Marriage and Personal Development: Is it Impossible to Merge Both?
There are some malicious opinions aligned with marriage, such as the impossibility of further academic study, difficulties to advance careers, or even helping parents in need. Those opinions become a reason for some people to avoid marriage at a young age and thus postpone marriage to at least around 30 years of age. Funnily enough, the same people who admit the mentioned reason is also the people who are having an affair with the opposite sex without bonded in marriage, while simultaneously advancing their consecutive study and working with a side job for their financial support to ease parent’s shoulder. Inconsistently ironic.
I believe marriage is not something that would hinder personal development, whether it’s for having a master’s/Ph.D. degree, building a career, or just obedience to their parents. Instead, marriage itself could be considered a way to help people to achieve their condition more conveniently. You might ask: how and why?
By having an earlier marriage, we could get helping hands that elevate an enormous number of our burdens. A spouse would be a factor that splits our daily tasks so that we won’t be encumbered by whole household chores as a single person. Your wife might help to tidy up your files on the desk and could be a friend to discuss the topic taught by your lecturer just by the morning ago. Your husband is a person who could help you write your thesis or elaborate on how the problems that you’ve just faced in the office that evening should be encountered.
Other than that, a spouse is a great way for everyone alike to get the motivation to achieve their dream. It is no secret that behind every great man, there’s always a supportive woman; and the same also applies, that every great woman attains their dream through a man’s support. For sure, marriage is a tough relationship that inquires much responsibility to be fulfilled. But, that doesn’t mean such tasks eliminate any goodness within marriage. Instead, marriage itself offers much greater rewards than a burden that is only a few to count of.
Though I do know some couples didn’t go very well at their marriage in youth, however that cannot justify everybody else the same as theirs. There are also plenty of young couples that go very well through their marriage, while at the same time they also achieved a master’s degree and even doctoral study.
I have a friend who is having an undergraduate in Law degree, at the last semester he went built his path by marrying a hafidzah girl. On his graduation day, he goes to celebrate his newly acquired degree with his wife holding a baby on her shoulder. Lately, this friend of mine is continuing his study for a Management degree in Surakarta. He even asks my father for a recommendation letter for his admission.
I also know my senior a year above me who are married after a while of graduating from bachelor degree. Following several internships, he married a girl who was a member of organization same as his. Just some weeks ago, their baby was born.
As for myself, I’m in the process of pursuing my master’s degree abroad, while simultaneously undergoing a marriage that started few months ago in my 23. Gratefully, I already have several letters of acceptance (LoA) as I’m writing this. If I get to go abroad, surely I will bring my wife to study with me, since it’s our dream to experience going beyond the continents together.
You might say, that there are also couples who are having a terrible marriage or even had a divorce because their marriage was at a young age. But, if you look at most cases served by the media about their reason for breaking up, it could be concluded that the problem isn’t because of their youth. Instead, they broke up for a reason one of them is cheating, clinically mentally unstable, or impatient with the present economical condition.
We cannot say that young age determinates an absolute psychological condition for their instability because there are also couples who are mentally mature in their 20s. Maturity isn’t defined by age, it is formed by the background of education and social environment of each person. There’s also a chance that internal personality traits bring maturity at an earlier pace.
It is not fair either to say earlier ages could be a cause for a greater chance of cheating between spouses. Physiologically speaking, an action of cheat doesn’t happen only at a young age but also at a later age. The possibility of an elder betraying the trust of their years-bonded spouse isn’t zero. This foul act could only be done by persons who are having bad internal traits or lack good role of models from people around them, if there is no moral education given.
Assuming the primary obstacle is the financial status, then it would not match every condition either. Not every young adults are economically low-funded, since there are people who are better at having wages or previleges. Aditionally, the capability to manage finance between people is different, so there might be a couple who can spent their budget on a well divided planning. Therefore, it would be a better choice for each spouse to consult and be known to each other before taking the marriage, so they would understand what they are willing to take in their future marriage.
If I could conclude this writing, I would sum up every point of those people who are mocking an earlier marriage in a single sentence: do not make jokes about people who are eager to take the risks just because of personal reason.
I’m stating specifically on “personal reason”, since the perpetrators might concluding the failure of earlier marriage from their own experience or understanding. They may experienced a tragedy in their life, a divorced parents or had ill relationships, which unfortunately related to a young age. This, however, led to fear and refusal, subsequently forcing other people to avoid their loss in a hope to save the people from their own sorrow.
Some perpetrators might also have a least knowledge about the urgency of marriage, whether it’s from health benefit, emotion fulfillment, or religion abidement. In a result, they only gain information regarding marriage from the news outlet or social media, which often depicts selebrities divorce. Hence, they conclude about marriage with an insufficient understanding, even worse: spreading it.
It’s alright if some people do not want marry earlier, but that shouldn’t be a norm in a society. Marriage is a choice, it was made by an individual being coupled as collective decision. Thus, it’s up to those couple what should they do about their life, since marriage is a private concerns.
As a wise measure, we should not to take the words of others for our own life and instead we should choose our path. If we want to marry at a young age, then so be it: just marry. But if you do not, then just postpone it for the future, and never push everyone aside because they do not share the same view as yours.
[This article has been published on my personal blog too]
