Sunday, November 10, 2013

Mormon Questions: Young Married Mormons

Carter and I in front of the Salt Lake Temple a month before we were married there.
A while ago I read this post called How to Train A Mormon and I haven't been able to get the topic out of my head since. In the post, the author explains that when she was young and naive she expected people outside of Utah to ask questions about her "glowing light" and why she was so happy. Instead, she was surprised to face questions more like, "Why don't you drink coffee?" and "Why do you wait to have sex until marriage?" In the article, the author goes on to talk about obedience and why mormons aren't weird and yada yada.

The article got me thinking though, what questions am I asked about Mormonism and how do I answer?  So I'm making this into a series of posts titled: Mormon Questions. I'm hoping there is a little of something for everyone. If you've ever been asked an unexpected question about Mormonism and answered well, or even not-so-well, then please share your experiences! If you are a Mormon but you've never lived in an area where Mormons are a novelty, then maybe you've never encountered such questions before. However, chances are you will someday! If you are not a Mormon but have unanswered question about what exactly Mormons believe, then maybe I'll be able to answer a few.

So, no. 1 on the list is : "Why do Mormons get married so young?"

I'm not sure if it's because I am recently married (10 months) or what but, surprisingly, this THE most-asked question by my friends and random strangers.

The answer is that there are likely many reasons why, but my favorite reason is because we believe that family is most important in this life. To us, families are a priority, and, consequently, there is no reason (including career goals) to put off having one. I usually throw in there that it isn't a church policy; no one is dictating that we get married and have babies before 25. Sometimes I even joke(dryly) about BYU: "When you throw a bunch of 20-something kids together all thinking about marriage, some of them are bound to go through with it."

I think most people think marrying so young is naive. I was married fairly young, and likely naively, but, like most Christians, we believe that God helps two imperfect people come together to have a perfect marriage.

My least favorite answer to this question is: "Because we don't believe in sex before marriage." It makes all Mormons sound like sex-deprived zombies. Sure, it's true that we believe in abstinence before marriage, but no sane individual gets married just for sex. It may be a component of a desire for marriage but more like a top 100 reason and not a top 5. So maybe don't include this in a conversation about Mormons. PLEASE.

So what do you guys think? Really, truly, I'm very interested to see how you answer this question!

7 comments:

  1. More than a couple times since moving, talking to random people when I was big and pregnant, they would ask about my boyfriend, as if being this young and pregnant HAD to be an accident right? Even my OB when I first met her asked what my boyfriend's name was. When I told her he was my husband, I'm sure she figured he just did the right thing and married me after getting me pregnant or something haha. It's so hard for people to believe that at 22 I've actually been married for two years, and we actually made a conscious decision and actually tried really hard to get pregnant!

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    1. How funny! I can't believe that even your OB thought that. Well I'll be waiting for those experiences!

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  2. The part about expecting people to ask why I'm so happy and why I seem to "glow" and instead being faced with questions like "You mean to tell me ya neva had a drink in ya LIFE?! BULLSHIT!" is SOOOOOOO REAL! I wish I could tell this to every young person about to go out into the world! It is actually crazy. A lot of people in New York still don't know who Mormons are despite the Book of Mormon Musical and the ads in Times Square, etc. A lot of times the questions I face are less about Mormons and more about ME. Which has been really interesting for me because I can rattle of why Mormons don't drink and why Mormons get married young, but answering for MYSELF is a different story. I really have to think about why I personally don't drink and why I personally decided to get married young. Nah mean?

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    1. That's so true and a great point. So what do you say then? That you and CJ just fell in love and went for it?

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    2. Now that I think of it they usually don't flat out ask me why I'm married. They just kind of go "WOW married already!" I have had a few conversations with co-workers when it just comes up and I end up explaining that it's really common in my religious culture (but not actual doctrine) blah blah and they get it. One of them is Muslim so she totally got it. LOL.

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    3. Also, I totally agree with what you said above about not living together/having sex before marriage. I never really say that when I am explaining to people, but I have to admit to myself that it is a factor. Typically after people have been in a relationship for a while, they think about moving in together as the next step. So if CJ and I were not Mormon we probably just would have moved out to New York together and planned to maybe get engaged in a few years. BUT since we don't really "believe" in cohabitation, we skip the whole moving in together bit. So Mormons end up married a little younger sometimes and usually earlier on in the relationship, rather than 10 years down the road. Right? Idk.

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    4. Everything you are saying is spot on. Most people wouldn't think it would be weird to move in together after dating for a year but we just have to skip that step!

      Remember Summer Imran? We totally related for an hour about the whole marriage thing haha.

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