In the United States you can marry just about anyone you want. Why is it so simple to enter into a marriage but so complex to dissolve one? It is common knowledge that people to not reach full maturation until their mid twenties. With this in mind, why do we promote the idea of marriage to those who have not fully developed? It is nothing short of a very risky gamble to get married, or marry someone, who has yet to reach full neurological development.
There are no prerequisites to marriage, no compatibility test, and certainly no requirement of emotional maturity. According to research, those who marry between the ages of 20-24 are most likely to divorce. This speaks to the dangers of marrying young. Not only is early marriage associated with lower education for both women and men, it often has real economic impacts on women’s financial independence.
Early marriage can be a quick recipe for divorce because one or both parties made the decision to marry without having the benefit of consulting with their developed brain. Emotional immaturity and impulsiveness are inevitable parts of one’s early twenties. Marrying someone when you have yet to establish your sense of self as a fully developed adult is setting your marriage up for failure. It is much easier to enter into a life long partnership when you have some real goals and values. As lovely as it sounds, it is very unlikely that you and your spouse will grow together in the same direction from your early twenties on into the rest of your life. No one wants to be divorced at all, let alone in their twenties or early thirties. Save yourself the headache and wait until you are a fully developed human before partnering with someone else for life.
