Influence of other married students or of a fad among students has been found to produce numerous hastily conceived marriages. The fact that fads are contagious was demonstrated at one high school in North Carolina. A few outstanding students eloped, and in a short time three to four percent of the students were married.
The
boom was stopped, however, with the sobering example of some immediate newly-wed
problems, and a strong anti-marriage sentiment took its place. Some young marriages
are even inspired by dares, drinking, or braggadocio. Other factors include
dissatisfactions with home or family life, and boredom with the whole life situation. In
rural areas especially, girls may rush into matrimony because of lack of challenge and
stimulation in their environment (Ivins, 1960).
Teenage married couples have revealed the following reasons for marrying. For
boys, reasons listed are: love, pregnancy of the girl, sex, desire to be independent,
desire for adventure, and desire for companionship. Girls give as their reasons: love,
desire to get away from home, pregnancy, wishes of parents, influence of friends getting
married, money, sex, and spite.
The overwhelming majority of those who marry young
are infatuated with each other, and they are under the impression that they are in love.
Miller (1963) reports a sudden rash of marriages among lower class urban boys
in their late teens, precipitated as if in response to a signal that said, "Now is the time
for group members to take a wife." As a rationale for marriage, the boys "forgot to buy
safes," their girls became pregnant, and they were then obliged to marry. The
forgetting was probably not accidental, since most of the boys had been using "safes"
since their early teens. It would appear that the marriages actually were voluntary on
the part of the boys and not forced.
Close relationships in high school serve a different function for adolescents who
are marriage-oriented, in comparison with those who are college-oriented or for other
reasons not marriage-oriented. More high school girls than high school boys are
involved in marriage-oriented dating.
There were a few students, especially girls, who were quite intent
on finding a mate. They did not care to go on to further their
education, and thus only wanted to get married. The result of this
for many was dating in accordance with the pattern of serious
dating. The girls in this group often went with boys who had
already graduated from high school.
Many girls in our senior class were engaged and making plans for
their summer weddings. In a small way I felt a part of them (since I
was going steady), a sense of belonging, and yet I felt very distant
from them because my immediate plans were of college, while
wedding plans were-what seemed then-far in the future.
For young adolescents, so far as percentages are concerned, marriage is a
minuscule pattern for relating to the opposite sex, since it is not the pattern of 95
percent or more of high school-age boys and girls. For older teenagers who do not
continue their education, marriage is a common and accepted pattern of behavior.