Marrying young

There's a huge Red State/ Blue State disconnect in this MSN lifestyles article on how kuh-razee it is to get married at 24.

I was younger than that when I got married, which is not unusual where I come from. In fact I got married a lot later than most of my high school classmates. I suspected they were starting to talk about ol' See Dub, up there at that Academy for Fancy Lads...there was always something a little funny about him.

(Continued after the jump)

Ol' Seedub knew what he was doing, however. While being in love often makes people do stupid things, in my case it me do an extremely smart thing and act decisively. Years, miles, and two kids later I think it was a very good decision. (You'll have to take my word for it. Mrs. See-Dub is not available for comment!)

I don't recommend that for everyone, of course...and I'm afraid my home state's high divorce rate is in part caused by people getting married too young, and perhaps not having their characters sufficiently settled or tested before they slap on the ball and chain.

But I find the presumption that getting married before your car insurance rates start to drop is this crazy, wacky, impulsive thing to do a little irritating. A lot of people do it, and it often works out very well. There are many good reasons for it, reasons besides this odd one from the article: getting married young undercuts your chance to advance your career by sleeping around:

But there's been a downside for me, too. While I knew that committing to Rob obviously meant a big change in my life — it would really cut into my dating — it never occurred to me how tying the knot might affect my career. Outside of a sunburn from our on-the-cheap weeklong honeymoon in Portugal, nothing, as far as I was concerned, had really changed. But in the eyes of the world, I had. I was a wife. Off-limits. Some days it seemed everywhere I looked — publishing, retail, the art world — doors were opening for single women simply because they still had sexual currency to spread around.

As a feminist, I was embarrassed and horrified by the idea that a woman today (say, me) would use sex, or the promise of it, to get ahead, but it did seem you could move up the ladder of success a lot faster if you were potentially available. When, at a party, a very famous, very dashing older novelist put his hand around my waist and asked me if I wanted to go skinny-dipping later that evening, my first thought was, Wouldn't that be a story to tell the grandchildren? Forget that — wouldn't it be good for my career? My second thought: I'm married. "I can't," I said, regretfully holding up my left hand, feeling like I was flashing an invisible handcuff. "Oh, come on," he said in a conspiratorial whisper. Then, before I could answer, he shrugged and moved on. I felt a pang.

Some feminist. One of your greatest regrets is giving up the chance to be used as a plaything by some old goat--one who doesn't even let a wedding ring stop his advances? That's one for the grandkids, all right.

Anyway, it's yet another example of gorillas-in-the-mist reporting about exotic, bizarre red-state values and rituals--values and rituals which strike me as neither particularly exotic nor bizarre. It's always amusing, if a bit alienating, when you discover you're the gorilla.