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Originally posted by Munchkin03
...what is it about Southern "culture" that encourages marriage before financial stability and life experience?
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and
Quote:
Originally posted by AGDee
While I am a generation earlier (or two) than most of you, the pressure was definitely there for my peer group. Most of us married someone we met in college, about a year after graduating. Those who didn't go to college got married earlier. There was definitely pressure in the Italian culture. When I attended a second cousins' high school graduation party, (I graduated the same year), her dad asked me "So, you are graduated too, when are you getting married?". My mom saved me by saying "We have to check out these men and make sure they're good enough for her". He replied "You wan't anybody checked out, you let me know"... lol. We suspect he's in a "family" business.
Here's the way I see it, in my area anyway: One of my grandmothers was married at 16, one was married at 17. My mom was a rare woman who went to college and she quit after two years to marry my dad (age 21). I finished college and got a job, then got married (age 24). I figure my daughter will finish college, grad school, maybe her PhD (she's a bright gal!) and then get married after her career is very firmly established. (probably 28-30).
The age gets later and later as women develop higher career goals and expectations.
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I think highly-educated women marry at different ages, young and old--some not at all. I am not willing to bet the "house" on the fact that highly-educated women are doomed to be spinsters...
I am in my mid-late 30's and have never been pregnant. I think the issue was mine to determine. Not really my family's. Oh yeah, I had all the pressure in the world the minute I graduated from college and got a Master's degree. But it was mainly my father that told me I had to get my Ph.D. because he wanted me financially set and not reliant on any man...
However, I have been approached by men with a lot of money, millionaires, and I have rejected them because of what they wanted to do as their "girlfriend"--not even to "engage" me or for me to be their wife.
So as far as stability goes, I think it is important the both in a maritial relationship ought to be finanically fit--like no one is short of being homeless, with no job, no teeth and not clean with matted hair... And that they need to be mental stable. Because life's too short to be dealing with some lunatic's idiosyncracies at any length in time...
I guess the best advice one can give those newly engaged is:...