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    I Do, Part Two

    Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 10:29 AM | By Emily Yoffe
    Dayo, you say the article in the Washington Post “conflates enthusiasm for child-rearing with enthusiasm for marriage—a mythology one would think modern reality continually explodes.” Modern reality is exploding the connection between these two events, much to the disservice of the now 40 percent of children born to unwed mothers in this country. And there is no getting around the fact that women putting off marriage and childbearing until well into their thirties raises the risks of compromised fertility. I am the result of an early marriage—my mother was 19 and father 20 when they got married, and I was born a year later. Theirs was a thoroughly disastrous union and both my parents urged me not to get married, or if I had to, not to do it young. I grew up thinking that a major part of what made their marriage so bitter was they both felt it had robbed them of their youth. In an overreaction, I didn't marry until I was 38. Because of my own experience, I used to think it was crazy to get married early. Now I'm not so sure (although I'm not talking about teen marriage). I used to think marrying your high school or college sweetheart led inevitably to feeling a desperate desire for a fresh partner when you're 40. But maybe finding early love and making it permanent might be a beneficial thing for many people. It certainly saves on the years of heartache, dead ends, and wondering if you'll find someone while you can still have children.
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