Where I deviate rather strongly from the norm is my belief in the ability of teenagers to make informed moral choices. This is not to say they should be ripped from home and cannot benefit from the wisdom of their parents. It is merely to say that the expectation that a teenager is capable of ordering his affairs properly is not an improper demand. While not excusing criminal acts that occur to teenagers, I am claiming that teenagers and young adults should have the prudence to avoid situations where they can be victimized. Of course, I’m not ignorant of the fact that many of these teenagers and young adults have intentionally had these wisdom witheld from them and have been encouraged in their ignorance. In a fascinated review at Taki’s Top Drawer, R. Cort Kirkwood reviews the book “The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen” and offers highlights and his own thoughts on this matter. One of the issues he addressed is love and marriage. It is excerpted below the fold.
Apart from the long list of don’ts imposed upon teenagers, society infantilizes teens by prohibiting them from pursuing love and sex. Citing the plethora of incoherent laws that forbid carnal activity to teens, Epstein adds the prohibition on marriage to the prohibition on work as one of the key methods adults use to infantilize teens. The strict laws regulating sexual behavior became necessary because the experts concluded that young men and women were too “immature” for that ultimate of “adult” relationships, marriage.
As with work, until the 20th century younger teenagers were permitted and encouraged to pursue romance. Epstein explains that modern sensibilities forced an erroneous depiction of Romeo and Juliet as 40-year-olds instead of what they were: not just teenagers but young teenagers. Epstein begins this section of the book with the story of a woman who, at 13, married a 21-year-old man and stayed married for more than 80 years. Today, her husband would be jailed.
What do we know that our ancestors didn’t? Not much. Epstein cites four presidential wives who married as teenagers and stayed married for their entire lives, including Rosalynn Carter and Barbara Bush. In the old days, marriages lasted longer than ours, yet today we reserve marriage for “adults.” However, the divorce rate among adults shows they aren’t much more successful than teenagers might be. Indeed, men who marry young tend to have successful marriages more often than not. This isn’t to say all teenagers are ready for marriage. But obviously many are.
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