none of the comforts would be an improvement over my current life?
Do your duty in your “ward leadership calling” and recruit and develop and sustain men who can become the kinds of husbands we want. Stop thinking of women as problems to be disposed of, like unwanted kittens.
And for heaven’s sake, stop your silly call for a return to polygamy. You’ve got nothing to say about it. Thank heavens.
Russ (#67): “If we talk about tradeoffs and accomodations that do not go as far as the Amish, what specifically are we referring to? Renting indefinitely versus owning a home? CHIP and Medicaid versus private health insurance? Fewer music lessons, sporting activities for our children? No orthodonia? No parental assistance for college tuition? No retirement savings? Most parents I know spend most or all of their money on their children already and cutting back our financial expectations means cutting back on what children need.”
That’s a good list, and I’m sure it could be made much longer with a little thought. Which of those do I personally think are desirable trade-offs? Not many, to be honest. But of course, part of the reason why the Amish can cut back on “things their children need” is because they have localized and limited the religious context within which needs are articulated. What does an Amish boy need? Not an education beyond 8th grade, that’s for certain. Not music lessons (music is what women provide). Not a car (where is he going to travel to, anyway?) Not a cell phone. He does need land, though, or the opportunity to be apprenticed out to someone who can teach him a hands-on trade. this requires a great deal of investment and work on the part of the parents, but not necessarily a lot of cash on hand. Hence, living a steady-state and early-marriage life, as opposed to one of exploration and upward mobility, is perfectly compatible with Amish “needs.”
Adam (#70): “I expect the difference between us is that you think some kinds of economic changes are doable and desirable. I don’t. I think that our system is free enough that anyone can get where they need to with a change of attitude.”
Yes, this is a pretty succinct statement of one of our differences.
Rosalynde (#71): “I don’t object to your taking a structural-economic approach to the problem, indeed I often find that approach persuasive, but I wonder whether your analysis is right. You seem to be saying that if we were all poorer and had to work harder, we would marry earlier. But historically marriage rates have risen during times of austerity, not dropped.”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point, but doesn’t what you’ve just written agree with me? More people marry, sooner, when conditions of austerity and poverty made marrying earlier and more frequently a way to satisfy pressing economic needs. Remove the austerity, create an environment of options and choices and plenty, and people will still marry–but not quite as often, and perhaps not quite as early. Do we agree on that, all other factors being equal, or is there something we’re disagreeing on?
If there aren’t enough mormon men to go around, it seems simple enough to date/marry a non-mormon. I know this means no temple marriage, but, really…I have know so many guys totally uninterested in religion, but after marriage to their christian or mormon wife, they gradually got more involved often joing congregation or getting baptized. Seems like if men who weren’t religious had the opportunity to interact more with women who were, we might attract more men into the religious community. You know, flirt to convert…:)
And I second LL’s comment to please quit calling for the return of polygamy. Its creepy.
D’oh! Sorry Russell, I completely miswrote. What I meant was: historically, marriage AGES have risen during times of austerity. What I’m saying is that I don’t think that circumscribing our material resources and life opportunities will make us get married younger, because if anything historical trends would seem to suggest the opposite.
I suspect our beloved Prophet Joseph as well as our ancestors who died to cross the plains for freedom would find calling their religion “creepy” just a tad bit offensive. Remember, the Restoration is an “all or nothing” proposition. If Joseph was a prophet, it means what he taught and instituted was true, for God would never allow the Propher to lead the Church astray, right? If it’s creepy, what does that mean that all of our early prophets and apostles, up until the early 1900’s, were creeps? Heber J. Grant was the last plurally-married prophet, and he served not all that long ago. Was he a creep? I do not believe my great-grandparents were creeps. If part of the religion that was restored is creepy, then maybe this isn’t the religion for you. Either those men were prophets or not. I am sorry you think our prophets can be creepy. When did our Prophets stop being creepy? So far, the Priesthood/RS curriculum has studied five of the Creepy Prophets over the last 9 years (Brigham, John Taylor, Joseph F. Smith, Wilford Woodruff, and Heber J. Grant) and only two non-Creepy, them being David O. McKay and SWK.
Some non-Mormons I know think our zealous nature regarding early marriage and child-rearing is “creepy”. Some think it is “controlling” (could be interepreted as creepy) that our boys are expected to serve missions. I guess it’s all relative.
@Rosalynde:
Then why are people getting married later?
@Ben There:
If I’m not mistaken, bigamy is against the law.
Ben There:
Your argument that polygamy is a way to allow more women to experience the “joys of marriage and motherhood” presupposes that the joys of monogamous versus polygamous marriage are roughly equivalent. I strongly suspect most women do not share that view.
@John Williams #93:
Do you suppose this will always be so? Just a few years ago the concept of homosexual marriage wasn’t even on the radar. Now homosexuals can legally marry in Canada and other countries, and it will likely become legal in the U.S. soon. If marriage can be widely defined so as to be encompassing homosexuals, do not think that legalized plural marriage is way off. It has already been recommended for legalization in Canada, and in fact has always been legal in many nations where the Church is present (especially in Africa).
Then again, Brigham Young did say that the time would come when the nations of the world would accept this principle and the Saints would deny it.
Anna #94:
I strongly suspect that most worldly women do not share the view of the LDS church that marriage and motherhood are more important than careers, or that family is eternal and that there are spiritual implications associated with marrying the right person, by the right authority and in the right place.
Most women might think our church is a bit “quaint” or “outdated”, and some of the more liberated women think we are downright hostile to women, not allowing women to hold the priesthood or serve in church leadership callings.
So, what “most women” view as acceptable does not have much bearing on the Gospel, does it?
ABC had a documentary on a few weeks ago about one of the fundamentalist sects in Arizona (I think) and the women there seemed quite happy and were very actively soliciting their state legislature for legalization and such.
By the way, everyone’s talking as if the Amish lifestyle is offlimits. But I don’t see it. Cars and electricity don’t matter. Virtue matters. I think Mormons should be more open to some Mormons forming intentional communities that are drop-outs from modern society. It would be good for us all.
Ben There, you’ve made your point, and your numerous repetitions are beginning to grow trollish. Suggest you let the subject drop now. Thank you.
“No, marriage didn’t increase the cost of your plane ticket, but now you have to buy two.”
Sam (Comment 83),
Mormon wives work, remember. It wasn’t until we had children that my wife wanted to work primarily at home. While we were putting ourselves through college we both worked. The result is that going to Europe as a married couple doesn’t cost any more than going as two singles.
The same is true of our apartment and everything else. Neither of us could afford to live alone in college, so we had roommates. Once we got married, we had each other as roommates.
The only reason marriage would be more expensive than singlehood is if parents subsidize singleness but not marriage. This is an important factor that hasn’t been mentioned yet: many parents pay their kids to remain single.
One more thing: even when parents do cut the strings, their earlier subsidy may have established a lifestyle requiring dedication to career objectives (at the expense of dating and family life) to be sustained.
Adam: maybe you should now be known as Jakob A.G. Hochstetler. I’ll mail you a hat.
Russ,
I’ll make my own, thank you.
Matt E.,
You have two important points. Parents should not try to maintain their kids when they’re single, and they should be willing to help out once the kids get married. My own parents gave me $50 when I went to college to tide me over until I could get a job and told me I was always welcome to live at home during the holidays, and during the summers if I was working. But once I got married they went all out to help with furniture and what not.
I think the reason for the rising age of marriage is simple: men and women are granted (generally) equality of opportunity.
When a woman needed a man to have a place in the world marriage was almost always better than staying single. Now women actually have something to DO when they aren’t married, so it doesn’t seem like it’s such a big deal to not be married.
Now being happily married is, I would assume, better than being happily single, but the presence of an alternative to marriage means that this “happily married” status has to meet a higher standard (not that I’m much of an expert on this – I’m 19 and nowhere near thinking about being married)(and the thought that some would think it was appropriate for me to be married at this point in my life makes me laugh/shudder). But the bar has been raised – marriage always has had to better than the alternative, it just used to be that the alternative wasn’t all that attractive for women so there was an incentive to marry.
Also, we live in a world where a simple college degree is rather pedestrian and plenty of people pursue education beyond their early twenties in order to get to a place that a couple of generations ago, could have been obtained by simply having an undergraduate degree. It’s taking more and more preparation time to get to “real life” and part of that really is the change in the economy, so it isn’t all that surprising that marriage, part of this “real life” gets delayed as well.
That’s a good point. The more people that go to college, the less valuable the credential becomes. The credentials arms race is a real problem.
Why hasn’t anyone noted what Elder Oaks said about the changing status of marriage. Specifically, people used to conceive of marriage as a type of societal obligation. It was part of adulthood. Nowadays people conceive of it as a deal between two people, so that it’s nobody else’s business. Surely this is a major factor in kids not pursuing marriage as seriously as in times past, and therefore delaying their marriage until later.
I’ve made a few jokes in this thread, and I’m not saying that people should get married as soon as they turn 20, but I really do think that the “wait longer to get married” thing yields diminishing returns pretty darned quickly.
No kidding. But with the disapperaence of industy, flipping burgers is about the only thing a high school credential qualifies you for. College is the new high school…
And I meant “disappearance of industry,” not “disapperaence of industy”…
I agree with Meg. Women can now go to Harvard Law School and make $125,000 a year. I imagine that 75 years ago it would have been tough for women to go to law school, or medical school, etc.
Chris Rock says that the only two options in life are Married and bored or single and lonely, no happiness no place. To some that’s true and not worth the leap the faith into marriage.
Something no one has mentioned yet:
Having a second spouse enter the workforce is pretty stupid when that spouses wages are primarily going to be snapped up by daycare expenses. When you are talking middle to low-middle class, that’s a common reality.
Furthermore, I’ve heard countless financial advisers talk about how a very large percentage of the modern need for a two-income household is not “so junior can have waffles in the morning and a pair of pants.” It’s more like “so daddy can by that surround sound home theater he’s been eyeing.”
This is what we, in the financial counseling world, call the “Two-Income Trap.”
People adjust their consumption to keep pace with the flow of income. Expectations rise as the money does. What this means is that a two-income household is actually far LESS able to cope with common financial shocks such as layoffs or health crises. When the crisis occurs, there is no longer the option of the other spouse stepping-up in the workplace to compensate. The couple is already operating on the financial margins, with no safety cushion.
The solution is to cut consumption and change the household employment scheme to one of two things:
1) Move to a one-income household
2) Move to a two-income household where both spouses are working at something less than full capacity.
Personally, I would consider #2 to be the more stable of the two in our modern economy.
For one thing, it allows both parents to share in the child-rearing workload. For another, it means that neither spouse is left without viable economic recourse if one breadwinner dies or is incapacitated, or divorce occurs. Additionally, this model is increasingly feasible with employers embracing innovative new employment models such as flex-time, telecommuting, and increased use of independent or freelance contractors.
But it’s important to realize that if you want this model to work, you MUST cut spending. I think it’s ridiculous that home theaters (a purely luxury item that adds almost zero equity to your home) are being sold at strictly middle-class “big box” electronic stores. That’s the sort of item I should have to go to Denver to acquire at a specialty electronics store. The fact that middle class folk are being encouraged through aggressive lending arrangements and sense of personal entitlement, to buy such monstrosities reveals a reprehensible aspect of our society in my mind.
Likewise, I don’t get why the middle class suddenly feels like it is entitled to a high-end vehicle (another very poor investment that will do nothing but depreciate in value).
News-flash. The majority of the people reading this are not entitled to have either a BMW or a nice home sound system. Nor will you ever be in this life or the next.
Get over it and start thinking about your kids for a change.
Rosalynde (#90):
“Historically, marriage AGES have risen during times of austerity. What I’m saying is that I don’t think that circumscribing our material resources and life opportunities will make us get married younger, because if anything historical trends would seem to suggest the opposite.”
Which population sets are you looking at to obtain that data? I’m having a hard time fitting what you describe into the (admittedly limited) knowledge I have of marriage demographics. Average marriage ages definitely went up during the asuterity of the Great Depression and WWII, and then dropped during the affluence of the post-war boom…but, so far as I know, those marriage rates reflected what was happening in the cities, amongst already “middle-class” (or higher) individuals who were attempting to maintain their positions relative to a changing environment. Though the fact that the 1950s brought a marriage and baby boom to those same populations is definitely evidence that culture and ideology probably plays a larger role than my arguments in this thread thusfar may have appeared to allow. (Also, I would note that the wealth and opportunity and choices available in the 1940s and 50s, compared to today, was quite limited; we live in a environment that is socio-economically far more complex and supportive of individual choice and development than was the case in the days of unions, a family wage, and blue-collar industry.)
Adam (#97): “I think Mormons should be more open to some Mormons forming intentional communities that are drop-outs from modern society. It would be good for us all.”
I strongly agree. It would probably take a long time to figure out how to accommodate intentional/devotional/alternative socio-economic communities within the larger correlated Mormon world, but that, I think, would be an end worth working towards.
Adam (#104): “The credentials arms race is a real problem.”
Is that not an acknowledgement that there is at least one socio-economic factor that American Mormons, at least, are not entirely “free” to ignore? (Especially since, if appreciated in the way Meg correctly lays out the problem, the church’s emphasis on education and its emphasis on marriage are potentially in conflict.)
DKL (#105): “People used to conceive of marriage as a type of societal obligation. It was part of adulthood. Nowadays people conceive of it as a deal between two people, so that it’s nobody else’s business.”
Of course, this assertion often comes up in the context of arguments about the “natural” family or marriage relationship, and the illegitimacy of gay marriage. But leaving natural philosophy out of it, and just looking at it in terms of social structure, I think this observation of Elder Oaks’s is all over this thread. To be sure, part of the reason that marriage has been individualized (and thus made more adolescent) in the minds of many people is because of various cultural and ideological shifts away from an emphasis on community. But the truth is, we have an economy–and not just us; Europe and Japan and increasingly every modern capitalist state does as well–that not only sustains that shift, but in some ways makes it necessary.
Meg (#106): “But with the disappereance of industy, flipping burgers is about the only thing a high school credential qualifies you for. College is the new high school.”
Well put. Which is why, ideally, we would have a world of more controlled immigration, more limited trade, more traditional industries and apprenticeships, more localized and self-sufficient economies, more union-protected wages sufficient to support a family on a single income, etc.
RAF,
I’d like to see less emphasis on blunt-instrument, one-size-fits-all, group protections such as unions that no longer represent the economic reality of American employment, and more protections that focus on individual and isolated workers such as insurance reform and heavier regulation of the consumer lending industry.
Seth, I’m generally sympathetic to unions, and think they get a bad rap. Moreover, the point of my suggestions weren’t so much to talk about “good” economic policy, but to talk about socio-economic changes that would make it easier–indeed, more obligatory–for individuals to make certain kinds of decisions with their lives, such as those discussed in this thread. That being said, you’re probably correct that doing something about the specific costs of health care, insurance, and consumer debt would do a lot more to help out the great majority of individual families than any one-size-fits-all solution likely would.
Russell Fox,
Agreed on the intentional communities. And I think you’re right that credentialism is one socio-economic factor that I do acknowledge. But seeing specific problems, instead of a generalized complaint against the modern world, means that specific solutions are possible. For instance, we could stop subsidizing higher education so much, do things to improve K-12 education, and allow employers to use IQ tests and other sorting devices. There are other legal changes that could probably make apprenticeship style programs more attractive to employers, but I’d need to think that through. It would also be nice for the church to emphasize that when they say education they mean useful skills, and that by no means should the pursuit of larger income or greater status override marriage and family. I might agree with a couple of other items on your wish list, though marriage wouldn’t be the primary reason. Others would have perverse effects. And some of them are, in my opinion, almost purely fanciful. Rather than thinking that we can remake our society from the ground up and undo the eating of the apple, I think its more realistic and more effective to do things like incentivize marriage (a housing credit for first time married home buyers, for example).
I disagree that the modern economy makes it necessary to see marriage as purely a matter of personal fulfillment. The fault is not in the Capitalists, but ourselves, that we are underlings.
Adam, if you want more people take the chance on marriage, the most effective measure would be to repair the social safety net.
Risky ventures (or those perceived as risky) like entrepreneurship and marriage, in my opinion, actually flourish when the system cushions against catastrophic failure. The trick is to cushion against disaster without indulging inefficiency.
At a bare minimum sectors exhibiting gross inequalities in bargaining power (such as health insurance) need to be remedied.
“Adam, if you want more people take the chance on marriage, the most effective measure would be to repair the social safety net.”
Perhaps. The best correlation between marriage/family rates that I know of is the cost of buying a home relative to income.
I am presently preparing to “drop out” and join an “intentional community.” It’s a community whose members pool their resources (the mechanism is called “homeowners’ association dues”) to work towards common aesthetic goals (gardners) and security (front gate with guard). I believe that there are Mormons involved, but the primary sorting criteria is the ability to finance a $3,000,000 home.
That’s a Zion criterion if I ever heard one.
Careful gst,
Gated communities are always the first to get shafted by a bad community planning decision.
Some developers seeking to put up an unattractive apartment complex, or a high volume street will deliberately seek out gated communities. Since the people living inside the fence get little interaction with the neighbors, there is little unified resistance to the developer at city planning commission meetings.
Divide and conquer!
“It would also be nice for the church to emphasize that when they say education they mean useful skills”
Adam, are you sure that’s what they mean? “Things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth…” seems bigger than that, somehow.
I’m sure you’re right to a great extent, ma’am. But the advice to get an education is almost always in the context of jobs and career, not personal development or knowledge for its own sake. I wish it were more often realized that not everyone is suited to academics and there is no shame in this, and that learning skills is also education.
“Risky ventures (or those perceived as risky) like entrepreneurship and marriage, in my opinion, actually flourish when the system cushions against catastrophic failure.”
Seth,
I think if you rate Western countries for their safety nets, marriage rates, and entrepreneurialism, you’ll find that marriage and entrepreneurialsim are negatively correlated with safety nets. Marriage is dying fastest in countries with cradle-to-grave care, and those countries aren’t entrepreneurial hotbeds, either.
In #105, DKL wrote: “people used to conceive of marriage as a type of societal obligation. It was part of adulthood.”
As an historical statement, that needs to be hedged with all sorts of disclaimers to be valid.
Matt, I said catastrophic. I’m not talking about removing all downsides to unemployment or anything. And as noted elsewhere, the entrepreneurship depends on what country you’re talking about.
I think it is a function of expectation. There are so many Jude Law perfect-guy-and-father type movies out there that girls believe that guy really exists. And there are so many Truman Show neighborhood examples out there that guys are afraid to offer something small at first. It is a function of expectations. My dad calls it “creeping elegance”. Once you have rented a home, you have a hard time living in an apartment. Once you have eaten out a lot, you have a hard time cooking. Once you have had an immaculate place, it is hard to have kids mess it up.
I don’t think people go into their 20’s thinking they will be single at the end of it. I think they start out being pretty open to marriage. But then after a few bad experiences, including lack of experiences, they start throwing themselves into careers. Then they either become too busy to date or exercise (yes, it is another obstacle), or they have now had to prove themselves in an industry where they will lose credibility if they go in another direction. So you end up with a bunch of wistful, career-oriented single adults in their 30’s. Happily, I have seen many of my 30-40 year old friends get married. Some of the career-orientation doesn’t go away, however, and so here comes the delay in child-rearing. Or we only have a few years in which to have the children. Or the children mess the house up and we can’t take anymore children!
If I were in Young Women’s, I would teach the youth to get education, yes, but also to learn to do (and if possible to like doing) domestic things. I would try to teach them to live on less, being satisfied with less. I think staying grounded and wanting less and living on less is the key. In fact, several of my friends who did get married in their 30’s knew their husbands in their 20’s but it took all of those years and promptings from the Spirit to look at these men in a different way.
While the credentials arms race is a societal problem, its not an individual excuse. Nearly everyone who is willing to make sacrifices in income, status, and fantasies of personal achievement can afford to get married young. There will be no society at the judgment bar.
Adam Greenwood: Nearly everyone who is willing to make sacrifices in income, status, and fantasies of personal achievement can afford to get married young.
You left out one key component that you’ll often need to sacrifice if you marry young: any prospect for long-term joy. And I think that this sacrifice gets right at the heart of it. Specifically, counseling men to get married when they’re young runs afoul of the principle that “Men are that they might have joy.” (You might as well counsel men to hit their testicles with a hammer for all the happiness it leads to.) Life is full of trade-offs. Why are we so afraid to discuss the relative merits of this one?
DKL,
I haven’t bought a pair of shoes in over a year. And the last pair I got was a pair of black dress shoes that my dad bought me so I could avoid looking disreputable for my clients. I’ve been eyeing a new hiking rain jacket for the past 6 years. But it costs about $100 (a really good deal) and I haven’t been able to afford a personal purchase like that for the past 7 years.
My wife and I rarely go out to eat, she shops sales at the supermarkets religiously.
This is a result of us marrying mid-20s while still in undergrad and a result of me forgoing a quicker money path in law school and after in favor of my wife and children.
I won’t pretend it’s not depressing on occasion.
But we’ve had a very happy seven years of marriage and I’ve been there for each step of my children’s childhoods. I know my children almost as well as my wife does. Law school was actually the happiest three years of our marriage and almost everyone seems to think that marriage has a hard time surviving law school. And we’re still very happy and life is good.
It’s been a leap of faith (no financial safety net then or now). But as it turns out, God supported our choice.
Seth, the question isn’t how you feel in your early thirties when it still seems like your entire life is ahead of you. The question is how you feel once the best part of your life is over.
Huh?
What?
How does a young couple still in college go about supporting themselves financially? Do their parents support them until they graduate or until the young man gets his first job in his career?
It seems to me that to marry, let alone start having children, when one hasn’t graduated and started working, is putting the cart before the horse and doing things the hard way.
My parents and grandparents married after getting a job ( never went to college). They saved some money for a downpayment on a house and then had their children. They didn’t raise their children in college student married housing. It’s just sensible to put first things first, if possible.
It seems to me that to marry, let alone start having children, when one hasn’t graduated and started working, is putting the cart before the horse and doing things the hard way.
because taking the broad, easy way is the correct choice, I guess……
I hear everyone, your comments are very interesting, What I\’m about to say will bore people but this is how I see it. Well, we all know why we should get married right? Hello- Exaltation.The Leaders of the Church are no forcing anyone to marry, Hello – Agency, but they are simply worried that most of us, yes gulilty, are setting our treasures where moth and rust do corrupt, unfortunately. its good that you must get an education, the Prophet is up for it. We do live in a competetive world and they know that better than us because they do talk to someone Mightier than us, Heavenly Father (how easy we are to complain). Whatever happened to following the prophet? Point number 2 – there\’s more to marraige than our sexual appetites- lets see how can I put it in a nice way for all of yall – God is trusting you with His beloved son and his beloved daughter, that you will take her/him to the temple, and do right by her/him – that you will help her/him to come back to Him. We all know the plan.There\’s no need to go through all the details right? – if you\’re unsure go see a missionary or try attending Institute for once. One thing that all of you are forgetting is that as much as we think we know what\’s best for us, Heavenly Father knows best. Look I\’m 24 years and I\’m enjoying my life. At 24 I have my own Communications Company and its really doing great, am I married? No! but the commandment still stands – i can\’t run away from it and neither can you, so for once stop complaining or being gods and talking a whole lot of stuff that you know nothing about. If you really sustain your leaders you will listen to them and follow their counsel. At this point I\’m wondering how many of us are Temple worthy? Are dating non-members/ You know yourselves and maybe you should try using the parable of the sower to see which ground you in, are you in the stony ground, amongst the thorns? I\’m also looking and there is no age written as a deadline so to speak for marraige, what the learders are saying is that we should simply put the kingdom of God first and all shall fall into place, keep all the commandments and the principles that we\’ve been taught and have Faith and all will fall into place. Its long , I know but we need to be reminded at all times, because we always forget.
I’m with you, Seth R. The only thing I disagree with is you taking DKL’s comment as if it were meant seriously.
There’s nothing wrong with recieving help from parent. We should be prudent, but marriage, like missions and tithing, is not one of those things that should be put off until one feels that one has taken care of every other obligation and contingency. Consider the lilies of the field.
There is much wisdom in 129.
“There’s nothing wrong with recieving help from parent.”
Except that you are taking help from a parent when you are supposed to be a man.
In retrospect, my 137 was posted too hastily and isn’t representative of what I really think. Generally I think adults shouldn’t take help from parents as a first option, but there are many instances when it makes sense. In fact, one of the reasons I work as hard as I do is so that I can provide assistance to my children–perhaps even in adulthood.
If my children need help to get married, I would rather they receive help from me and get married.
I married young and received some welcome help from my parents. I didn’t need a lot, though, because I hadn’t thought of marriage as something to put off so I had shaped my plans accordingly.
I have zero expectation that when I’m older I’ll regret not having had more time as a single to play playstation with roommates in a bachelor pad.
Adam, Seth is not guilty of the mistake you charge him with. I intended my comments seriously. It is, perhaps, worth emphasizing that I did not marry young. Thus, my frame of reference is based on observation and not experience.
I have also observed that there is a strong positive correlation between the unhappiness of a marriage that a person is committed to staying in and that person’s desire to see other people stay married no matter what. Misery loves company like it’s nobody’s business.
So DKL if we take your logic as truth……
I guess that Elder Oaks and the rest of the bretheren who give talks like that including SWK ,McKay and others are unhappily yoked in marriage?
I think the attitude before marriage will have a lot to do with the attitude after marriage. Someone with a sense of entitlement before marriage will possibly have trouble sacrificing and sharing in marriage. I think it is wise to become happy single before attempting marriage. Otherwise it will always be a case of “the grass is always greener”.
Also, there is no reason to believe Seth is in denial about his situation. I don’t think people change attitude that quickly. He has a long track record during stressful times.
I wouldn’t take comment 140 seriously either, Seth R. DKL doth protest too much.
Thanks Adam,
But anyone who takes the bloggernacle too seriously isn’t going to last here that long.
I confess to not having read the entire comment thread, but I remember there being some interesting temple marriage and divorce statistics in the July 18, 2006 BYU forum. Audio and video available here.
How does a young couple still in college go about supporting themselves financially? Do their parents support them until they graduate or until the young man gets his first job in his career?
Let me say how I did it. This may differ from couple to couple. I married my wife when I was 22, and she was 19. We had both just finished our sophomore year of college.
For the first year, we both worked full time at a bank as tellers (same bank, different branches). During that time, I also went to school full time (14+ credits a semester) and she went to school part time. Then, when she had our first baby approximately 18 months after we were married, she stopped working (it was important to her to be a stay-at-home mom) and I got a promotion and raise at the bank, and kept working there full-time and attending BYU full time as well. I worked at one of those banks inside the grocery store, so it was open longer hours, which made it possible to keep a full-time schedule with a full course load. We made just enough to cover our basics each month.
After a semester of that, it became clear that we were not going to be able to keep up financially, so we weighed the options and I took a second job working part-time as a custodian for BYU. My shift went from 4:00 am until 8:00 am every day, after which I started my first class at 8:00 am. My classes usually ended around noon or by 2:00 pm, depending on the day, when I would immediately get on the bus and head up to my full time job at the bank. That was a very busy semester, with a 40 hour per week job at the bank, a 20 hour a week job cleaning toilets, a full course load, a new little family, and service as the Ward Executive Secretary which also stole Sunday mornings away from me. It was not just busy- it was insanely busy. Somehow, I was able to sneak some family time in each day, keep my grades up, and my mood happy and optimistic. The only thing I really missed often was sleep.
We then went to Oxford for graduate school, for which we decided to support ourselves solely with student loans- the only financing available to us, and a few loans from some extremely supportive family members (most of which has been repaid years ago). Luckily, because the program was only one year in duration, we did not have to borrow much. We were dirt poor, though, for sure, but we were in England! And happy!
After being admitted to grad school (and then law school) at Michigan for 5 years, we got enough financial support from the German department to just barely support us and our growing family (which grew to 3 children during that time). In exchange for the financial support, I taught undergraduate German courses at Michigan, and occasionally moonlighted with additional, temporary positions at area high schools and other universities. I taught all through law school, from the very beginning, and for that received my entire law school education paid for by the German department.
In my opinion, the ability to receive an associate’s degree, a B.A., two masters’ degrees, and a J.D. by the time I was thirty and had three children, and not be wallowing in debt from the experience, was a real blessing from the Lord. He blessed me during all the years with the energy and mental capacity I needed to work, often full-time, while a full-time student and still get the grades I needed to be where I needed to be. Looking back on those years, I can hardly believe I did it- and alone, I could not have. Even as an attorney at a busy law firm these days, I do not put in the hours I used to back when I started cleaning toilets at 4:00 am and locked the bank door by 8:30 pm.
Starting a family young, avoiding debt, and obtaining a first rate education can be done without undue reliance on family resources or student loans. It requires a dedication to hard work and a hearty dose of blessings from the Lord.
Sorry for the long personal story, but I really, truly believe that things can work financially for couples who marry young, have children young, and want to pursue lofty educational goals for an ambitious career- even law school, Seth R.! :)
Now, back to document review…
I didn’t work as hard as Jordan F. Not close. But I went to less prestigious schools where I could get scholarships and took out some student loans.
I had a lot of crucial family support, took out loans and kept expenses down. I also worked through college part-time, but nowhere near that hard.
Having kids actually turned out to be not half as expensive as I thought thanks to government cheese. It’s not like we planned on using government benefits from the start. But I’m sure glad they were there.
Seth R:Having kids actually turned out to be not half as expensive as I thought thanks to government cheese.
Seth, I realize that you’re making a serious point here, and I don’t mean to demean it. But the way you’ve phrased this strikes me as very funny.
“1) Guys who aren’t interested in building a friendship and then seeing what happens in terms of a long-term relationship, because they feel they should get married as soon as possible. More than once she’s had the experience of going on one date with someone and the guy’s already thinking about marriage.
2) Guys who have no interest in an intelligent woman with an education and the ability to think independently.
3) Guys who have no idea what they want out of life (other than watching sports) in terms of career and that sort of thing.
4) Guys who, in private, don’t believe in the law of chastity.
5) Guys who have spent all their lives in the LDS bubble and don’t know how to relate to people outside of it. ”
I thought this was an interesting comment. I’m very worn down by straw-man attacks like these by both leaders and sisters on single men in the Church. Of course I understand that they’re borne of severe frustration and sometimes heartache. . . . I know, because I frequently have the exact same feelings where you can replace references to [Guys] with [Girls/Women] and vice versa. Honestly. You might also have to replace “sports” with something else [clothes, gossip, sex, or whatever]. But in the last three singles wards I’ve lived in. . . I think that all 5 are true of the majority of women. 4) was especially shocking to me, at first, but after the last decade of trying to date Mormon women, I’ve just become accustomed to the idea that it’s generally true of all single women, including LDS ones sadly.
Thanks everyone for your comments! Jordan, I am in awe of what you did and yes, surely the Lord blessed you to be able to do all that. Ivan, even the D&C talks about doing things in wisdom and in order. And not running faster than one has strength. For many people, school itself is hard enough–it would have been for me. First things first. Our Church leaders counsel us not to postpone marriage for luxurious possessions–of which, the natural man will never get enough of. Education or a college degree is not a luxury. Now of course, if one becomes a medical doctor, it takes years and postponing marriage because of it
is impractical because the individual is around 30 years old by the time he or she gets that degree. But undergraduates aren’t in that situation . My parents expected me to remain unmarried at age 21 or 22 and graduate with one college degree.
Then, as an adult with a degree, I was prepared and could get a job, marry, etc. I like order. It makes sense to me. Imagine someone skipping college, having a baby without being married,
then deciding to go to college, then buying a house before getting a degree and a job, etc. Order just makes sense to me.
But I admire how all of you have accomplished what you have and however you did it–I think it’s terrific!
Our Church leaders counsel us not to postpone marriage for luxurious possessions–of which, the natural man will never get enough of. Education or a college degree is not a luxury.
Actually, MSG, our church leaders counsel us not to postpone marriage, or even children, for education. President Benson:
Young mothers and fathers, with all my heart I counsel you not to postpone having your children, being co-creators with our Father in heaven.
Do not use the reasoning of the world, such as, “We’ll wait until we can better afford having children, until we are more secure, until John has completed his education, until he has a better paying job, until we have a larger home, until we’ve obtained a few of the material conveniences,” and on and on.
This is the reasoning of the world and is not pleasing in the sight of God. Mothers who enjoy good health, have your children and have them early. And, husbands, always be considerate of your wives in the bearing children.
And from Elder Grow at a BYU devotional in 2002:
I want to address five specific teachings regarding MARRIAGE AND FAMILY that have been taught repeatedly by prophets of our day. Like most teachings from prophets, these teachings are not popular with the world.
The FIRST is the counsel that we should not postpone marriage; SECOND, that we should not postpone having children, nor should we limit the number of our children; THIRD, the encouragement that mothers not seek employment outside the home; FOURTH, giving spiritual leadership in your home and family; and FIFTH, staying true and faithful to your covenants.
So, all 18 year -olds should marry immediately? No, I think these matters are very individual. I agree marriage should not be postponed for longterm education for adults. The prophets would probably say that high school kids, teenagers, should put off marriage plans for education. Reasons for adults, such as waiting for a better job,a bigger house, the list could be endless and take an entire lifetime , so no, those aren’t reason enough.
What would be a good reason to postpone marriage? Probably if you aren’t at the point in life where you can regularly put food on the table and pay for a roof overhead and basically be able to provide for children who are dependent on you. And the sooner you can get your education, the sooner you’ll be able to do that and you won’t be postponing it! Another reason is that one isn’t ready or mature enough for the responsibility of marriage yet, especially parenthood.
My daughter’s patriarchal blessing tells her explicityly, “All , things are to be done in wisdom and in order. Be diligent in getting your education. Prepare yourself , then marry and family will follow.”
What you quoted from Elder Grow is general counsel. There are cases where for medical reasons, children are limited, cases where mothers do HAVE to work outside the home, marriages have to be postponed because the “kids”aren’t able to provide yet,and children aren’t conceived on the wedding night and every
possible nine months into menopause because her body needs time to recover between births and it takes physical energy to care for children and teach them properly. The Lord doesn’t send every couple 9 children–and it isn’t because they’re purposely limiting their children. Some have fertility issues. These things are all very individual and what one can do, another may not be able to.
But we all can be faithful to our covenants and leading spiritually in our homes.
To add to Jordan F., Adam Greenwood, and Seth R., I married after my first year in a graduate program and before my wife’s first year, so I didn’t have to support a family as an undergraduate. However, things that made my three years of married student life work were: 1) We pursued disciplines (engineering and molecular biology) where the school pays the students instead of the other way around. Think of it as a market signal. 2) When children came, most of their clothes were gifts, mostly used, from fellow ward members. A few hundred dollars from our parents at Christmas was also helpful. 3) We lived in an inexpensive city (Baltimore) where a pleasant, small apartment could be had for a few hundred dollars. People who can’t afford New York and Boston have many other options. 4) Before children came, we lived solely on my income and stashed away my wife’s earnings. That way there was not a difficult adjustment when she became a mother, and in months when an extra expense, such as a car repair, strectched us too far, there was a surplus to draw on. These measures allowed us to leave graduate school with two sons, no debt, a PhD for me and an MS for her, and $10,000 in the bank.
By contrast, we left graduate school with two daughters, a PhD for me, a lot of dead-end jobs on a resume for her, and $30,000 in government loans to pay off over the next 20 years. Can’t say we planned terribly well, and it’s certainly true we didn’t maximize every single possible economic angle. (Living in DC, not a cheap city, didn’t help either.) Still, all told, our decisions aren’t ones we regret, and I’m glad that we had children to keep us focused and happy during some of the difficult years that followed.
I think the strong counsel against any, or any material delay, in having children (and counsel against limiting the number of children) has been superseded by the statements in the 1998 handbook and in the publicly available True to the Faith that the number and timing of children are a matter to be decided between the husband, wife and God.
Elder Grow can’t read the handbook of instructions?
But in my mind, the possibility that God may permit a young couple to not have children right away removes one of the excuses for putting off *marriage*.
Adam,
I agree.
Adam,
Put off marriage as it relates to what? Do you mean to get married as close to 21 as possible? Or as early in the dating relationship as possible? Or as early as possible after getting engaged? Or something else entirely?
Although I think the same complex of attitudes and failings that make people dislike children as interfering with personal development and fulfillment are often the same complex of attitudes that make people wary of marriage.
…the same complex of attitudes and failings that make people dislike children as interfering with personal development and fulfillment…
These would be attitudes that arise before engendering children that cause people to forego that process, or the attitudes that arise after the fact from the actual experience of having and caring for children? ;-)
I wonder if there aren’t two streams of advice here that are both taught, but often not together. First, we should not put off either marriage or children for any selfish reason. Second, both deciding whom to marry when and when and how many children to have are decisions that should be made privately between a couple and the Lord.
It seems that taken together both these statements are true. It also seems that, when pushed to extremes, both could be problematic. I wonder if one is emphasized more than the other because it is more likely to occur in our society.
I spent last week backpacking with a bunch of scouts. I’ll be 50 this year and my son is 13. Let me make a biological observation than may not be obvious to people in the first half century of their life: Men in their early 40’s (or even in their late 30’s) do so much better, one-on-one, with strong teenage boys than men in their 50’s to 70’s.
I may never forget my son standing there on the trail with his 60 lb pack telling this 60 something year old leader (who was hiking far too slow) that he would gladly carry the old man’s pack for him if he could run out ahead of us. I wanted to smack him for his insulting disrespect and lack of empathy; not understanding the satisfaction this aging man wanted to achieve just making it on probably this his last big trip after 40 plus years of dedicated service to the scouts. But I was too tired. Someone younger and stronger than I needed to take that big pup of mine and run his tail off and make him feel what fatigue is and what endurance means. Ten years ago I would have done it.
Boys that age respect physical strength. Aging inevitably deprives you of it. It also changes the way you think and makes it harder to relate to the younger mind or apparent mindlessness. (Having brothers along about 10 years older might help). It is most unwise to wait until your mid 30’s or later to sire your boys. They will punish you for it one way or another.
This physical observation I think has much wider application. The backpacking trip was a metaphor for life, etc. Social, ecclesiastical, etc. I think the same goes for women and their daughters, although I can’t explain it. This biological reality may not out-weigh all other factors, but it needs to be considered.
It seems that everyone is so eager to blame the young men. I strayed in my youth and made some moral judgments that were not the best, the girls that this happened with would tell me that they repented on Sunday, and yet were willing to be led (and lead me) in to temptation right after they got to done “repenting†when I decided it was time to change my ways, (which the bishop, stake president and someone from salt lake had already heard about).
I was told that it would not be as easy for me as it had been for them because I “Continually corrupted the innocence Gods daughters.†I was floored. I was a willing party in these sins, as were they but because I didn’t go to confession every Sunday like women I was held to a different slandered.
I feel my integrity is intact, because I truly was sorrowful and changed my ways.
I stayed true to myself.
Just a quick thought.
Is that homeless man who is drinking out of that brown paper bag that you pass every day going to work Christ testing you?
Finally. Geeze.
Ugh. My initial reaction is that all the brethern don’t seem to really understand the current YA generation (and Im no basher of our leaders ok…but its been the same-old for awhile I don’t see any indication that they really understand the issue at hand or the world the current 20-somethings live in – I’m open to them proving me wrong, especially regarding this issue).
Marriage is not getting delayed because men have replaced women with Pizza take-out and porn and women have replaced men with those darned careers….people are ‘delaying’ marriage because they are smart enough to realize you should know who you are and what you want in life/family before you make an eternity-long commitment, because they have seen their parents, grandparents, and most of their friends who took the plunge at 19 get divorced, because education, healthcare, housing and just about everything is more expensive now making marriage (and KIDS) a MUCH more difficult proposition. Sure, I know people who are too picky in who they will even date, who seem to not want to ‘grow up’ etc etc…but I get told I am delaying adult responsibility because I don’t have kids yet too so I’m a little jaded to those complaints.
People need to follow the spirit in their own lives and not say ‘the sky is falling’ because people are actually getting married AFTER college instead of dropping out and having 8 kids on welfare. Maybe if the youth weren’t constantly told that they should stay single rather than marrying outside the temple we’d have more married people too. My sister would be married right now if she didn’t think she was evil for having an awesome, caring non-mo who loves her
(/rant).
This is bad, but not unexpected. We are in the culture and of it.
Enjoy those entitlement programs while you can, folks.
. . .because they have seen their parents, grandparents, and most of their friends who took the plunge at 19 get divorced
I haven’t seen this, but it may well be happening. If you know of divorce rate statistics of young people married in the temple, I’d love to see them.
I am a stat for Temple wedding and divorce. I know of 3/80 or so Temple weddings that have ended in divorce from our YSA ward. Mind you not all those 80 weddings are “great” marriages or even active.
Sorry 80 or so Temple wedding since about 1994.
In the leadership complaints about this issue, there is also a tendency to ignore the very serious factor of very limited choice. The main couple highlighted in the story *wanted* to marry earlier and really *tried* to do so. So it’s not entirely a matter of people consciously deciding not to marry; with such a limited population of LDS singles, there are inherent constraints on everybody who wants to successfully getting married within the Church..
I would advise anyone I know and my own children to wait before getting married. The BYU type culture of marry the first person who likes you is not wise in my opinion. If we really believe in eternal marriage we should be more wise, more mature, and alot more hesitant to make an eternal covenant. Then again, maybe I’m a little jaded.
I wonder how many people think that the rush to get married in LDS culture is partially based on sexual prohibitions? I don’t know of any stats but am curious if early marriage is more common in cultures with sexual prohibitions or guidelines.
I think there is a right time, person, and place to get married that is different for everyone but I am grateful that I didn’t put it off. I was just finishing up with my degree at BYU. Marrying later in life can be more difficult because you have really accustomed yourself to living on your own. Being married really helped me through grad school and I am enjoying my 3 kids. I tend to think mid-twenties is better for marriage over mid-thirties or mid-teens.
The point is David, this article and the churches attitude would suggest that you DID marry late.
When I was at BYU in the mid 90s, I noticed that there was sooo much emphasis on chastity [many firesides on other topics ended up with metaphoric videos of crocodiles eating people who stepped out of the \”safe\” zone], and very, very few talks about what it takes to form a healthy dating relationship.
It\’s true that there were classes and talks to young married people about good relationships, but not a whole lot for the singles. The emphasis seemed to be –don\’t have sex until you are married, get married, and then work it all out. For those of us who had reasons to be wary of jumping into marriage, this was problematic. If someone wants to encourage healthy marriages, there should be emphasis on helping people form healthy relationships–not just on chastity and getting the rings on.
I see a trend nowadays for better sexual communication and better marriages and marriages not based on hormonal revelations. Marriage is icing on the cake and not the cake. If you are not happy do not expect marriage to solve all your problems.
The article says this, which is probably fairly accurate: “Stanley said studies show people are marrying later in life because of an emphasis on career and personal growth before marriage, and also a general fear of failure in marriage.â€
But earlier it also states this: “But church leaders say many singles appear to be following national trends of delaying marriage by avoiding traditional dates, such as a one-on-one evening, where a man calls a woman and asks her out. Instead, singles are “hanging out” with members of the opposite sex in a group settingâ€
This is wrong. They say that because they misunderstand it. They think it’s laziness, but it’s not. It’s actually a method of getting to know a greater number of people in a shorter amount of time.
Natasha, I think that’s a very insightful comment. I’ve had non-members be shocked that–for all our church going and meetings and emphasis on marriage and family–there is no specific marriage prep counseling or classes. (I realize there is an institute class, but very few take it and it isn’t designed to be interactive with one’s fiancee.)
Eric,
If hanging out worked to help people know a greater number of people in a shorter amount of time, shouldn’t that result in people marrying sooner rather than later?
I emailed the reporters a bit of my story (and my wife’s, we were 31 and 27) and said what most of you have said here: that we each wanted to get it right the first time, that some of the leadership (local and general) may not understand the circumstances, etc. One of them responded and said there will be a follow-up article in tomorrow’s edition, covering at least some of that ground.
I’m going to try withhold my judgement until I get a chance to read that Part 2.
Julie, if it weren’t for other factors, yes. But other things, such as those mentioned in the prior quote from Stanley, bring it down. Also, I think people are just plain more picky than they were back in older days. Perhaps it’s the result of a generation raised on romantic comedies.
Or a generation raised in divorced households….
It might have as much to do with demographics as with sinister cultural memes. This article, for example, discusses the unwholesome effects of skewed sex ratios on marriage culture: in environments in which single women outnumber single men (that is, in which women wield less sexual bargaining power), marriage rates decline. That is, not only does some remainder of unpartnered women remain single, but more men remain single, as well. In environments in which single men outnumber the women, and thus the women enjoy more bargaining power, marriage rates among men rise. Single active LDS women outnumber active single men, I imagine.
Rosalynde,
Interesting. Your theory implies that in the past the ratio was less skewed among LDS. I wonder if there is any evidence for this.
#9, you are of course right, our strict sexual prohibitions are a major factor in encouraging early marriage. (When I came off my mission, I only half-tongue in cheek said that I fully intended to be either married or excommunicated within a year, and in fact did the former.) Most people aren’t going to willingly go for more than a decade from their sexual maturity before actually having sex.
I am actually a fan of the “hanging out” concept. I’ve seen my own son do it, first in high school and now in college. He has tons of really good friends of both genders, and he is very socially comfortable and confident around girls. I wish I had been as well adjusted when I was his age (of course, I was on a mission when I was 20, so dating v. hanging out wasn’t an issue for me at the time).
In 1981, for every 100 LDS single women 20-29 years old there were 89 LDS single men. Among singles 30 and older, for every 100 active single women there were 19 active single men (defining “active” as attending church weekly). See here. I would be very interested to know what the demographic data are today.
For every 100 active, high-functioning single women over age 30, there are probably 10 active, high-functioning single men. Seriously. #8 got it exactly right. *All* of my over-30 single female friends would love to get married if the right opportunity came along, but those opportunities are few and far between.
I fully sustain my leaders. When it comes to marriage, I will decide who I am interested in , how long I date and whatnot. I will take counsel as advice. The Leaders won’t be raising my children and paying my bills.
Marriage is of no benefit to men. There is no good reason for a man to marry. He can get anything he wants (sex, companionship etc) in a regular relationship. Marriage is fraught with peril for men, especially in the areas of divorce negotiations.
Yes, I am maried. But I would advise any man under the age of 25 to avoid even a relationship. The 20s are the golden years for establishing a career path that will last them the rest of their life. If they have to get off the fast track to take care of a wife and kids, he will be left behind when his friends who delay marriage.
Do a google search on “Leykis 101” for more information.
It’s worth noting that Jesus made it to 33, and no near contemporary account mentions anything about him being married. The perfect life indeed.
Fascinating, phouchg. Could you tell us if the beast with seven heads and ten horns also offers stock picks for 2007?
From the article:
“LDS Bishop Jon Hale, who oversees a ward of LDS singles between the ages of 18 and 31, said he believes selfishness is the reason many singles postpone marriage. Instead of focusing on finding a spouse, many singles want to get an education, travel and \”find themselves\” before getting married, he said.\”
I know Bishop Hale, and was surprised that he would say it in that manner. At least it came across as being harsh to me. In my case, being single has very little to do with selfishness. I would agree that, while this may be the case for a few single adults, I believe them to be the minority, unless you can tie selfishness to unrealistic expectations. For that is what I think the problem is.
Brent Barlow gave a talk last year with some good points dealing with choosing a marriage partner, and having realistic expectations.
What strikes me in the article, is the apparent lack of intercultural / international dimension. Dating traditions, age factors, familial obligations in relation to marriage differ from culture to culture. A statement like
may be valid for the U.S. But that “traditional” approach would be pretty aberrant in other cultures where e.g. these norms apply:
– get to know many friends in group activities over a longer period
– avoid forming a separate couple too soon
– it would be considered insulting to “call a woman and ask her out” and repeat the same with another woman a week or so later
– it would be considered male-domination to “call a woman and ask her out”. The usual way to form a couple would be to start doing things together as something that grows out of mutual signals and common interests, and usually from within the participation in group activities
– “call a woman and ask her out” is therefore a step that comes at the end of a long preparation period and is already part of a serious relation. At that stage the woman could also just call the man…
Of course, there are many variations to these norms – and deviations. But the American “traditional dates such as a one-on-one evening, where a man calls a woman and asks her out” are certainly not considered normal in other parts of the world.
So, if one has “realistic expectations” what one says to oneself is “This guy’s rather dull-witted and unkind but he’s likely the best I’m going to find so I think I’ll go ahead and marry him”? How inspiring!
I don’t really think I want to marry someone who has settled for me because he’s afraid I’m the best he will likely get. I think that would be cheating both of us. I’d rather marry someone who feels about me that I’m the one he’d pick if he could have his choice of anyone in the whole universe, and about whom I feel the same way.
At a certain point in my dating, this verse came to be very meaningful. Ideally, you would hope to enter marriage without mental or emotional reservations. It is possible to love a person in your heart but to mentally have some concerns. It is also possible to love a person intellectually but to not feel the emotional connection. It’s really a great thing if you can date, fall in love with and marry someone who you love wholeheartedly and “wholemindedly.”
My feeling is that those who delay marriage out of fear of repeating their parents’ mistakes are actually MORE likely, not less likely to end up in an unhappy marriage and divorced.
You start the marriage in hyper-sensitive, exploratory, tentative, easily critical mode. And you quickly find what you were looking for.
Your marriage is already over in your mind before it ever began. Even at the alter, you were subconsciously planning for your divorce.
If younger adults are waiting longer for marriage in order to avoid “bad choices” why aren’t we seeing a parallel decrease in divorces?
It’s because as “smart and savvy” as these people think their being, they are merely pressing on in the downward spiral their parents and grandparents started.
Tatiana,
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that I do not deserve the woman who “is perfect for me.”
I think very few people do deserve the perfect mate. Which makes it likely that you don’t deserve a perfectly-matched husband either.
From a common sense standpoint, I’d say you’d be better off planning to “settle” for a couple things.
People born in the later half of the 20th century have been growing up on TV advertisements constantly reinforcing the message that “you deserve the best.” Apparently a lot of them have been gullible enough to take the ads seriously.
I don’t deserve the best. And neither do any of you.
I certainly didn’t want or choose to “delay” my marriage until I was 30, but that’s just the way my life went.
If that’s what Bishop Hale said, then he does not understand young adults, but is basing it on his own pre-conceived notions. I lived in the Boston Longfellow Park ward for a few years. I had a good talk with the bishop there one time and he told me how many of the sisters would come in and cry to him about how they just couldn’t find a man. I know I talked with the bishop about my dearth of dates and I’m guessing other brethren also talked with him.
I remember another time the Stake president chided the sisters of the ward for not dating, and you could just feel the tension in the chapel. He really was oblivious.
Seth, you make a good point in #34, but you don’t extend it far enough. Yes, the delay in marrying amongst white, upper and middle-class American Mormons (which are the ones that these sort of articles generally focus on) has many causes, most of which are, on a case by case basis, perfectly reasonable: there is now a much greater cultural emphasis on developing a social network of peers, on “finding oneself,” on getting established professionally and financially and emotionally, on avoiding costly mistakes, etc. All these things, in the broad scheme of things, reflect what you correctly identify as a kind of “commerical” atitude–marriage is like a purchase, an investment, a merger, and so you have to find a partner that is just right for “who you are.” That is, the self, the consumer, has already been established; now you want to add something to it, and you find yourself being very careful about making a commitment that will potentially affect you for eternity. The idea that you a not a complete self absent marriage, that you need partner not as a way to exercise a vital option you possess but rather to give you options, and you have to simply take what you can get, is not commonplace in our commodified society (and with good reason).
The reason why I say you don’t extend that thinking far enough is that, if one really wants to challenge this source of delay in marrying patterns, then one would have to attack the root causes of it…which is not commercials on TV, but whole professional, financial, emotional commercialization of the self. Look at us: we’re a rich, tolerant, progressive, technologically enabled, educated, increasingly egalitarian society. Take that away–make us poor, make women dependent upon men for their standing in society, make it socially and financially obligatory for most men to enter the workforce at age 18 and stick with it for their whole lives, make children a valuable economic resource for keeping food on the table, make single people (both men and women) a suspect and somewhat discriminated against subset of the population, make television and coffee houses and a personal apartments in the city and hanging out on the internet an unimaginable luxury, make divorce a scandal and almost impossible to obtain, make us all farmers, make college educations rare, make social activities only occasional and guided over almost entirely by the church when they do happen–and I guarantee that early marriage rates would skyrocket.
It all doesn’t have to be so economically determined, I’ll grant; there’s a lot of non-economic cultural/ideological factors that can be challenged at the margins of these developments, and those marginal changes could be very meaningful. But generally speaking, Adam was correct in #3, only “culture” alone, in the way most people use the term, isn’t nearly broad enough. What we’re seeing is, very simply, that the Mormons focused on in the article discussed are members of a wealthy, opportunity-driven, individualistic, highly educated, mostly secular society with a wide range of private and public freedoms. And as much as I criticize it, there are things I really like about living in such a society, and the same goes for all of us. You do see general authorities speaking out broadly about certain trends, on occasion (Elder Bruce Hafen has denounced legal no-fault divorce, but I’m not sure anyone has ever done so in conference), but realistically, I sincerely doubt that there are many advocates of early marriage that are willing to go after the socio-economic basis for modern changes in marriage relationships entirely.
First, although I haven’t read the article, I wonder to what degree it represents the private concerns of “the brethren” as opposed to their public counsel. The rumors I have heard regarding the privately expressed opinions have been uniformly more sharp than anything that has been publicly stated. Also, in this more than in almost anything else, I think Pres. Packer’s comments about general principles applying generally should be considered. I often wonder if counsel regarding marriage rates is so sharp out of a concern for those who would justify selfishness, not out of a concern for any specific situation.
I wonder what Sherri Dew’s feelings are regarding this matter.
Second, in response to RAF, in the Church we decry many of the outcomes of the modern socioeconomic cultural order. Does this discussion, including warnings about selfishness, fit into that pattern, or does it differ significantly from other counsel that encourages us as a people to distinguish ourselves from babylon?
Finally, (again, not having read the article) I regret the divisiveness that accompanies discussions of dating habits and marriage formation. Unfortunately, I think there are a few who would ignore the importance of marriage but for the emphasis placed upon it by our leaders. I also think that the subject is one that should be approached via prayer and personal inspiration. The law of chastity and the doctrine that marriage is necessary to exaltation seems to me to be the fundamental principles that should guide us. Outside of these principles, the sense expressed above that the brethren’s comments on dating and marriage should be considered advice seems to me to be about right.
#30: Wilfried — Oo, you beat me to it. Absolutely true.
#34: Seth R. — Oo, you beat me to it. (I need to start neglecting my kids to keep up here.) In my later single days, I realized I belonged to the Groucho Dating Club: I didn’t want to go out with any woman who would go out with me.
One last thing:
What a jerk.
My family and I live well outside the Mormon corridor, but my daughter is living in Utah and working on her bachelor’s degree (not at BYU). She would like nothing more than to get married in two or three or four years and have kids and all that. I don’t know how typical her experience is, but she is not impressed by what she sees. Here, in rough order of what is most common, is what she says she finds among LDS guys:
1) Guys who aren’t interested in building a friendship and then seeing what happens in terms of a long-term relationship, because they feel they should get married as soon as possible. More than once she’s had the experience of going on one date with someone and the guy’s already thinking about marriage.
2) Guys who have no interest in an intelligent woman with an education and the ability to think independently.
3) Guys who have no idea what they want out of life (other than watching sports) in terms of career and that sort of thing.
4) Guys who, in private, don’t believe in the law of chastity.
5) Guys who have spent all their lives in the LDS bubble and don’t know how to relate to people outside of it.
Because she has no problem getting dates (she’s knock-out gorgeous, but I admittedly have a bias in saying that), it’s the first item in the list she finds the most bothersome.
Eric,
You want my kid brother’s phone number? He’s at BYU. I’d be interested in finding out which category he falls into.
Perhaps one of the reasons is that our culture is more fractured today than in times past. That makes it more difficult because you can’t assume that the person is on the same page as you re: marriage, kids, morals etc.
Additionally they are likely to have different interests.
I suppose this goes along with the comment that we have more freedoms and options these days.
I agree largely with the ideas expressed by Veritas #2, although with less fervor. I think the single income household is a fading ideal. More and more women in the church will need to work to support the increasing costs of middle class life. Not every man can become a doctor, lawyer, or dentist. One\’s early twenties are such a critical time to develop one\’s career and pursue graduate degrees — the investments necessary to support children down the road. It is not selfishness to delay marriage and children, it is simply forward planning.
Men in the church already start out at a disadvantage relative to our peers in the marketplace (in terms of age), having spent two years away from academia on missions. So many of our young adults graduate from college at ages 24 and beyond and many now recognize that a college degree alone usually is not sufficient to generate \’head-of-household\’ level income (except perhaps a degree in engineering).
Early marriage and early childbearing when a middle class income remains distant may be the right decision for some, but requires considerably more faith or considerably higher tolerance for risk depending on one\’s mindset. I tend to be one who thinks God expects us to plan ahead to the best of our ability while remaining open to change that plan if prompted.
Would it be politically incorrect to mention that many women have a hard time staying in good physical shape in their late 20’s? Not so hard for the guys, I believe, and they have a certain right to be attracted to that “knock-out gorgeous” from Eric’s #39. I have tried to line guys up with girls in that age group and found only a couple of girls (out of dozens, no kidding) that they would be attracted to. I’m just saying…
“I think the single income household is a fading ideal. More and more women in the church will need to work to support the increasing costs of middle class life….So many of our young adults graduate from college at ages 24 and beyond and many now recognize that a college degree alone usually is not sufficient to generate ’head-of-household’ level income…Early marriage and early childbearing when a middle class income remains distant may be the right decision for some, but requires considerably more faith or considerably higher tolerance for risk depending on one’s mindset.”
I think this is a perfect (and, given certain assumptions about the modern world, perfectly justified) example of what I described in #36. We–meaning white upper and middle-class American Mormons, just like white upper and middle-class Americans generally–are taught to, are expected to, want to, aspire to security and accomplishment and creature comforts and happiness, for ourselves and our children. (Heaven knows I do.) But remove that middle-class income and all its frills as a realistic possibility, remove it as a social (and, indeed, in many ways church-culture) expectation, and marriage patterns will follow.
Russell, I’m not sure what you’re saying. The demographic data shows that marriage is in fact central to what it means to live a middle class life—not exceptional and certainly not antithetical. Indeed the much-remarked upon “marriage gap” is precisely a socioeconomic gap: disadvantaged women are LESS likely to marry, now, than educated, prosperous middle class women (though these are, indeed, marrying later.) am I misunderstanding your point?
I’m only talking about comparative marriage rates, Rosalynde–the original Deseret News articles, and the general authority statements related in them, only make sense (at least so far as I can tell) within the context of questions about the age and rate at which white male and female American Mormons from the middle and upper classes–in other words, those people which still dominate cultural presumptions within Mormonism–are marrying. Elder Oaks’s comments about “hanging out” have little relevance outside the world of college educated and newly professional young adults, and practically no relevance whatsoever to the lives lived by the poor, whether rural or urban. In light of the actual numbers regarding poverty in the U.S., your point is absolutely correct–a relatively stable and traditional marriage is one of the most important, if not the most important, marker of whom is able to maintain middle-class living and avoid poverty, and who isn’t. But I just don’t see the concerns expressed by the church leadership in these statements focusing at all on such social concerns; they’re concerned rather with certain spiritual pathologies amongst a very select LDS population, most of whom will one way or another manage to live pretty stable and successful lives regardless.
Which is, perversely, my point: most of college educated and newly professional young adult Mormons in the U.S. are going to be fine, because even by marrying late or never, they’ll still be able to inhabit the middle or upper-class niche they (and I!) aspire to. Get rid of that niche, take us back to the 1940s (or the 1840s!), make travel a ridiculous luxury and a university education the sole privilege of those with inherited wealth, re-introduce the social marginalization and hostility towards the divorced and unmarried and re-acquaint males with the imperative of entering the workforce at age 17 in order to help their parents hold onto the farm or what little they have…and I’m certain we’d see marriage ages drop and family sizes rise.
One of the bishops quoted in the second of the Deseret News articles put it very well–marriage, he said, is more complicated today, because kids face so many choices. Of course! Modern market economies and the societies they generate are all about choice, about deciding between marriage now or education now or this job later or that job later or a mission in two years or a swell internship in two years or a shot at this top ten graduate school or that top ten graduate school or how about mixing and matching as many as possible all at once? In world of opportunity like that, the social and economic imperatives that conditioned the way in which our parents and grandparents found and committed to their spouses can’t help but appear very narrow. And they were. That’s one of the reasons why they worked–because you couldn’t easily escape them.
(I’m sounding like an economic determinist here, and I’m not. I freely grant that there are all sorts of ways in which our ideas, as compared to a previous generations’ ideas, about marriage have had consequences all on their own. But those ideas do not flourish in a socio-economic vaccuum.)
I am glad to see that this thread has taken a turn into exploring the economic factors associated with this “trend” which the article presents little empirical evidence to demonstrate. It is certainly a lot easier to blame human frailty than to look at causal relationships and is a favorite of religious leaders everywhere.
Here are a few congruent trends to consider: the gap in earnings between the educated and uneducated is as large now as it has been at any time since the 1920’s which makes the value of education precious: the cost of higher education has grown exponentially faster than inflation over the last few decades, the length of education necessary to bring in those bucks has also expanded: the cost of housing has radically outpaced inflation since 1950. All of these factors certainly contribute to the length of time that people are content being singles, because they feel that they have to prepare to provide for their families with decent housing, good schools, and the financial ability to enjoy the good life.
Are these factors as strong as the desire to find oneself, which is undoubtedly the reason that some delay marriage? I don’t know, but my guess is that they probably are. After all the Mormon ideal of having a mother in the home, paying a full tithe, having a bunch of kids without delay, is becoming more and more financially inaccesible. SOmething has got to give.
Russell, you are right in #44. I desire a middle class lifestyle and think we as a church should not lessen this expectation. In the end we as humans have responsibilities outside of providing for our own family. We need time and resources to expend on the church, we need inventors, public servants, scientists, and so on. It is difficult to create societal value outside of one’s family if one is only scrapping by all the time.
I have experience with the Anabaptist community in Lancaster County, PA, i.e. the Amish, Church of the Brethren, and Mennonites. Their culture does not emphasize middle class economics and therefore does not see the need for lengthy educational pursuits. Early marriage and early childbearing is unimpeded.
I admire some of the values I’ve seen there, but I do not wish to see this model seep into our culture. In our church, we have societal contributors of all stripes and the same probably could not be said if we all just eeked out the minimum for our families as the Anabaptists largely do.
I wonder how the trend among the LDS to delay marriage intersects with the national trend in the US to not marry at all. A recent article in the Washington Post relates social scientists’ perception of marriage becoming an elitist institution for the wealthy and educated.
I have enjoyed the subject matter of this post and the comments that have been shared. As a divorced LDS mother of three I obviously have my own perspective on the perils of marrying young (I was sealed at 19 when I was a sophomore at BYU). I wouldn’t trade my children for anything in the world nor all the lessons and insights I have gained, but I do think I could have been a much better wife and mother had I waited five-ten years. I was fortunate to be married to a man who supported me in my educational goals and was able to obtain my master’s degree while rearing a young family (which was an interesting experience in the young LDS mom culture). Given my experience and the ever growing numbers of friends and associates within the church that I see getting divorced, I am a big proponent of taking your time to make the right choice. With that said, it is also such an individual decision and everyone is so different. I have met women who at 18 were extremely mature and “ready” for all the responsibilities of married life and others at 30+ who were nowhere near ready (myself included). At 37 I still feel like I am getting my act together and am starting to finally make some headway in my career. I think we can and must do a much better job of educating our youth and young adults about how to build healthy relationships (beginning with oneself) and how to make good choices. I believe that my Heavenly Father loves each and everyone of us more than we can comprehend and I would humbly submit that he is not going to ask us if a) if we are married or b) at what age we got married when we finally get to meet Him again. He is simply going to hold us and tell us how glad He is to have us home.
Seth R. #44: I don’t deserve the best. And neither do any of you.
And yet, that\’s what I\’ve got. Isn\’t that funny?
Just out of curiosity, what is the age cutoff for ‘marrying young’ versus ‘marrying when your older’? To me, marrying at 18 or 19 is marrying too young, and marrying at age 27 1/2 or older is the (very beginning of the tip of) marrying older. What do the rest of you think?
Follow on questions: How does your span compare to general (American or international) LDS trends? How does your span compare to general (American or international) population trends?
I’ve only read about 2/3 of the comments, but here is what I see so far: The Brethren are out of touch; they don’t have a clue what it’s like to be me. While Bishop so-and-so says “many” delay marriage for selfish reasons, I choose to read that as “all” who delay marriage are selfish, therefore I reject his comment completely. Nobody is delaying marriage for unjustified reasons.
I believe it’s reasonable to conclude that there are a number of people who have no control over their marital status. I believe it’s also reasonable to conclude that there are a number of people who are not justified in their delay (I’m sure none of those people participate in this website, however). I just find it sort of humorous to see so many scramble to point out how wrong “the brethren” are on this issue.
The article didn’t mention anybody on here, so far as I know, so the defensive posture that appears so prevalent here is unnecessary.
“LDS Bishop Jon Hale, who oversees a ward of LDS singles between the ages of 18 and 31, said he believes selfishness is the reason many singles postpone marriage. Instead of focusing on finding a spouse, many singles want to get an education, travel and “find themselves” before getting married, he said.
I can’t figure out how getting an education, travelling, and discovering what you really want in life in your late teens and early twenties is “selfish”, at least not in a negative way. I married at 19, followed the prophet’s advice to not delay having children (because it was selfish to wait) and had my first baby at 20 (I had 5 by the time I was 30). Because of the financial difficulties of having both my husband and myself in college, as well as my wish to stay at home and give 100% to my children, I had no choice but to drop out. I have spent many years struggling with self-esteem issues, anxiety and depression because, I believe, I missed an important stage of development in my early adult years, when I should have been exploring the world and discovering myself.
I believe that I would have been a more confident person and a better wife and mother if I had taken time to complete my education and have some other life experiences BEFORE heading down that road. Though not impossible, once you make the commitments of marriage and children, it is much more difficult to do that. Many years later, now that my kids are grown, I am still trying to discover who the real me is, having previously been defined almost exclusively by my roles as wife and mother. I believe that by discovering our likes, dislikes, stengths and talents, we can better fulfill our unique purpose on this earth and we will be more capable of giving to others in meaningful ways. Early adulthood is the time to do this! This is not selfishness!
Although I don’t want to second guess a decision that has also brought me great joy and happiness, I have certainly encouraged my single adult female children not to get married too young, and to get an education, to travel and have lots of experiences before getting married.
Also, I definitely think some church leaders are out of touch with what is really happening in the singles wards. As my 28 year old single adult daughter remarked, “I think if church leaders (bishops, stake pres. mainly) are truly concerned about this problem, they should focus their efforts more on retention of LDS single men, rather than continually berating them for being selfish.”
I wonder if the real reason for all these marriage talks by the leaders of the church is due to a concern about the future sustainability of the church, since convert baptisms are down and delayed marriages and decline in children will translate to less church growth, tithing etc.
Yeah hanging in there,
The Church is soo in this for the money. You make some fair points, but I don’t think the conspiracy theory angle helps your argument.
World travel and “finding yourself” doesn’t have to be “selfish.” But human nature being what it is, I’d wager that 90% of the time it ends up being selfish anyway.
“Finding yourself” is practiced on such a large scale in American youth society, that I think it is safe to conclude that we’re raising a generation of narcissists. Incidentally, recent scientific surveys find that narcissistic thought patterns and behaviors are alarmingly prevalent among American teenagers and 20-somethings.
If we lived in a perfect world and nobody divorced than getting married at 19 and immediately having many kids would be one perogative.
But we don’t live in a perfect world and nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce.
If you polled any sample of 30 something divorced women who are now struggling financially to provide for themselves, I would bet an overwhelming majority would have wished they 1) had an education, 2) had marketable skills in the workplace that are valued, and 3) delayed having kids (5 or more years).
Seth R., thanks for defending the right.
RAF, you’re giving the counsel of despair. The LDS cannot reshape our economy so that we’re all poorer. But we can do something among ourselves about the cultural and ideological factors and attitudes towards marriage that make people put marriage low on the list of their priorities.
In my experience, people who put off marriage do it increasingly because they’re afraid of risks. They’re afraid of risking financial rewards and career status. They are also afraid of failing in marriage. In my mind they should re-read the parable of the talents.
I also think there’s some crazy expectations going on out there, probably because of the intersection of American romantic foolishness with the intense Mormon talk about good marriages, good husbands, and good fathers. I seriously have had someone ask me if I really thought my wife was perfect for me when I married her. No, and so what?
There is data showing that extremely young marriages often end in divorce and there is some correlation between marrying younger and increased divorce rates. But I’m pretty sure this correlation will vanish when you control for class background. I also tend to think, from anecdotal experience, that the active Mormons who marry in the temple aren’t at great risk if they marry young. The truth is that divorce can happen to any couple at any age. You can’t plan your trials away.
And if you do put off marriage, you miss maturing together with your spouse, like two trees growing intertwined. My wife is my maturity.
Interesting comments and interesting attemped inferences.
Here are some:
Cost of rising increased, expectations increased, job wage didn’t.
Many sisters were loud, obnoxious, didn’t care about the standards, poorly mannered (couldn’t count how many threw their feet over the row in front at a movie theater), wanted a trophy husband, etc.
Hanging out was great. I made many friends, some close friends, many potential partners, and a great wife.
Those who married young and got divorced, wish they hadn’t? Makes sense. It would also make sense that those who got married late and had children regretted waiting, and those that married late and got divorced, wish they had gotten married (or even divorced) earlier.
Oh–
marriage DID help with lots of things.
while the Church emphasized marriage and family, and even has the workbook, there were no marriage questions!! (I had to think of my own. About 50. Helped tremendously.) I didn’t understand why that was.
for those who do have problems about marriage, try EFT: http://www.emofree.com. I worked with one woman who was off the scale petrified of marrying and then divorcing, and then got to a state of no (unreasonable) fear at all in 1.5 HOURS.
Adam:
Some of us would have liked to be married sooner, if for no other reason than to have avoided snide remarks from people like you in church. And it’s not a matter of not finding the “right” person, or not being mature enough. Sometimes (like it was in one instance for me) it’s simply a matter of the other person not wanting it. (That other person in my case was once subjected to a guy automatically proposing on the third date.)
Both my brothers married at 22. I don’t think I could have handled it – and if you think back (I turned 22 when we crossed paths at BYU) I think you’d agree. At the website where I did meet my wife (when I was 31 and she was 27), I also met many divorced women, from about my age and a little younger, to a good bit older. The one thing they all seemed to have in common – regardless of how long the marriage lasted – was marrying at 19.
I think the bretheren are right on as always.
I do believe that modern trends towards delaying marriage and childbirth are incorrect. We should not seek to follow gentile family formation trends. We seek different entertainment, have different ideas about chastity, and live a higher law in general. Why live like gentiles in our family formation?
I also think that based on the empirical evidence that the LDS are doing better then just about any other group in the US in this regard.
We get married younger, have more children etc. I think the bretheren are looking into the future and not liking what they are seeing
“RAF, you’re giving the counsel of despair. The LDS cannot reshape our economy so that we’re all poorer. But we can do something among ourselves about the cultural and ideological factors and attitudes towards marriage that make people put marriage low on the list of their priorities.”
I don’t think I’ve said anything different, Adam. I’ve specifically emphasized several times that I believe there are cultural and ideological factors that can be and should be addressed that are not necessarily beholden to socio-economic realities. But remaining ignorant of those realities–and the ways all of us, general authorities and young single adults alike, are frequently caught up in them–will not make those cultural and ideological arguments any more persuasive. On the contrary, I think it will make them less so.
That’s part of the reason why I think it is so important to be sympathetically attuned to different socio-economic arrangements. Picking up on Russ’s comment from #48, it is clear that the leadership of the church today sees no great need for the Mormons to be Amish. I’m glad for that, since, frankly, I don’t want to be Amish. But the Amish are accomplishing at least one thing up into the 21st-century that the leadership of the church obviously fears that the youth of the church today are not, or at least not in the way or at the rate they would like them to. Hence, being aware of what the Amish opt out of, in order to sustain the ideological and cultural position, is important for our own thinking, including thinking about how we Mormons can contribute to a different socio-economic order (either broadly or just amongst ourselves), even if ultimately we’re going to make trade-offs and accommodations with the modern world, and not go as far as they.
As cultural norms shift, there are only two possible outcomes for the LDS. Either they shift along but with a time lag (later marriages, less kids, increased acceptance of diverse family patterns, etc) or they become increasingly distinct from the broader society (think Amish Lite). The Evangelicals are in a similar situation, but they seem to have chosen the former path.
dunno if this has been mentioned yet, but yes, the church does have marriage classes in Institue and also in Church. (It used tohave this integrated into the 16-18 year old SS manual too, before they switched to just using the adult ss manual)
THe Church ones are new.
http://www.providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,6648-1-3430-1,00.html
http://www.providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,6676-1-3456-1,00.html
It’s Not Me:
“The article didn’t mention anybody on here, so far as I know, so the defensive posture that appears so prevalent here is unnecessary. ”
Actually, I am referred to in the article:
“Plumb is famous within his stake at the U. for encouraging the unwed to date at least once a month. On occasion, he’ll even go as far as giving the men $25 to take a girl out or sponsor a “date auction” as a church activity.”
Bishop Plumb is an amazing bishop, and has paid for more than one of my dates, although his gallant efforts have so far been unsuccesful in getting me married.
Knowing this \”anonymous clerk\” as I do… (yet keeping in mind Elder Holland\’s comments from yesterday…) I think the goal in question is going to require slightly more that just Bishop Plumb\’s recommendation and $25…
RAF, the Amish opt out of things that would be unacceptable to most of us, i.e. health insurance, inpatient labor and delivery, and frequently rely on the governmental assistance. Our culture has always taught financial independence from the dole.
If we talk about tradeoffs and accomodations that do not go as far as the Amish, what specifically are we referring to? Renting indefinitely versus owning a home? CHIP and Medicaid versus private health insurance? Fewer music lessons, sporting activities for our children? No orthodonia? No parental assistance for college tuition? No retirement savings? Most parents I know spend most or all of their money on their children already and cutting back our financial expectations means cutting back on what children need.
The LDS church used to have a marriage program that took care of the problem of excess single women. Too bad they ended it in 1890, although it is understandable given the severe persecution. Perhaps in today\’s more socially liberal world we ought to consider taking D&C 132 more seriously, and afford these excess single women the opportunity to marry a good man, of which there are far fewer than there are good, spiritual single women. I am not joking or trying to cause trouble either. This is a serious suggestion that the Brethren ought to be considering. A good woman ought not be denied the chance to marry a good man just because the good men are mostly all married. And yes I am active LDS and in a ward leadership calling and have been for a very long time. I am not an apostate or a fundamentalist or even a fundamentalist sympathizer. But I believe, that just as in times past, the practices of the church have had to change to keep up with changing social conditions, we should consider the restitution of plural marriage as a possibility given all the single sisters who have no hope of marrying a good LDS man, otherwise.
\”Ben There,\” that is not why plural marriage was instituted back in the day. It was about raising a righteous generation of children (a critical mass on which to build the church? see Jacob 2:30), not about dealing with an overpopulation of women. It\’s more likely the church would focus more on converting new (and retaining existing) 30-something males.
Russell Fox,
I expect the difference between us is that you think some kinds of economic changes are doable and desirable. I don’t. I think that our system is free enough that anyone can get where they need to with a change of attitude. Our system encourages people to wander the country, putting career before family, local roots, and stability, but it doesn’t mandate this. One can always trade income and status for family and happiness.
RAF wrote: ” Get rid of that niche, take us back to the 1940s (or the 1840s!), make travel a ridiculous luxury and a university education the sole privilege of those with inherited wealth, re-introduce the social marginalization and hostility towards the divorced and unmarried and re-acquaint males with the imperative of entering the workforce at age 17 in order to help their parents hold onto the farm or what little they have…and I’m certain we’d see marriage ages drop and family sizes rise.”
Russell, I don’t object to your taking a structural-economic approach to the problem, indeed I often find that approach persuasive, but I wonder whether your analysis is right. You seem to be saying that if we were all poorer and had to work harder, we would marry earlier. But historically marriage rates have risen during times of austerity, not dropped; furthermore, poor people have more leisure time than middle-class people (presumably to do things like hang out in groups and find oneself). So I wonder whether the economic forces really are working the way you suggest they do. I certainly don’t have a better analysis, however; as I suggested above, I’m intrigued by the demographic hypothesis.
Fort Dodge, Iowa passed in 1907 an ordinance requiring: “That all able bodied men between the ages of 26 and 45 years, whose mental and physical propensities and capabilities are normal, and who are not now married, shall be required to obtain a license and a bride and straightway be exalted to a state of connubial bliss” Those not married were given 60 days to improve their status or receive a fine. (link)
Elder Tingey has an article in this month’s Ensign that I think addresses this issue pretty well — and very directly.
J. Findlay: Given that women are marrying later and bearing fewer children now than in the previous generation, you can be pretty certain that the church will not be growing very fast in future years, at least not from within. We do need to raise a righteous seed to the Lord, but when people marry at 35 years old, it is unlikely they will be having six or eight or ten children. I know far more families in the church who have 2 to 4 children than I know who have more than four. It is not unreasonable to believe that the average in this or the next generation may be two to three children per family. This is a fertility level that is just barely above “replacement rate”.
The attitude of the vast majority of 30-something males is–just as the article in DN mentions–one of not being interested in marriage. They can have sex with all the women they want, and have fun with the guys, and not be tied down. The current generation of 30-somethings is NOT interested in marriage, and most are NOT interested in religion, either. They see both as outdated and unnecessary in today’s world.
On the other hand, most women long for the day they will marry, and many, many more women are spiritually-minded than men. Just look at any singles ward. Just look at most ANY Christian church with an active singles group. It is easily 70/30 females to males.
Before I joined the church, I was active in Christian circles and the number of single women always was way more than the single men. I used to work at a religious employer, and unlike secular employers in the same industry, our employees were mostly females. The only male employees were married men, and most of our female employees were single females, many in their 30s, and many praying for the day they’d meet a fine Christian man they could marry and with whom they could have a family.
Among the non-Christian males in this age group, the situation is far, far worse.
I do not think missionary efforts geared toward 30-something males will bear much fruit, anymore than they presently do.
(By the way, if the *sole purpose* of plural marriage was, as you claim, to raise children, why then did Joseph Smith not have children with most of his wives?)
I forgot to add that in my own ward (we have no local singles ward), there are easily 4 to 1 active single females of “marriageable age” (19-40 maybe) to active single males of similar “marriageable age”. Single women in this age group have joined the ward, but I have not seen any single men of this age group joining.
#75 and & 74…..
All of my coworkers are evangelical christians. Either married men or mostly single females (5-8).
The five singles are constantly complaining that all the good Christian men over 25 are married. They are left with the leftovers etc. Last week one of them joking around asked me if I had any brothers. I said that the Bell family marriage age for men was 22-23. So we were all married.
The three married women all got married in their real early 20’s.
It seems to me that this shortage of marriage minded men is not unique to us LDS. It also seems that there exists a “marriage market”. Many of the church attending marriage minded men in my anecdotal exp both inside and outside the church are married off by mid twenties to similar aged women.
This is tough reality…………..
Rosalynde W.,
I’ve been thinking about your theory that an imbalance of Mormon men to Mormon women leads to later and fewer marriages. As Julie Smith pointed out, that only explains the change if the ration of Mormon men to women has changed. I don’t have any data on this, but I’m betting that the ratio of Mormon women to Mormon men at college has greatly increased and that ways for non-college bound Mormon men to meet and interact with Mormon women of that age have atrophied.
#76 Bbell: Your experience mirrors mine in this regard. When I was more in-tune with the evangelical movement, the Promise Keepers movement was getting its start (early nineties). There were all sorts of books and seminars on helping married men be good Christian husbands and fathers. But there was not much in the way of ministry aimed at single men. Why? Because there were so few, and still are so few.
This is a tough reality. But my understanding of God does not allow me to believe that it is his will that good, spiritual, Christian women with a love for the Gospel and a desire to be a good wife and mother, should have to choose either marrying a non-believer or remaining single all through her days. I cannot believe God wants this. It goes against his nature and against all that Scripture says. Which leads me to my solution as proposed earlier. God has made a way for this problem to be solved. A loving Heavenly Father who places so much of the gospel plan upon the concept of marriage does not want his daughters to go thru this mortal life in great pain and suffering while they wonder why God is not giving them a spouse.
We often hear that all this will be sorted out in the next life. But that begs that question: if good men are so few in this life that so many women cannot marry, where are these women going to get good husbands in the next life? It is illogical to decree that women must suffer as spinsters in this life and will be rewarded with an already-married husband in the after-life; yet deny her the joys and blessings of marriage and child-rearing in this mortal probation, when there is no theological difference between practice of plural marriage on either side of the veil (as evidenced by the fact that we allow men to be sealed to another woman after being widowed. I know a guy whose been widowed twice and is now sealed to a third woman, in the temple).
Ben There,
OD1 stands in the way of your solution.
Like I said its a tough reality. I do not think its a new problem though. My wife’s grandmother was the youngest of 10 children. A Young/Wells She was born in 1913. She had 5 brothers and 4 sisters.
Her 5 brothers were all happily temple married. 3 out of her 4 sisters were unmarried due to similar problems that we have been discussing. Her sisters were of marriage age around WWI-1930. They were wealthy, the family of multiple GA’s, and could not find a man to get temple married to.
Great discussion. I just wanted to add that I don’t think anyone has ever “found themself” because they were backpacking through Europe, hanging out with friends in the dorms, or becoming a grand knight in World of WarCraft.
I should also add that at age 22 I spent 50 days traveling through Europe with my wife. Marriage didn’t increase the cost of my apartment, tuition, plane tickets, hostels or tent sites. We went through the Swiss temple on our first anniversary.
bbell: you will note that my first comment suggests that the Brethren should be considering it. Surely if the Lord can reveal to rescind the practice based on persecution, and based on the prayers of the Saints, then He can likewise reveal–based on the prayers of the Saints–to reinstate the practice. We have continuing revelation, which affords us this ability to ask the Lord about these things. There is no reason the Lord cannot give the Prophet a revelation to reinstate plural marriage, just because OD1 repealed it.
I just cannot believe the Lord would prefer his daughters to be sad and single than to experience the joys and motherhood and marriage. But like most things in the Restoration, the restoration of a doctrine or principal comes when the Lord is ASKED a question. The Brethren ASKED and PRAYED about the priesthood ban on blacks, and they RECEIVED an answer which was to repeal it. The Brethren can likewise ASK if the Lord would allow his righteous daughters to marry good men in plural marriage, and who is to bind the Lord and say He could not provide that answer?
Matt E:
Matthew 10:39
“He that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life shall find it.”
I think that Seth R can interpret this for us as applicable to this thread. Seth?
Matt (80),
Your questions are aat best a bit disingenuous. No, marriage didn’t increase the cost of your plane ticket, but now you have to buy two, which effectively doubles your cost if neither or only one of you is working. Ditto tuition. You’re right about tent sites, and I have no idea about hostels (although I think you pay per person, which effectively doubles your price unless you are both wage earners).
As for apartment, if you lived by yourself, you’re right. Most single people I know, at least under a certain age, have roommates to offset the rent. I know that when I got married, my rent initially more than doubled (less than $800 a month to about $1600 a month) until we got into school housing, when it dropped a little (but not to my price when I was single).
Which isn’t to say don’t get married, but recognize that the price (both to survive and to backpack Europe) _does_ go up once you’re married.
74, 75, 76,
If this is all true (and I suspect it is) then is it any wonder that the prophets are encouraging women to get an education? Sometimes I think people want to make this emphasis simply an issue of gender equality, when perhaps, at least in part, it’s because of these inequalities that women are needing to be more prepared for what could (or, on the other hand, might not) happen in their lives.
Another thought: Elder Oaks (in his talk that addressed dating so directly) pointed out that the delay of (or at least cultural tides against) commitment is yet another way the adversary is attacking the family.
OK, so maybe 79 questions my thoughts. Oh well. :)
84: Elder Oaks is of course spot on. The question is, what can the Church do to actively FIGHT the adversary? Recognizing the problem and calling attention to it is good. But what do we do next to solve the problem?
Shoving single women into singles wards with maybe 1 nice guy to every 2 or 3 nice girls just adds insult to injury. It says: “Here, let’s make it even MORE in-your-face that you’re not likely to find a good man to marry!”
Encouraging women to get an education is a Good Thing. No doubt. I love education and believe everyone should get all the education they can, whether it be formal or informal. Knowledge equals power. But, Education is not the central theme of the Gospel. Family is. Being educated does not solve the problem of excess single, marriageable women.
From the time little girls are in Primary, the idea of Temple marriage is strongly promoted. We tell our little girls the highest calling they can have is as a mother and a wife who marries in the Temple. We have them sing songs about how they love to see the temple and how they are going there some day. Then, when the hit adulthood, they come face to face with the cruel reality that there are more of them than there are men.
In one of my son’s primary classes, he is the only boy, and there are anywhere from 4 to 7 girls in the class on varying Sundays. Good for him, not so good for all those little girls.
Ben There, I’m probably not the only single woman reader who wishes you would cease advancing your proposal to reinstate plural marriage.
You do not understanding single women. You see us as a very unattractive problem to be solved, not as individual human beings of great worth who are making enormous contributions to the world and to the Kingdom. Just look at the words you use to describe us — “excess,” “sad and single,” “suffer,” “great pain and suffering,” etc. Who wants you to dispose of us in ANY manner, when this is how you imagine our lives to be? Not I!
I don’t want to bear an absent father’s children, to be a wife in name and bed only, but without the partnership, the time, the company, the two-halves-of-a-whole unity that is monogamy. Why do you think accepting all the burdens of marriage with none of the comforts would be an improvement over my current life?
Do your duty in your “ward leadership calling” and recruit and develop and sustain men who can become the kinds of husbands we want. Stop thinking of women as problems to be disposed of, like unwanted kittens.
And for heaven’s sake, stop your silly call for a return to polygamy. You’ve got nothing to say about it. Thank heavens.
Russ (#67): “If we talk about tradeoffs and accomodations that do not go as far as the Amish, what specifically are we referring to? Renting indefinitely versus owning a home? CHIP and Medicaid versus private health insurance? Fewer music lessons, sporting activities for our children? No orthodonia? No parental assistance for college tuition? No retirement savings? Most parents I know spend most or all of their money on their children already and cutting back our financial expectations means cutting back on what children need.”
That’s a good list, and I’m sure it could be made much longer with a little thought. Which of those do I personally think are desirable trade-offs? Not many, to be honest. But of course, part of the reason why the Amish can cut back on “things their children need” is because they have localized and limited the religious context within which needs are articulated. What does an Amish boy need? Not an education beyond 8th grade, that’s for certain. Not music lessons (music is what women provide). Not a car (where is he going to travel to, anyway?) Not a cell phone. He does need land, though, or the opportunity to be apprenticed out to someone who can teach him a hands-on trade. this requires a great deal of investment and work on the part of the parents, but not necessarily a lot of cash on hand. Hence, living a steady-state and early-marriage life, as opposed to one of exploration and upward mobility, is perfectly compatible with Amish “needs.”
Adam (#70): “I expect the difference between us is that you think some kinds of economic changes are doable and desirable. I don’t. I think that our system is free enough that anyone can get where they need to with a change of attitude.”
Yes, this is a pretty succinct statement of one of our differences.
Rosalynde (#71): “I don’t object to your taking a structural-economic approach to the problem, indeed I often find that approach persuasive, but I wonder whether your analysis is right. You seem to be saying that if we were all poorer and had to work harder, we would marry earlier. But historically marriage rates have risen during times of austerity, not dropped.”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point, but doesn’t what you’ve just written agree with me? More people marry, sooner, when conditions of austerity and poverty made marrying earlier and more frequently a way to satisfy pressing economic needs. Remove the austerity, create an environment of options and choices and plenty, and people will still marry–but not quite as often, and perhaps not quite as early. Do we agree on that, all other factors being equal, or is there something we’re disagreeing on?
If there aren’t enough mormon men to go around, it seems simple enough to date/marry a non-mormon. I know this means no temple marriage, but, really…I have know so many guys totally uninterested in religion, but after marriage to their christian or mormon wife, they gradually got more involved often joing congregation or getting baptized. Seems like if men who weren’t religious had the opportunity to interact more with women who were, we might attract more men into the religious community. You know, flirt to convert…:)
And I second LL’s comment to please quit calling for the return of polygamy. Its creepy.
D’oh! Sorry Russell, I completely miswrote. What I meant was: historically, marriage AGES have risen during times of austerity. What I’m saying is that I don’t think that circumscribing our material resources and life opportunities will make us get married younger, because if anything historical trends would seem to suggest the opposite.
I suspect our beloved Prophet Joseph as well as our ancestors who died to cross the plains for freedom would find calling their religion “creepy” just a tad bit offensive. Remember, the Restoration is an “all or nothing” proposition. If Joseph was a prophet, it means what he taught and instituted was true, for God would never allow the Propher to lead the Church astray, right? If it’s creepy, what does that mean that all of our early prophets and apostles, up until the early 1900’s, were creeps? Heber J. Grant was the last plurally-married prophet, and he served not all that long ago. Was he a creep? I do not believe my great-grandparents were creeps. If part of the religion that was restored is creepy, then maybe this isn’t the religion for you. Either those men were prophets or not. I am sorry you think our prophets can be creepy. When did our Prophets stop being creepy? So far, the Priesthood/RS curriculum has studied five of the Creepy Prophets over the last 9 years (Brigham, John Taylor, Joseph F. Smith, Wilford Woodruff, and Heber J. Grant) and only two non-Creepy, them being David O. McKay and SWK.
Some non-Mormons I know think our zealous nature regarding early marriage and child-rearing is “creepy”. Some think it is “controlling” (could be interepreted as creepy) that our boys are expected to serve missions. I guess it’s all relative.
@Rosalynde:
Then why are people getting married later?
@Ben There:
If I’m not mistaken, bigamy is against the law.
Ben There:
Your argument that polygamy is a way to allow more women to experience the “joys of marriage and motherhood” presupposes that the joys of monogamous versus polygamous marriage are roughly equivalent. I strongly suspect most women do not share that view.
@John Williams #93:
Do you suppose this will always be so? Just a few years ago the concept of homosexual marriage wasn’t even on the radar. Now homosexuals can legally marry in Canada and other countries, and it will likely become legal in the U.S. soon. If marriage can be widely defined so as to be encompassing homosexuals, do not think that legalized plural marriage is way off. It has already been recommended for legalization in Canada, and in fact has always been legal in many nations where the Church is present (especially in Africa).
Then again, Brigham Young did say that the time would come when the nations of the world would accept this principle and the Saints would deny it.
Anna #94:
I strongly suspect that most worldly women do not share the view of the LDS church that marriage and motherhood are more important than careers, or that family is eternal and that there are spiritual implications associated with marrying the right person, by the right authority and in the right place.
Most women might think our church is a bit “quaint” or “outdated”, and some of the more liberated women think we are downright hostile to women, not allowing women to hold the priesthood or serve in church leadership callings.
So, what “most women” view as acceptable does not have much bearing on the Gospel, does it?
ABC had a documentary on a few weeks ago about one of the fundamentalist sects in Arizona (I think) and the women there seemed quite happy and were very actively soliciting their state legislature for legalization and such.
By the way, everyone’s talking as if the Amish lifestyle is offlimits. But I don’t see it. Cars and electricity don’t matter. Virtue matters. I think Mormons should be more open to some Mormons forming intentional communities that are drop-outs from modern society. It would be good for us all.
Ben There, you’ve made your point, and your numerous repetitions are beginning to grow trollish. Suggest you let the subject drop now. Thank you.
“No, marriage didn’t increase the cost of your plane ticket, but now you have to buy two.”
Sam (Comment 83),
Mormon wives work, remember. It wasn’t until we had children that my wife wanted to work primarily at home. While we were putting ourselves through college we both worked. The result is that going to Europe as a married couple doesn’t cost any more than going as two singles.
The same is true of our apartment and everything else. Neither of us could afford to live alone in college, so we had roommates. Once we got married, we had each other as roommates.
The only reason marriage would be more expensive than singlehood is if parents subsidize singleness but not marriage. This is an important factor that hasn’t been mentioned yet: many parents pay their kids to remain single.
One more thing: even when parents do cut the strings, their earlier subsidy may have established a lifestyle requiring dedication to career objectives (at the expense of dating and family life) to be sustained.
Adam: maybe you should now be known as Jakob A.G. Hochstetler. I’ll mail you a hat.
Russ,
I’ll make my own, thank you.
Matt E.,
You have two important points. Parents should not try to maintain their kids when they’re single, and they should be willing to help out once the kids get married. My own parents gave me $50 when I went to college to tide me over until I could get a job and told me I was always welcome to live at home during the holidays, and during the summers if I was working. But once I got married they went all out to help with furniture and what not.
I think the reason for the rising age of marriage is simple: men and women are granted (generally) equality of opportunity.
When a woman needed a man to have a place in the world marriage was almost always better than staying single. Now women actually have something to DO when they aren’t married, so it doesn’t seem like it’s such a big deal to not be married.
Now being happily married is, I would assume, better than being happily single, but the presence of an alternative to marriage means that this “happily married” status has to meet a higher standard (not that I’m much of an expert on this – I’m 19 and nowhere near thinking about being married)(and the thought that some would think it was appropriate for me to be married at this point in my life makes me laugh/shudder). But the bar has been raised – marriage always has had to better than the alternative, it just used to be that the alternative wasn’t all that attractive for women so there was an incentive to marry.
Also, we live in a world where a simple college degree is rather pedestrian and plenty of people pursue education beyond their early twenties in order to get to a place that a couple of generations ago, could have been obtained by simply having an undergraduate degree. It’s taking more and more preparation time to get to “real life” and part of that really is the change in the economy, so it isn’t all that surprising that marriage, part of this “real life” gets delayed as well.
That’s a good point. The more people that go to college, the less valuable the credential becomes. The credentials arms race is a real problem.
Why hasn’t anyone noted what Elder Oaks said about the changing status of marriage. Specifically, people used to conceive of marriage as a type of societal obligation. It was part of adulthood. Nowadays people conceive of it as a deal between two people, so that it’s nobody else’s business. Surely this is a major factor in kids not pursuing marriage as seriously as in times past, and therefore delaying their marriage until later.
I’ve made a few jokes in this thread, and I’m not saying that people should get married as soon as they turn 20, but I really do think that the “wait longer to get married” thing yields diminishing returns pretty darned quickly.
No kidding. But with the disapperaence of industy, flipping burgers is about the only thing a high school credential qualifies you for. College is the new high school…
And I meant “disappearance of industry,” not “disapperaence of industy”…
I agree with Meg. Women can now go to Harvard Law School and make $125,000 a year. I imagine that 75 years ago it would have been tough for women to go to law school, or medical school, etc.
Chris Rock says that the only two options in life are Married and bored or single and lonely, no happiness no place. To some that’s true and not worth the leap the faith into marriage.
Something no one has mentioned yet:
Having a second spouse enter the workforce is pretty stupid when that spouses wages are primarily going to be snapped up by daycare expenses. When you are talking middle to low-middle class, that’s a common reality.
Furthermore, I’ve heard countless financial advisers talk about how a very large percentage of the modern need for a two-income household is not “so junior can have waffles in the morning and a pair of pants.” It’s more like “so daddy can by that surround sound home theater he’s been eyeing.”
This is what we, in the financial counseling world, call the “Two-Income Trap.”
People adjust their consumption to keep pace with the flow of income. Expectations rise as the money does. What this means is that a two-income household is actually far LESS able to cope with common financial shocks such as layoffs or health crises. When the crisis occurs, there is no longer the option of the other spouse stepping-up in the workplace to compensate. The couple is already operating on the financial margins, with no safety cushion.
The solution is to cut consumption and change the household employment scheme to one of two things:
1) Move to a one-income household
2) Move to a two-income household where both spouses are working at something less than full capacity.
Personally, I would consider #2 to be the more stable of the two in our modern economy.
For one thing, it allows both parents to share in the child-rearing workload. For another, it means that neither spouse is left without viable economic recourse if one breadwinner dies or is incapacitated, or divorce occurs. Additionally, this model is increasingly feasible with employers embracing innovative new employment models such as flex-time, telecommuting, and increased use of independent or freelance contractors.
But it’s important to realize that if you want this model to work, you MUST cut spending. I think it’s ridiculous that home theaters (a purely luxury item that adds almost zero equity to your home) are being sold at strictly middle-class “big box” electronic stores. That’s the sort of item I should have to go to Denver to acquire at a specialty electronics store. The fact that middle class folk are being encouraged through aggressive lending arrangements and sense of personal entitlement, to buy such monstrosities reveals a reprehensible aspect of our society in my mind.
Likewise, I don’t get why the middle class suddenly feels like it is entitled to a high-end vehicle (another very poor investment that will do nothing but depreciate in value).
News-flash. The majority of the people reading this are not entitled to have either a BMW or a nice home sound system. Nor will you ever be in this life or the next.
Get over it and start thinking about your kids for a change.
Rosalynde (#90):
“Historically, marriage AGES have risen during times of austerity. What I’m saying is that I don’t think that circumscribing our material resources and life opportunities will make us get married younger, because if anything historical trends would seem to suggest the opposite.”
Which population sets are you looking at to obtain that data? I’m having a hard time fitting what you describe into the (admittedly limited) knowledge I have of marriage demographics. Average marriage ages definitely went up during the asuterity of the Great Depression and WWII, and then dropped during the affluence of the post-war boom…but, so far as I know, those marriage rates reflected what was happening in the cities, amongst already “middle-class” (or higher) individuals who were attempting to maintain their positions relative to a changing environment. Though the fact that the 1950s brought a marriage and baby boom to those same populations is definitely evidence that culture and ideology probably plays a larger role than my arguments in this thread thusfar may have appeared to allow. (Also, I would note that the wealth and opportunity and choices available in the 1940s and 50s, compared to today, was quite limited; we live in a environment that is socio-economically far more complex and supportive of individual choice and development than was the case in the days of unions, a family wage, and blue-collar industry.)
Adam (#97): “I think Mormons should be more open to some Mormons forming intentional communities that are drop-outs from modern society. It would be good for us all.”
I strongly agree. It would probably take a long time to figure out how to accommodate intentional/devotional/alternative socio-economic communities within the larger correlated Mormon world, but that, I think, would be an end worth working towards.
Adam (#104): “The credentials arms race is a real problem.”
Is that not an acknowledgement that there is at least one socio-economic factor that American Mormons, at least, are not entirely “free” to ignore? (Especially since, if appreciated in the way Meg correctly lays out the problem, the church’s emphasis on education and its emphasis on marriage are potentially in conflict.)
DKL (#105): “People used to conceive of marriage as a type of societal obligation. It was part of adulthood. Nowadays people conceive of it as a deal between two people, so that it’s nobody else’s business.”
Of course, this assertion often comes up in the context of arguments about the “natural” family or marriage relationship, and the illegitimacy of gay marriage. But leaving natural philosophy out of it, and just looking at it in terms of social structure, I think this observation of Elder Oaks’s is all over this thread. To be sure, part of the reason that marriage has been individualized (and thus made more adolescent) in the minds of many people is because of various cultural and ideological shifts away from an emphasis on community. But the truth is, we have an economy–and not just us; Europe and Japan and increasingly every modern capitalist state does as well–that not only sustains that shift, but in some ways makes it necessary.
Meg (#106): “But with the disappereance of industy, flipping burgers is about the only thing a high school credential qualifies you for. College is the new high school.”
Well put. Which is why, ideally, we would have a world of more controlled immigration, more limited trade, more traditional industries and apprenticeships, more localized and self-sufficient economies, more union-protected wages sufficient to support a family on a single income, etc.
RAF,
I’d like to see less emphasis on blunt-instrument, one-size-fits-all, group protections such as unions that no longer represent the economic reality of American employment, and more protections that focus on individual and isolated workers such as insurance reform and heavier regulation of the consumer lending industry.
Seth, I’m generally sympathetic to unions, and think they get a bad rap. Moreover, the point of my suggestions weren’t so much to talk about “good” economic policy, but to talk about socio-economic changes that would make it easier–indeed, more obligatory–for individuals to make certain kinds of decisions with their lives, such as those discussed in this thread. That being said, you’re probably correct that doing something about the specific costs of health care, insurance, and consumer debt would do a lot more to help out the great majority of individual families than any one-size-fits-all solution likely would.
Russell Fox,
Agreed on the intentional communities. And I think you’re right that credentialism is one socio-economic factor that I do acknowledge. But seeing specific problems, instead of a generalized complaint against the modern world, means that specific solutions are possible. For instance, we could stop subsidizing higher education so much, do things to improve K-12 education, and allow employers to use IQ tests and other sorting devices. There are other legal changes that could probably make apprenticeship style programs more attractive to employers, but I’d need to think that through. It would also be nice for the church to emphasize that when they say education they mean useful skills, and that by no means should the pursuit of larger income or greater status override marriage and family. I might agree with a couple of other items on your wish list, though marriage wouldn’t be the primary reason. Others would have perverse effects. And some of them are, in my opinion, almost purely fanciful. Rather than thinking that we can remake our society from the ground up and undo the eating of the apple, I think its more realistic and more effective to do things like incentivize marriage (a housing credit for first time married home buyers, for example).
I disagree that the modern economy makes it necessary to see marriage as purely a matter of personal fulfillment. The fault is not in the Capitalists, but ourselves, that we are underlings.
Adam, if you want more people take the chance on marriage, the most effective measure would be to repair the social safety net.
Risky ventures (or those perceived as risky) like entrepreneurship and marriage, in my opinion, actually flourish when the system cushions against catastrophic failure. The trick is to cushion against disaster without indulging inefficiency.
At a bare minimum sectors exhibiting gross inequalities in bargaining power (such as health insurance) need to be remedied.
“Adam, if you want more people take the chance on marriage, the most effective measure would be to repair the social safety net.”
Perhaps. The best correlation between marriage/family rates that I know of is the cost of buying a home relative to income.
I am presently preparing to “drop out” and join an “intentional community.” It’s a community whose members pool their resources (the mechanism is called “homeowners’ association dues”) to work towards common aesthetic goals (gardners) and security (front gate with guard). I believe that there are Mormons involved, but the primary sorting criteria is the ability to finance a $3,000,000 home.
That’s a Zion criterion if I ever heard one.
Careful gst,
Gated communities are always the first to get shafted by a bad community planning decision.
Some developers seeking to put up an unattractive apartment complex, or a high volume street will deliberately seek out gated communities. Since the people living inside the fence get little interaction with the neighbors, there is little unified resistance to the developer at city planning commission meetings.
Divide and conquer!
“It would also be nice for the church to emphasize that when they say education they mean useful skills”
Adam, are you sure that’s what they mean? “Things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth…” seems bigger than that, somehow.
I’m sure you’re right to a great extent, ma’am. But the advice to get an education is almost always in the context of jobs and career, not personal development or knowledge for its own sake. I wish it were more often realized that not everyone is suited to academics and there is no shame in this, and that learning skills is also education.
“Risky ventures (or those perceived as risky) like entrepreneurship and marriage, in my opinion, actually flourish when the system cushions against catastrophic failure.”
Seth,
I think if you rate Western countries for their safety nets, marriage rates, and entrepreneurialism, you’ll find that marriage and entrepreneurialsim are negatively correlated with safety nets. Marriage is dying fastest in countries with cradle-to-grave care, and those countries aren’t entrepreneurial hotbeds, either.
In #105, DKL wrote: “people used to conceive of marriage as a type of societal obligation. It was part of adulthood.”
As an historical statement, that needs to be hedged with all sorts of disclaimers to be valid.
Matt, I said catastrophic. I’m not talking about removing all downsides to unemployment or anything. And as noted elsewhere, the entrepreneurship depends on what country you’re talking about.
I think it is a function of expectation. There are so many Jude Law perfect-guy-and-father type movies out there that girls believe that guy really exists. And there are so many Truman Show neighborhood examples out there that guys are afraid to offer something small at first. It is a function of expectations. My dad calls it “creeping elegance”. Once you have rented a home, you have a hard time living in an apartment. Once you have eaten out a lot, you have a hard time cooking. Once you have had an immaculate place, it is hard to have kids mess it up.
I don’t think people go into their 20’s thinking they will be single at the end of it. I think they start out being pretty open to marriage. But then after a few bad experiences, including lack of experiences, they start throwing themselves into careers. Then they either become too busy to date or exercise (yes, it is another obstacle), or they have now had to prove themselves in an industry where they will lose credibility if they go in another direction. So you end up with a bunch of wistful, career-oriented single adults in their 30’s. Happily, I have seen many of my 30-40 year old friends get married. Some of the career-orientation doesn’t go away, however, and so here comes the delay in child-rearing. Or we only have a few years in which to have the children. Or the children mess the house up and we can’t take anymore children!
If I were in Young Women’s, I would teach the youth to get education, yes, but also to learn to do (and if possible to like doing) domestic things. I would try to teach them to live on less, being satisfied with less. I think staying grounded and wanting less and living on less is the key. In fact, several of my friends who did get married in their 30’s knew their husbands in their 20’s but it took all of those years and promptings from the Spirit to look at these men in a different way.
While the credentials arms race is a societal problem, its not an individual excuse. Nearly everyone who is willing to make sacrifices in income, status, and fantasies of personal achievement can afford to get married young. There will be no society at the judgment bar.
Adam Greenwood: Nearly everyone who is willing to make sacrifices in income, status, and fantasies of personal achievement can afford to get married young.
You left out one key component that you’ll often need to sacrifice if you marry young: any prospect for long-term joy. And I think that this sacrifice gets right at the heart of it. Specifically, counseling men to get married when they’re young runs afoul of the principle that “Men are that they might have joy.” (You might as well counsel men to hit their testicles with a hammer for all the happiness it leads to.) Life is full of trade-offs. Why are we so afraid to discuss the relative merits of this one?
DKL,
I haven’t bought a pair of shoes in over a year. And the last pair I got was a pair of black dress shoes that my dad bought me so I could avoid looking disreputable for my clients. I’ve been eyeing a new hiking rain jacket for the past 6 years. But it costs about $100 (a really good deal) and I haven’t been able to afford a personal purchase like that for the past 7 years.
My wife and I rarely go out to eat, she shops sales at the supermarkets religiously.
This is a result of us marrying mid-20s while still in undergrad and a result of me forgoing a quicker money path in law school and after in favor of my wife and children.
I won’t pretend it’s not depressing on occasion.
But we’ve had a very happy seven years of marriage and I’ve been there for each step of my children’s childhoods. I know my children almost as well as my wife does. Law school was actually the happiest three years of our marriage and almost everyone seems to think that marriage has a hard time surviving law school. And we’re still very happy and life is good.
It’s been a leap of faith (no financial safety net then or now). But as it turns out, God supported our choice.
Seth, the question isn’t how you feel in your early thirties when it still seems like your entire life is ahead of you. The question is how you feel once the best part of your life is over.
Huh?
What?
How does a young couple still in college go about supporting themselves financially? Do their parents support them until they graduate or until the young man gets his first job in his career?
It seems to me that to marry, let alone start having children, when one hasn’t graduated and started working, is putting the cart before the horse and doing things the hard way.
My parents and grandparents married after getting a job ( never went to college). They saved some money for a downpayment on a house and then had their children. They didn’t raise their children in college student married housing. It’s just sensible to put first things first, if possible.
It seems to me that to marry, let alone start having children, when one hasn’t graduated and started working, is putting the cart before the horse and doing things the hard way.
because taking the broad, easy way is the correct choice, I guess……
I hear everyone, your comments are very interesting, What I\’m about to say will bore people but this is how I see it. Well, we all know why we should get married right? Hello- Exaltation.The Leaders of the Church are no forcing anyone to marry, Hello – Agency, but they are simply worried that most of us, yes gulilty, are setting our treasures where moth and rust do corrupt, unfortunately. its good that you must get an education, the Prophet is up for it. We do live in a competetive world and they know that better than us because they do talk to someone Mightier than us, Heavenly Father (how easy we are to complain). Whatever happened to following the prophet? Point number 2 – there\’s more to marraige than our sexual appetites- lets see how can I put it in a nice way for all of yall – God is trusting you with His beloved son and his beloved daughter, that you will take her/him to the temple, and do right by her/him – that you will help her/him to come back to Him. We all know the plan.There\’s no need to go through all the details right? – if you\’re unsure go see a missionary or try attending Institute for once. One thing that all of you are forgetting is that as much as we think we know what\’s best for us, Heavenly Father knows best. Look I\’m 24 years and I\’m enjoying my life. At 24 I have my own Communications Company and its really doing great, am I married? No! but the commandment still stands – i can\’t run away from it and neither can you, so for once stop complaining or being gods and talking a whole lot of stuff that you know nothing about. If you really sustain your leaders you will listen to them and follow their counsel. At this point I\’m wondering how many of us are Temple worthy? Are dating non-members/ You know yourselves and maybe you should try using the parable of the sower to see which ground you in, are you in the stony ground, amongst the thorns? I\’m also looking and there is no age written as a deadline so to speak for marraige, what the learders are saying is that we should simply put the kingdom of God first and all shall fall into place, keep all the commandments and the principles that we\’ve been taught and have Faith and all will fall into place. Its long , I know but we need to be reminded at all times, because we always forget.
I’m with you, Seth R. The only thing I disagree with is you taking DKL’s comment as if it were meant seriously.
There’s nothing wrong with recieving help from parent. We should be prudent, but marriage, like missions and tithing, is not one of those things that should be put off until one feels that one has taken care of every other obligation and contingency. Consider the lilies of the field.
There is much wisdom in 129.
“There’s nothing wrong with recieving help from parent.”
Except that you are taking help from a parent when you are supposed to be a man.
In retrospect, my 137 was posted too hastily and isn’t representative of what I really think. Generally I think adults shouldn’t take help from parents as a first option, but there are many instances when it makes sense. In fact, one of the reasons I work as hard as I do is so that I can provide assistance to my children–perhaps even in adulthood.
If my children need help to get married, I would rather they receive help from me and get married.
I married young and received some welcome help from my parents. I didn’t need a lot, though, because I hadn’t thought of marriage as something to put off so I had shaped my plans accordingly.
I have zero expectation that when I’m older I’ll regret not having had more time as a single to play playstation with roommates in a bachelor pad.
Adam, Seth is not guilty of the mistake you charge him with. I intended my comments seriously. It is, perhaps, worth emphasizing that I did not marry young. Thus, my frame of reference is based on observation and not experience.
I have also observed that there is a strong positive correlation between the unhappiness of a marriage that a person is committed to staying in and that person’s desire to see other people stay married no matter what. Misery loves company like it’s nobody’s business.
So DKL if we take your logic as truth……
I guess that Elder Oaks and the rest of the bretheren who give talks like that including SWK ,McKay and others are unhappily yoked in marriage?
I think the attitude before marriage will have a lot to do with the attitude after marriage. Someone with a sense of entitlement before marriage will possibly have trouble sacrificing and sharing in marriage. I think it is wise to become happy single before attempting marriage. Otherwise it will always be a case of “the grass is always greener”.
Also, there is no reason to believe Seth is in denial about his situation. I don’t think people change attitude that quickly. He has a long track record during stressful times.
I wouldn’t take comment 140 seriously either, Seth R. DKL doth protest too much.
Thanks Adam,
But anyone who takes the bloggernacle too seriously isn’t going to last here that long.
I confess to not having read the entire comment thread, but I remember there being some interesting temple marriage and divorce statistics in the July 18, 2006 BYU forum. Audio and video available here.
How does a young couple still in college go about supporting themselves financially? Do their parents support them until they graduate or until the young man gets his first job in his career?
Let me say how I did it. This may differ from couple to couple. I married my wife when I was 22, and she was 19. We had both just finished our sophomore year of college.
For the first year, we both worked full time at a bank as tellers (same bank, different branches). During that time, I also went to school full time (14+ credits a semester) and she went to school part time. Then, when she had our first baby approximately 18 months after we were married, she stopped working (it was important to her to be a stay-at-home mom) and I got a promotion and raise at the bank, and kept working there full-time and attending BYU full time as well. I worked at one of those banks inside the grocery store, so it was open longer hours, which made it possible to keep a full-time schedule with a full course load. We made just enough to cover our basics each month.
After a semester of that, it became clear that we were not going to be able to keep up financially, so we weighed the options and I took a second job working part-time as a custodian for BYU. My shift went from 4:00 am until 8:00 am every day, after which I started my first class at 8:00 am. My classes usually ended around noon or by 2:00 pm, depending on the day, when I would immediately get on the bus and head up to my full time job at the bank. That was a very busy semester, with a 40 hour per week job at the bank, a 20 hour a week job cleaning toilets, a full course load, a new little family, and service as the Ward Executive Secretary which also stole Sunday mornings away from me. It was not just busy- it was insanely busy. Somehow, I was able to sneak some family time in each day, keep my grades up, and my mood happy and optimistic. The only thing I really missed often was sleep.
We then went to Oxford for graduate school, for which we decided to support ourselves solely with student loans- the only financing available to us, and a few loans from some extremely supportive family members (most of which has been repaid years ago). Luckily, because the program was only one year in duration, we did not have to borrow much. We were dirt poor, though, for sure, but we were in England! And happy!
After being admitted to grad school (and then law school) at Michigan for 5 years, we got enough financial support from the German department to just barely support us and our growing family (which grew to 3 children during that time). In exchange for the financial support, I taught undergraduate German courses at Michigan, and occasionally moonlighted with additional, temporary positions at area high schools and other universities. I taught all through law school, from the very beginning, and for that received my entire law school education paid for by the German department.
In my opinion, the ability to receive an associate’s degree, a B.A., two masters’ degrees, and a J.D. by the time I was thirty and had three children, and not be wallowing in debt from the experience, was a real blessing from the Lord. He blessed me during all the years with the energy and mental capacity I needed to work, often full-time, while a full-time student and still get the grades I needed to be where I needed to be. Looking back on those years, I can hardly believe I did it- and alone, I could not have. Even as an attorney at a busy law firm these days, I do not put in the hours I used to back when I started cleaning toilets at 4:00 am and locked the bank door by 8:30 pm.
Starting a family young, avoiding debt, and obtaining a first rate education can be done without undue reliance on family resources or student loans. It requires a dedication to hard work and a hearty dose of blessings from the Lord.
Sorry for the long personal story, but I really, truly believe that things can work financially for couples who marry young, have children young, and want to pursue lofty educational goals for an ambitious career- even law school, Seth R.! :)
Now, back to document review…
I didn’t work as hard as Jordan F. Not close. But I went to less prestigious schools where I could get scholarships and took out some student loans.
I had a lot of crucial family support, took out loans and kept expenses down. I also worked through college part-time, but nowhere near that hard.
Having kids actually turned out to be not half as expensive as I thought thanks to government cheese. It’s not like we planned on using government benefits from the start. But I’m sure glad they were there.
Seth R: Having kids actually turned out to be not half as expensive as I thought thanks to government cheese.
Seth, I realize that you’re making a serious point here, and I don’t mean to demean it. But the way you’ve phrased this strikes me as very funny.
“1) Guys who aren’t interested in building a friendship and then seeing what happens in terms of a long-term relationship, because they feel they should get married as soon as possible. More than once she’s had the experience of going on one date with someone and the guy’s already thinking about marriage.
2) Guys who have no interest in an intelligent woman with an education and the ability to think independently.
3) Guys who have no idea what they want out of life (other than watching sports) in terms of career and that sort of thing.
4) Guys who, in private, don’t believe in the law of chastity.
5) Guys who have spent all their lives in the LDS bubble and don’t know how to relate to people outside of it. ”
I thought this was an interesting comment. I’m very worn down by straw-man attacks like these by both leaders and sisters on single men in the Church. Of course I understand that they’re borne of severe frustration and sometimes heartache. . . . I know, because I frequently have the exact same feelings where you can replace references to [Guys] with [Girls/Women] and vice versa. Honestly. You might also have to replace “sports” with something else [clothes, gossip, sex, or whatever]. But in the last three singles wards I’ve lived in. . . I think that all 5 are true of the majority of women. 4) was especially shocking to me, at first, but after the last decade of trying to date Mormon women, I’ve just become accustomed to the idea that it’s generally true of all single women, including LDS ones sadly.
Thanks everyone for your comments! Jordan, I am in awe of what you did and yes, surely the Lord blessed you to be able to do all that. Ivan, even the D&C talks about doing things in wisdom and in order. And not running faster than one has strength. For many people, school itself is hard enough–it would have been for me. First things first. Our Church leaders counsel us not to postpone marriage for luxurious possessions–of which, the natural man will never get enough of. Education or a college degree is not a luxury. Now of course, if one becomes a medical doctor, it takes years and postponing marriage because of it
is impractical because the individual is around 30 years old by the time he or she gets that degree. But undergraduates aren’t in that situation . My parents expected me to remain unmarried at age 21 or 22 and graduate with one college degree.
Then, as an adult with a degree, I was prepared and could get a job, marry, etc. I like order. It makes sense to me. Imagine someone skipping college, having a baby without being married,
then deciding to go to college, then buying a house before getting a degree and a job, etc. Order just makes sense to me.
But I admire how all of you have accomplished what you have and however you did it–I think it’s terrific!
Our Church leaders counsel us not to postpone marriage for luxurious possessions–of which, the natural man will never get enough of. Education or a college degree is not a luxury.
Actually, MSG, our church leaders counsel us not to postpone marriage, or even children, for education. President Benson:
And from Elder Grow at a BYU devotional in 2002:
So, all 18 year -olds should marry immediately? No, I think these matters are very individual. I agree marriage should not be postponed for longterm education for adults. The prophets would probably say that high school kids, teenagers, should put off marriage plans for education. Reasons for adults, such as waiting for a better job,a bigger house, the list could be endless and take an entire lifetime , so no, those aren’t reason enough.
What would be a good reason to postpone marriage? Probably if you aren’t at the point in life where you can regularly put food on the table and pay for a roof overhead and basically be able to provide for children who are dependent on you. And the sooner you can get your education, the sooner you’ll be able to do that and you won’t be postponing it! Another reason is that one isn’t ready or mature enough for the responsibility of marriage yet, especially parenthood.
My daughter’s patriarchal blessing tells her explicityly, “All , things are to be done in wisdom and in order. Be diligent in getting your education. Prepare yourself , then marry and family will follow.”
What you quoted from Elder Grow is general counsel. There are cases where for medical reasons, children are limited, cases where mothers do HAVE to work outside the home, marriages have to be postponed because the “kids”aren’t able to provide yet,and children aren’t conceived on the wedding night and every
possible nine months into menopause because her body needs time to recover between births and it takes physical energy to care for children and teach them properly. The Lord doesn’t send every couple 9 children–and it isn’t because they’re purposely limiting their children. Some have fertility issues. These things are all very individual and what one can do, another may not be able to.
But we all can be faithful to our covenants and leading spiritually in our homes.
Have you read Princess Bubble? They explain the signle/fairy tale/God….
http://www.demossnewspond.com/bubble
or http://www.PrincessBubbble.com
To add to Jordan F., Adam Greenwood, and Seth R., I married after my first year in a graduate program and before my wife’s first year, so I didn’t have to support a family as an undergraduate. However, things that made my three years of married student life work were: 1) We pursued disciplines (engineering and molecular biology) where the school pays the students instead of the other way around. Think of it as a market signal. 2) When children came, most of their clothes were gifts, mostly used, from fellow ward members. A few hundred dollars from our parents at Christmas was also helpful. 3) We lived in an inexpensive city (Baltimore) where a pleasant, small apartment could be had for a few hundred dollars. People who can’t afford New York and Boston have many other options. 4) Before children came, we lived solely on my income and stashed away my wife’s earnings. That way there was not a difficult adjustment when she became a mother, and in months when an extra expense, such as a car repair, strectched us too far, there was a surplus to draw on. These measures allowed us to leave graduate school with two sons, no debt, a PhD for me and an MS for her, and $10,000 in the bank.
By contrast, we left graduate school with two daughters, a PhD for me, a lot of dead-end jobs on a resume for her, and $30,000 in government loans to pay off over the next 20 years. Can’t say we planned terribly well, and it’s certainly true we didn’t maximize every single possible economic angle. (Living in DC, not a cheap city, didn’t help either.) Still, all told, our decisions aren’t ones we regret, and I’m glad that we had children to keep us focused and happy during some of the difficult years that followed.
I think the strong counsel against any, or any material delay, in having children (and counsel against limiting the number of children) has been superseded by the statements in the 1998 handbook and in the publicly available True to the Faith that the number and timing of children are a matter to be decided between the husband, wife and God.
Elder Grow’s talk was given while he was an area authority seventy, and before True to the Faith was published. http://www.byui.edu/Presentations/Transcripts/Devotionals/2002_01_29_GrowS.htm
Elder Grow can’t read the handbook of instructions?
But in my mind, the possibility that God may permit a young couple to not have children right away removes one of the excuses for putting off *marriage*.
Adam,
I agree.
Adam,
Put off marriage as it relates to what? Do you mean to get married as close to 21 as possible? Or as early in the dating relationship as possible? Or as early as possible after getting engaged? Or something else entirely?
Although I think the same complex of attitudes and failings that make people dislike children as interfering with personal development and fulfillment are often the same complex of attitudes that make people wary of marriage.
…the same complex of attitudes and failings that make people dislike children as interfering with personal development and fulfillment…
These would be attitudes that arise before engendering children that cause people to forego that process, or the attitudes that arise after the fact from the actual experience of having and caring for children? ;-)
I wonder if there aren’t two streams of advice here that are both taught, but often not together. First, we should not put off either marriage or children for any selfish reason. Second, both deciding whom to marry when and when and how many children to have are decisions that should be made privately between a couple and the Lord.
It seems that taken together both these statements are true. It also seems that, when pushed to extremes, both could be problematic. I wonder if one is emphasized more than the other because it is more likely to occur in our society.
I spent last week backpacking with a bunch of scouts. I’ll be 50 this year and my son is 13. Let me make a biological observation than may not be obvious to people in the first half century of their life: Men in their early 40’s (or even in their late 30’s) do so much better, one-on-one, with strong teenage boys than men in their 50’s to 70’s.
I may never forget my son standing there on the trail with his 60 lb pack telling this 60 something year old leader (who was hiking far too slow) that he would gladly carry the old man’s pack for him if he could run out ahead of us. I wanted to smack him for his insulting disrespect and lack of empathy; not understanding the satisfaction this aging man wanted to achieve just making it on probably this his last big trip after 40 plus years of dedicated service to the scouts. But I was too tired. Someone younger and stronger than I needed to take that big pup of mine and run his tail off and make him feel what fatigue is and what endurance means. Ten years ago I would have done it.
Boys that age respect physical strength. Aging inevitably deprives you of it. It also changes the way you think and makes it harder to relate to the younger mind or apparent mindlessness. (Having brothers along about 10 years older might help). It is most unwise to wait until your mid 30’s or later to sire your boys. They will punish you for it one way or another.
This physical observation I think has much wider application. The backpacking trip was a metaphor for life, etc. Social, ecclesiastical, etc. I think the same goes for women and their daughters, although I can’t explain it. This biological reality may not out-weigh all other factors, but it needs to be considered.
It seems that everyone is so eager to blame the young men. I strayed in my youth and made some moral judgments that were not the best, the girls that this happened with would tell me that they repented on Sunday, and yet were willing to be led (and lead me) in to temptation right after they got to done “repenting†when I decided it was time to change my ways, (which the bishop, stake president and someone from salt lake had already heard about).
I was told that it would not be as easy for me as it had been for them because I “Continually corrupted the innocence Gods daughters.†I was floored. I was a willing party in these sins, as were they but because I didn’t go to confession every Sunday like women I was held to a different slandered.
I feel my integrity is intact, because I truly was sorrowful and changed my ways.
I stayed true to myself.
Just a quick thought.
Is that homeless man who is drinking out of that brown paper bag that you pass every day going to work Christ testing you?