What if the world was full of happy couples who last forever and are considered normal, not just “lucky”? Imagine that. A world where divorces are as rare as diamonds. This could become a reality if we raise the minimum age of marriage to twenty three.
39.3% of married people under twenty were divorced and of married people between the ages 20-24, 75.4% were divorced. This leaves us to wonder: why are so many of our young people getting divorced?
Because people get married so young, they tend to rush into it, instead of thinking it through. When they reflect upon this in their later years, they realise that it is not true love; they were simply too young to realise they didn’t truly love each other.
In my opinion, sixteen is too young an age to be married. Most are still in high school, doing their GSCEs. Marriage can be stressful. These stresses on a teenager’s still-developing mind can lead to mental health issues, which in turn has an impact on their career, social life and happiness. Furthermore, the increased divorce rate leads to the added pressure of debt for many.
Overall, the negatives of young marriage far outweigh the positives. If we raised the minimum marrying age to twenty three, divorce rates would drop and the world would be a better place altogether. The real question is, should we let teenagers make huge decisions about their future, or shouldn’t we? What do you think?
Would you like your 16 year old child to get married this young ?
60% of people who get married aged 16-25 end up with a divorce. If you raised the minimum age to marry to twenty maybe divorce may not be so common. I know this sounds crazy but just keep reading.
Currently the legal age to marry is sixteen but what if we raised that to twenty. Studies show that if people get married when they are older, they stay together for longer and not as many get divorced. This shows that if you are older and more mature you don’t have a higher chance of divorce. I believe that the legal age to marry should be twenty because when you get to that age or over you are, in most cases, more mature and know that marriage is a big commitment and important.
Imagine a place where marriage was pretty much unheard of. This could be true if the legal age to marry was twenty. People would have children and those children would grow up in a home that isn’t broken into two. Although divorce would still happen, it would be less likely because people would think about what marriage means and how they are saying that they will be with that person forever.
16-17 year olds don’t really understand what to do when they love someone. They don’t really get to know each other that well and sometimes marry each other because of how they look. Usually they meet and then after a month or two they move in together then get engaged soon after. There is a program called Love is Blind where two people get to know each other without ever seeing their face. Once you feel like you have found the one you get engaged and in four weeks get married. Although it shows you don’t have to love someone because of their looks, it still rushes the people to propose when they don’t know everything about each other.
Overall I believe the age to legally marry should be twenty because of all the reasons stated above and also I believe people shouldn’t rush into marriage cause you don’t have to, if the person you loves leaves you because you didn’t get married straight away then they obviously didn’t truly love you.
St Monica's Creative Writing Blog 