Does Marriage at an early age signify how smart someone is?

[shogunblade]

This post, like many of my posts, comes with a very small story to try and place the set of mind for my writing this.

We all know my girlfriend story, I'm over that now, and if you don't know about it, trust me, it's finally gotten old for me too. Well, to refresh the story that makes this relevant, I had got my girlfriend pregnant and I thought an engagement ring and following wedding ring were in the mix. The baby didn't make it (She couldn't reproduce, I found out), but we were setting a date. Regardless if there was a baby involved or not, I did want to be with her, I wouldn't deny that. In December of 2008, we broke up, she gave me back the engagement ring and that was it.

Now, three years have gone by, she's married (I know nothing about her marriage life, I'd prefer to keep it that way), and I slowly look at all my friends and those I have graduated with. Some are getting married because a baby is in the mix and some are getting married because they found somebody they really like.

Although I have begun to ask myself that as I look at everybody that is getting married, I still see a vast majority of single classmates, and I start to wonder: The people who are not married yet are the ones with significantly higher GPA. I did not have a very good one (I think I was somewhere at 2.5) and I almost got married.

Now, the reason why I haven't, say, gotten married now is because my 18 year old self was walking on metaphorical sunshine and my 20 year old self (Soon to be 21 by next week) is finally starting to realize that real life is a very horrible thing, plus I look at my parents and wonder which one I'm more likely to be like (The calm one or the psychotic one) and think maybe getting married isn't what I need in my life.

to paraphrase Brad Pitt from Fight Club: "We are a generation of men raised by women, I wonder if another woman is really the answer I need."

But to the question to make this actually care some weight, do you think that marrying early signifies how smart someone really is, smart by Street Smarts? By GPA? By I.Q? Or is the pattern just simply uncanny? What say you, fellow Escapists?

 

[Eri]

I think there might be some correlation for sure. Getting married after only dating 1-2 years in my opinion is pretty stupid, especially the younger you are. I won't delve into numbers such as IQ or GPA "proving" how smart/dumb someone is, but in general, that's how I feel. Too much marriage for the wrong reasons.

 

[Paksenarrion]

Marrying early can signify various things:

shotgun marriage - irresponsible choices made followed by a traditional solution

early marriage - one or both are financially independent

human instrumentality project - cloning your wife's body to bring about the end of the world

So, lots of different reasons for marriage.

 

[SwagLordYoloson]

Well i have some cousins who are considered 'bogans' they all got married at 17 when the girl was 8 months pregnant..

But thats only because if they didn't get married the girl's fathers would probably kill them...

 

[Biosophilogical]

Well I'd consider all early marriages a big mistake. On a personalitylevel, you are probably still developing, so your tastes may change. From a social standpoint, between the fact that you both might not be financially independant, and the social stigma of early marriage, you are just asking for trouble. And finally, romantically; if you truly love each other, then delaying marriage means that a) if something goes wrong you don't have messy divorce issues or a long unhappy marriage (neither of which you'd want for the other person if you loved them) and b) if you really love each other, then you can always get married later.

So yeah, while I'm not against[footnote]Not completely anyway[/footnote] early marriages, I'm certainly a big fan of waiting.

EDIT: Oh yeah, intelligence ... well between pregnancy-weddings and impulse weddings, you are more likely to find people who have lower self-control, which may have affected their attentiveness in learning capacities (whether in an official school setting or a social/'street' setting). So intelligence wouldn't be the sole cause of early marriages[footnote]It would probably affect early marriages under certain circumstances[/footnote], it would have a decent shared correlation to the real underlying factors.

 

[w@rew0lf]

I find Marriage in general to be stupid.

 

[Frylock72]

Marrying early can signify various things:

shotgun marriage - irresponsible choices made followed by a traditional solution

early marriage - one or both are financially independent

human instrumentality project - cloning your wife's body to bring about the end of the world

So, lots of different reasons for marriage.

Bwahahaha! I never thought I'd see someone reference Evangelion so off-handedly. Bravo.

OT, I don't really see a correlation between intelligence and marriage. People who are intelligent will make smart choices most of the time, regardless of what the topic is. Marriage should be considered on a case-by-case basis, as the reasons for such a union are many and varied.

You could also say that the people who have higher GPAs are more focused on their grades (and eventual careers) than they are on their social lives, which is where marriage is more likely to come in. I consider myself a fairly smart person, but I don't find marriage appealing simply because I don't find being tied to someone appealing. I just don't want the responsibility.

In the end, there may be a correlation but it's likely localized to your school, as there are many people in the world who marry for many different reasons independent of their academic capabilities.

 

[Grand_Arcana]

Naivety.

I may find the girl of my dreams tomorrow, but I probably won't be married or have children until I'm in my mid 20's or early 30's. I've only recently gained the maturity to date someone (I'm 19), and I'm at least half a decade way from being financially secure. There may be a correlation with intelligence/GPA (mine's 3.06, would be higher if i didn't dick around on the Escapist so much).

 

[Zaik]

Yes, early marriages are a great way for a guy to ruin his life or lose half of everything he owns because he was too "in love" to possibly "insult" his girlfriend with a prenuptial agreement. Here's a hint folks, if she gets offended at the idea it's because she's already been thinking about doing it. Female anger = weather vane of truth.

I don't think that it is directly related to test scores though. Plenty of "smart" guys jump at the chance to get married and are shocked when it ends badly(for them).

 

[Gateboy34]

I am getting married in about 2 years; I have dated her for almost 3 years, and have been engaged since June. I'm almost done my second college year with a 3.83 GPA and I'm 20, so no I don't think GPA, IQ, or street smarts really factor into getting married.

Edit* Although maturity and reasons for getting married factor into the divorce rate.

 

[pezwitch]

But to the question to make this actually care some weight, do you think that marrying early signifies how smart someone really is, smart by Street Smarts? By GPA? By I.Q? Or is the pattern just simply uncanny? What say you, fellow Escapists?

Getting married early and staying married (or not) has nothing to do with intelligence. Emotional maturity maybe, but not intelligence.

Speaking of patterns, my husband and I hung out with a group of about ten people in high school and college. 20 years later, out of all our group, only two of them had children. The rest of us did not. And my husband and I are the only two of our group who got married to another in the group, so that is nine marriages total and seven without children.

Now, do I think approximately 70% of people my age don't have children? Or that 2/3 have a different intelligence than the other 1/3? No. I think that the majority of a like minded set of friends made the same decision.

It is probably why we are friends in the first place.

 

[Rayne870]

If you're smart you don't get married because you never know when you could lose half your stuff.

er...I mean..."love is the triumph of horny over smart"...no that's not it...

Yeah I don't really think there is any correlative data. I've seen both extremes and contradictions to those extremes, and from what I can tell love is just one of those unpredictable forces.

Getting married early and staying married (or not) has nothing to do with intelligence. Emotional maturity maybe, but not intelligence.

This right here is the exact truth of it.

 

[Cory Legros]

Marrying early can signify various things:

shotgun marriage - irresponsible choices made followed by a traditional solution

early marriage - one or both are financially independent

human instrumentality project - cloning your wife's body to bring about the end of the world

So, lots of different reasons for marriage.

Thank you so much for the evangelion reference I lol'd my ass off.

I think that intelligence is more departmental and that early irresponsible marriage does say something about the person(s) but that it doesn't have much to do with their IQ. Though the type of people to do worse in school may share many of the traits that lead to irresponsible marriage.

 

[Galliam]

My guess as far as GPA goes is that the higher ones have less time to socialize and breed since they're studying and doing more homework. However, in my college, there was a common joke that most women went to school to get their "mrs degree."

Yeah, that sickens me now. A lot of friends got into a relationship within a few weeks of freshman year, and were married within about 10 - 15 months usually.

It was no surprise to me that after 5 years the divorce rate from my school was around 75%. Seriously, its bad. I consider myself blessed that I didn't fall for it (I almost did)

Luckily for me as well, my current girlfriend whom I probably WILL marry at some point sees very eye to eye with me on this issue.

 

[Nick of Blades]

In my opinion, age has nothing to do with intelligence, and neither does the choice to marry early. How could those factor into the equation of how smart an individual is?

 

[Hader]

I think it can only be seen as stupid as most in their late teens/early twenties are not at a point of financial stability that would be any bit sufficient to start a family. Is it stupid to do this in general though? I would say no. I have seen some people make it work, some people be smart about such early marriages.