“So, you’re married at twenty-two? Why? That seems pretty young.”
This question, before several other logical ones, was the
first asked on a phone interview for a nanny position in Austin, Texas back in
the fall of 2011. I had just gotten married, and I was looking for transitional
work in-between a disappointing stint at Anthropologie and what I assumed would
be my big break. To be fair, this mother probably had little-to-no experience
with conducting a professional interview, but nonetheless, the question she asked
was jarring. Immediately, I was in the position of having to defend a decision
that seemed to have nothing to do with my qualifications as a nanny.
I felt slightly electrocuted by this question, but when I
think about where she was coming from, I mostly get it. This mom was reading my
Care.com profile, saw that I got married right out of college, and suddenly she
was picturing me with long fingernails and an ankle-length denim skirt. She’s
imagining me teaching her daughter the dangers of book-reading and that belief
in dinosaurs is an evil akin to murder.
Needless to say, I did not get the job. It was at this time
that I realized that I was going to need a pre-packaged defense, and whatever
it was needed to make me sound as normal as possible. Since moving to New York
and starting a job where I talk to new people every day, I am asked the
married-at-twenty-two question on an almost-daily basis. Usually people ask it
with a face that looks like they just ate a bug. A preemptive response has not
really formed yet for me, and it usually goes something like, “Yeah, I know. It’s
weird. I mean, I don’t even own a long denim skirt. Wait. I mean, I do, but it’s
calf-length. Anyway…and we dated for a long time…and I’m not saying I recommend
it for everyone, or anyone even, but you know. It’s just like…”
It also doesn’t help that, at twenty-three-years-old, I look
way younger than my age. I don’t know what exactly happened, but at the age of
thirteen, my body was like I’m just going
to camp out here until you’re thirty, and at that point I’ll just skip ahead to
about eighty-three (I’m assuming this is what is going to happen, and I’m
terrified). When people ask me why I got married so young, they might also be
wondering if it was difficult for me to plan a wedding while teething or if I
had my blankey with me on our honeymoon.
But I digress…
I’ve had a pretty long time to process
this whole married-at-twenty-two question, and the more I think about it, the
more I wonder why I even have to answer it at all. I am supremely proud of my
marriage. My husband is brilliant, loyal, strong, patient, hilarious, handsome
as a Disney prince, and he legitimately enjoys watching Project Runway with me. Through the six years that we dated, our
relationship grew in maturity on a foundation of trust and patience. In terms
of my decision to marry him, I am nothing but confident.
 |
| Don’t we seem confident? By the way, the thirteen-year-old boy is me and the smoldering gentlemen is my husband. Also, we don’t usually dress this way, but we wish we did. |
Throughout our first year of marriage, it
has become more and more clear that there exists a kind of quasi-prejudice
against women who marry out of college. It’s not so strong that it keeps us
from getting work (unless you want to be a nanny for that one lady’s kids, I
guess) or that it infringes on any basic human rights, but it is enough to make
me, and others like me, feel sort of dismissed.
I was reflecting on these feelings one
day when my sister sent me an op-ed piece written by a woman in a similar
situation. Her name is Lauren Ambler and she is also married at the ripe age of
twenty-two. She titles her piece, I’m
Married Young and I’m Ashamed of It, which struck me initially as a
tongue-and-cheek way of saying some of the same things that I had been thinking.
I thought this girl and I were going to relate, and I would give her a big
high-five by way of the comments-section.
Tragically, Lauren Ambler and I do not exactly
relate. Feel free to check out her article. Having married her boyfriend under unique circumstances (he needed
a visa to stay in the country), she is definitely not exactly like me, but in
many ways she is. Like Ambler, I never fantasized as a child about my wedding
or even about a husband. I also agree that seeing marriage as a goal is
dangerous for women on both an individual and ultimately larger scale. I
certainly understand feeling the need to convince my single friends that I am
not going to fall asleep if we go get margaritas (I might, but I just have a
really strong tequila response).
I do sympathize with some of Ambler’s
hesitations about the institution of marriage. We easily recall a time when
most women in America married at young ages (a large percentage, as early as nineteen-years-old),
never to work towards goals outside of their own homes. If these women did
work, it was to bide their time as they prayed against spinsterhood.
Homemaking was revered as a woman’s great American duty. While I see absolutely
nothing wrong with stay-at-home moms (I know several and they crush it 24/7), I
am happy to live in a world with options.
Where I differ most with Ambler, apart
from the fact that I totally disagree on her stance that marriage should be open,
is when she calls herself a “child bride”. This is the thing that we millenials
are constantly criticized for: that we prolong our childhood in a way that
makes us helpless even at an age where we should be considered adults. I am not
a child. My married friends of the same age are, by no means, children. We are
adults who have made a choice, and we are sticking by it.
Now, that being said, I do not think this
is for everyone. If it exists, I will not be joining the Coalition to Increase
Young Marriages (It doesn’t exist. I just googled it). I think getting married
young is largely a mistake for many for the same reasons that some would assume
it is a mistake for me. We all know the potential damage that this could cause
for a woman. She could drop all of her dreams. She could lose all of her
friends. She could decide he’s a skeevy dirt-bag and suffer through a senseless
divorce only to find that she has no support left. This kind of thing really
does happen all of the time, and it is a shame.
But certainly this is not a uniform fate
for every woman who marries young. Certainly there are those of us who feel
logically compelled to make this decision based on our lengthy commitment, our
unfaltering love for our husbands, and our determination to pursue our passions
alongside the ones we love, not despite them.
You might call us the exception to the
rule, but I don’t think I even like the rule to begin with. American women are
far more progressive than that. Being “single” and being a “spinster” are no
longer synonymous terms. You can be a mom and an astronaut and a tattoo artist
and a grad student four times over, and in all of that, you don’t have to marry
anyone, and everyone is (or should be) totally cool with that. We owe a huge
debt of gratitude to those who went before us and awakened the world to a new
realm of legitimate options for women.
All I ask is that you at least consider
the legitimacy of my option as well. Could we be progressive enough to reappropriate
marriage-after-college to be a respectable choice instead of an enslaving
fun-sucker? Are we that radical yet?
It probably isn’t entirely fair to appeal
to your sense of rebellion. Use that revolutionary instinct to tackle far more important
women’s issues, like promoting economic justice and getting Lindsay Lohan back
to her Parent Trap days.
Just let me, in all of my marriedness,
come with you.
