Thanks for the kind words. I think I was open with the youth for all the reasons that you pointed out. Our youth find out more about sex on MTV than I learned about it between the ages of 7 – 17. It is important to be direct and succinct with them or they think that you are stupid.

One of the most positive experiences of exposing me to this teaching was at a youth conference in the late 70’s in Oakland, California. The speaker told a standing room only crowd of young men and women in detail the physical differences between men and women, the sacred nature of those differences and what was taboo. In a very succinct way he left nothing to the imagination.

As far as waiting a year to get married. I do not know if it is realistic. I did not do it and I am not sure if I would have married my current wife if I did (do not read to much into this because I love her dearly and would be lost without her).

I think the point is as has been stated earlier. We just are not that mature when we are in our late teens and early twenties and getting married quickly because we cannot stop rolling all over the floor together every night seems like the wrong reason to be getting married. After all are we not to keep our appetites within the boundries that the Lord has set? Just something to ponder.

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/hbo-now-casting-volunteers-for-upcoming-reality-tv-show-arranged-marriage

website for the TV show: http://www.arrangedmarriagetv.com

I also like your idea that couples who are committed to marry get to know each other for a year. But is that realistic for most couples? I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on this and why you were concerned when couples set a date far away, then moved it up. This is very common from what I’ve seen.

We do have a unique culture in the church. I can identify with so much that has been said thus far.

I started dating my wife in April, we were engaged in June and married in Septemeber. There has been some very trying times and on occassion I look back and attribute it to our youth. 25 years later things are fun and well…….comfortable.

My 19 year old niece was married recently. I was so concerned for her until I was in the sealing ceremony and listed to the sealer speak to them. I was overcome with the feeling that they were doing the right thing. It was a fantastic experience. They have one baby with one on the way, they are struggling and very much passionate about the struggle they are engaged in. Committment to each other, their growing family and making the gospel their focal point.

After all I have experienced as a dater, friend of daters, fiance’, Youth Leader and Bishop I think the ideal is when you find someone and you are committed to marry that you get to know that person for a year. I would always get concerned (still do) when a couple sets a date a ways off to get married then two weeks later they have moved up to six weeks later (Translation “no way can we wait to have sex that long”). I cannot tell you how many young couples came into my office to let me know they were concerned that they were getting to physical and what should they do. My response was always the same. “Get it under control or call it all off”. That always took them aback just a little.

My mission president never told me to get married within 6 months but I think that was a 70’s deal. That is what my older brothers were told but it took them both almost a decade. Those that I know personally that told me they were given that instruction are now divorced. If it was given it was not very wise counsel.

Our young people are more sexually aware. It is all around us TV, Internet, School, friends etc. I really think we do our kids a disservice in this area. When I taught seminary and when I was a Bishop we had very blunt discussion about boundries and what is appropriate and what isn’t. We also spent time discussion intimacy without being physical and how fulfilling that it can be.

We truly do have a marriage culture and I think that it is a great thing. The one thing that does sadden me is how many sisters that are great people spend their lives alone and no this is not a plug for polygamy.

Perhaps the story originated from missionaries who just *acted* like they had a deadline.

My mission president didn’t give me a deadline when I was released, but he did instruct me to keep my hands off the breasts when I was on a date. That might have been good advice for some, but for an introvert who resisted dating, it was kind of pointless. He might just as well have counseled me not to punch Queen Elizabeth in the mouth whenever I visited her.

I am skeptical of the motives of a much older man in seeking a bride among those who have so little life experience. It seems like he may want to control or mold her.

And we all know the job of controlling and molding should be held exclusively by the wife!
Oh no he di’n't go there! Oh SNAP!

This is simply not the case in the larger society. Compared to 20 million single people in America in 1960, there are 90 million singles today. The implications are staggering and too numerous to mention in this writing. A very good case can be made for marriage, individually and societally. There are immature marriages and sometimes they mature and sometimes they break up. There are worse things than marrying young. Ideally, we marry wisely at various stages of life.

I met my wife when I was 16; she was 15. We didn’t date until she turned 16 – six months later, but I knew within a week that I would marry her. There was no doubt in my mind – none whatsoever. That was weird for me, since I was convinced before we met that I wouldn’t meet my wife until after my mission.

Everything changed the instant I saw her. It just clicked. It felt like coming across your best friend whom you hadn’t seen in years – no awkwardness, no trying to figure out how to talk or what to say, no sense of doubt or concern, nothing like that. It was as close to love at first sight as I can imagine – the ancient concept of split-aparts – of finding your other half. That was 26 years and 6 kids ago.

Those experiences are not unique to Mormons, but I think we are more prone to accept it and get married, whereas others who accept it are more prone to wait, live together for a while, etc. It’s important in this discussion, imo, to recognize that discrepancy right up front. One of the biggest reasons we marry younger simply is that we don’t accept the alternatives.

This October will be our 18th anniversary. We have 6 kids and it was very difficult making ends meet most of the time.

I would recommend getting married to someone like I did, but I would also recommend NOT having children until people are done with their career education.

I don’t know if this is truly the issue so much as the fact that as you get older without marriage you start to think about a lot of things.

Things like:

Will my grandparents still be alive to see me get married?

Will my father live to see my children grow-up and marry? Even my oldest?

Will my children be able to remember their grandparents?

Will I live to see my grandchildren get married?

Will I live to see even just my oldest grandson serve a mission, or get married?

As you approach age 30 without being married the probability of all these things begin to greatly decrease, and any sensible man would start to worry about them.

Not to mention the issue of how many children are you going to have. This is particularly true for women. Suppose you are looking to have 5 or 6 kids. As a woman, if you aren’t married by 25 or so, that becomes an increasingly harder thing to accomplish.

All these things are normal and appropriate things to worry about. But our surrounding culture dismisses these things as of lower importance. That is why Mormon culture and the surrounding cultures give such very different answers about the appropriate age to marry.

If your family life is the center of joy in your world, then you will naturally want to marry younger for a multitude of rational reasons.

“Anyway, the sad thing that I have noticed for a lot of young women in the church is that getting married is a kind of social step. They quickly look down the other women they talk to if they are not married and gather in little groups with other married women as if they belonged to a private club.”

Maybe that’s the pervasive influence of Pride and Prejudice on our culture!

But I did just have a pair of Mormon friends decide to elope. I thought they’d been broken up for awhile and were moving on with their lives (the guy had even taken some interest in me). Then I find out one Sunday afternoon they eloped. Despite my attempts to keep in contact, I haven’t heard a word from them since. But their wedding video is on YouTube.

I remember reading in Seventeen magazine years ago an article with profiles of teenagers from around the country, and the one girl from Utah was the one of a few who mentioned marriage, and she went as far as to say that her goal was to be married by 21. I laughed at this when I first read it, but in recent years have found it to be more or less a trend with some Mormon young women. They *need* to get married by 21 or they’ll be an old maid. I think too many people put too much emphasis on the supposed Brigham Young quote about getting married before 25 or you’re a menace to society. I’ve known a handful of young men – most of them wonderful – who think they’re failing their priesthood because they’re 28 and not married. If you live your life right, serve a faithful mission, and get called as Elders Quorum president you should be married within six months, right? Not so much.

I also understand what you mean about young brides turning into authorities. I had the same experience when I was in college and my best friend got married. Two weeks after her marriage, she was patting me on the knee and saying the same kind sof you’ll-understand-when-you’re-married comments and talking to me as if we lived in different worlds.

Anyway, the sad thing that I have noticed for a lot of young women in the church is that getting married is a kind of social step. They quickly look down the other women they talk to if they are not married and gather in little groups with other married women as if they belonged to a private club.

As they grow older this tends to disapear but it may take a good 15 years to disapear.

I remember this specific “girl” I knew from young women who got married and who moved in my ward like four years ago. We talked about a stupid subject of which I don’t remember specifically but that had to do with life with the opposite sex. She is younger than me and she laid her hand on my knee in a very grand mother way and told me “you’ll see when you’re married”. I froze, I almost shouted “Girl, I lost it before you did and according to your angel like way to look at life I am pretty sure that I know more about it than you do”. Then this girl thinking that being married gave her a special authority close to what priesthood is thought it would be smart to mingle with my sisters’ situation and our parents issue. She messed up so bad that it all ended up in the bishop office and she left crying. My mother was told by her husband that she had be mean. She had not, she had been blunt and had put the naked truth in front of her face. She has started learning from then.
This is pretty stereotyped but this is also very common.
I can tell you about this other woman in my ward that I remember as a little girl who pretty much take in consideration only married women when she talks.
And it is the same all over my country. It is not a rule but it is extremly frequent.
When I was younger it made me sick. Now it makes me laugh.
This is why I have always loved to talk and to be friend with older people, they often know that the things that are a big deal to the younger generations won’t matter in the long run or will matter very differently as time passes by.
In my ward we are also lucky to have two women over 60 who are just the greatest and who both went through a rough time when married, so they know better ;o)

My pet peeve not on your list is more specifically a 19 year old bride with a significantly older groom (e.g. 25 or 26). Maybe in Jane Austen’s day this was a good norm, but I am skeptical of the motives of a much older man in seeking a bride among those who have so little life experience. It seems like he may want to control or mold her. Obviously, that’s a stereotype, but it’s also something I was cautious about at that age. And IME, no one that much older who was interested in me really knew the first thing about me (or he would have run the other way!).

You may worry about 19 year old LDS brides, but with a gospel upbringing, they stand a much better chance of making it work.