Gina Christo
If you have access to the Internet, you have probably seen articles like “23 Things To Do Before Marriage” or the response “23 Things I Can Still Do After I Get Married at 22.” You have probably seen the Instagrams and status updates about new engagements and the subsequent tweets by people tired of seeing such posts. Quite frankly, I am over this entire online dialogue.
Everyone needs to simmer down with the declarative statements about the benefits or disadvantage of marriages for people in their twenties. The truth of the matter is, it is different for everyone. I came to college staunchly in the ‘Don’t Get Married Until You Are Established and In Your Late Twenties’ camp, as I am a product of two parents who had previous divorces. However, if coming to college has taught me anything, it is that everything, in this case marriage, is different for everyone. Some people will get married at 22 and be extremely happy, while others will wait and be happy as well.
The mudslinging between these two camps must stop. There is not enough space in this newspaper for me to list all of the better things we should be talking about, but let me list a few: institutionalized racism and classism, climate change, education reform, voter suppression, the cost of college these days, et cetera.
Also, has anyone else noticed that these articles are all targeted at women? You don’t see GQ writing “22 Reasons for Men to Get Married Before 22.” As per usual, the entire rhetoric of when or when not to get married is a one-sided conversation directed at women. So let’s stop playing into this clear but skewed vision of womanhood and talk about something more substantive!
It is not that I believe we should stop talking about marriage and weddings all together; my wedding board on Pinterest is a point of pride for me. However, what I would like to see stop is the passive aggression toward people’s personal life decisions paired with us buying into this 1950s perception of what it means to be a woman. So stop subtweeting and let people be themselves. If you really feel strongly against someone getting married so young or vice versa, perhaps you have some reflecting to do as to why this is so upsetting for you.
Furthermore, there is a privilege in being able to have these kinds of conversations. As a lesbian-identified woman, unless Joseph Gordon-Levitt returns the letter I wrote him asking him to prom four years ago, I am going to have to be strategic about my life choices if I want to get married. I am very invested in Ohio’s activist scene and in other conservative states that have not legalized gay marriage. So where does that leave me? Even if I wanted to get married at 22, the logistics behind that are full of challenges. While this is the only limitation to getting married that I can speak to, this issue goes beyond sexuality. Marriage is not available to everyone, whether for legal, cultural or economic reasons, so let’s stop understanding it as if it is.
Overall, I think we as a generation have better things to talk about than someone else’s marriage. Passing that kind of judgment is unkind and a waste of time. I say this as a person who used to be very vocal in my critique of younger people getting married but has come to revise this standpoint because people I care about are starting to become those I once critiqued. People are different and are going to live their lives as they choose. So instead of writing Huffington Post articles about how horrendous or wonderful this is, le’ts be supportive of our friends and colleagues and talk about something else.