Culture of getting engaged young/ quick

EmmaBridgewater

Thanks for your responses!

19lottie82

I think the big difference is tho, that a generation or two ago, when people got engaged, they actually GOT married.



I see loads of people and celebrities that get “engaged” but never actually get hitched………. What’s the point in that?


Especially young people (late teens / early 20s), I think a lot of them announce they are engaged but don’t have any real plans to get married. Maybe it’s fashionable?

arbroath_lass

I'm 44 (similar to your parents?). I was married at 20 and I certainly wasn't unusual amongst my peers. Many who were not married were living with a partner by that age.

Edited to add we'd been engaged 18 months by the time we married.

(we're still married)

pops5588

I know my mama (grandmother) got married at my age (24) and had her first child two years later. I am nowhere near ready to get married!! However my little sister (22) is getting married in 3 weeks.

I do think young people are so eager to grow up so fast and do everything in a hurry. Like you, one of my friends from college got pregnant and married at 17, but is now getting divorced which is really sad, especially for her the two kids she ended up having. I would say about a third of all the people I went to school with have kids. Don't understand the appeal myself, I love that I still have so much more to experience in life.

But then everyone is different

silvermist05

I had my son at 17 was engaged and bought a house at 18. Now a lot of my school friends (we are now all around 34/35)are starting to settle down. I find it quite strange as I did the things they are doing now 17 years ago.

BitterAndTwisted

I think some people just enjoy the fuss being made of them when they announce they're engaged whether they end up getting wed or not

When I was a youngster it was mostly the academic low-achievers who got engaged/married/preggers before they were out of their teens. And not necessarily in that order, either.

thorsoak

In 1961, I became engaged - 6 weeks off my 18th birthday!!! Married two years later, 3 weeks after 20th birthday. Moved into our new (mortgaged) home at the same time. 1st baby born in 1966.

daisiegg

My parents and their brothers and sisters and friends were all engaged, married, mortgaged, and starting families in early twenties. They are all still together 25 years later.

Now, I am 25 and can think of very few people from my year at school who are married. In my old friendship group of about twenty girls and boys, I am the first, and I only got married this year. Two others are engaged (not to each other!) and one from my friendship group has a child that she had at 20, not with the child's father. Don't know whether it's because we almost all went to university? Out of the 150 odd from the year group I know of only about 10 who are married by the age of 25.

So no, my experience is the opposite - I don't know other people getting married young, and my parents' generation seemed to do it much younger!

ETA - for 'married', also read 'engaged'; I have never known anyone get engaged and not set a date straight away.

maman

I know my comment is a bit of a stereotype and everyone will have an example of exceptions BUT.....

I think it rather depends on the aspirations of the person. Those who want to study, start a career, get on the property ladder, build a home(maybe get a dog;)), spend some time with partner perhaps travelling or just enjoying life don't, in my experience, get engaged or married really young. It's as if those that do replace all/many of the things I've listed with having a partner and then, almost, inevitably children.

It could be looked on as personal choice or that some people do both but generally it's one or the other. Personally I'd favour leaving it late but there will be plenty of 'child brides' along to tell you different I'm sure.

You asked for an 'older' person's opinion. I may be old fashioned but the oddest thing I find is the fashion for meeting someone, having a child/children, then getting engaged and eventually getting married with the children at the wedding. That still feels really odd to me.

ETA: interesting to see cross posts that seem to agree. I didn't like to say university educated v low achievers but it does rather fit my argument.

codemonkey

I think these things go in cycles. So while my grandparents and my admittedly older parents (old enough to be your grandparents OP) married in their late teens, when I was in my late teens and early 20s, it wasn't fashionable to get engaged or married at all and most people just lived together. Now it's fashionable again maybe because celebrities are at it all the time, or because of the wedding shows or just a shift in attitude.

This is not to say that people who get married at a young age do it for the wrong reasons. Just that 10-15 years ago, it was less fashionable to get married at all.

I was 31 when I got married and 30 when we got engaged and met my DH when I was 29. Looking back, I was a very different person at 18, than I am now and I don't think I would have been ready for marriage back then.

seven-day-weekend

EmmaBridgewater wrote: »

I'm interested in older people's (sorry!!) opinions..

It seems every day someone from my school year (21) is getting engaged. We are in about 10% engaged and a further 10% with children, some more than one. Two marriages (and one soon to be divorce...)

I'm wondering whether it was like this for people my parents age too? Obviously you didn't find out about it on Facebook! My parents, and friends parents all met in their mid twenties and got married mid-late, I'm sure there were people who got engaged younger but were there as many as now?

I met my husband in June and got married in October the same year, didn't bother getting engaged . We were 21 and 22. It's our 42nd Wedding Anniversary tomorrow

Most of my friends were married with children in their early twenties.


I think people get together later now.