Miley and Liam: Are They Too Young For Marriage?
Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth are engaged to be married, but with statistics saying we’re getting married a lot older, can young couples make a marriage work?
Miley and Liam are 19 and 22, an age group that rarely get married in this day and age, but are planning on spending the rest of their lives together.
Although young marriage was the norm in the UK a century ago, and still is in many countries across the world, times have changed and it seems that couples are waiting until late twenties to early thirties to get married now.
The stigma that divorce used to carry no longer stands so strong, around 2/3 of marriages end in divorce, and people are no longer ashamed to admit that they’ve been through one.
Does this mean that people are getting married on the pretence that if it doesn’t work out, they can always get a divorce and carry on with their lives? A number of celebrities have had marriages annulled just days after getting married because they realised they made a mistake.
Kim Kardashian famously divorced husband Kris Humphreys after just 72 days of marriage after their marriage wasn’t working out the way they had planned.
This would never have happened years ago, due to the stigma attached to being a divorced woman. Even today, some societies see it as a disgrace as is displayed in the television show My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.
Of course, I’m not saying that all couples that married young stayed together because it was shameful to get divorced; some genuinely have loved spending their lives together and have proved that marriage still has sanctity in it, but recent figures show that marriage doesn’t happen until later in life.
The Office for National Statistics showed that the average age of first time marriages are 29 for women and 32 for men.
Many issues may contribute to this. There is less pressure for women to get married and become a housewife now, and living together with a child isn’t an unusual situation for most young couples to find themselves in.
Marriage is an expensive journey, the wedding itself costs on average £20,000, then there is the marital home and the costs that come with that, and then the added cost of any children. You can see why couples are choosing to wait.
Divorce is pricey too, so it seems as though it’s sensible to wait until you’re absolutely sure of the person you wish to marry before making such a big, and expensive, commitment.
It’s understandable that couples want to show their love for each other through marriage, but it seems as though the sensible thing to do at the moment is to wait until you’re financially stable, and 100 per cent sure that you can live the rest of your life together.
Cara Mason
Tagged in Miley Cyrus Marriage Liam Hemsworth Couples