Teenage Marriage
... A close look at this conflict reveals the pro’s and con’s to marriage as a teen. Maggie Gallagher, author of The Abolition of Marriage: How We Destroy Love, agrees that teen parents should be encouraged to marry. ... According to Gallagher, “today, a single, pregnant teen is three times more likely to pick unwed motherhood over marriage as she was in the early 70’s” (123). Since adults and media encourage teens to wait for marriage until later years, when they can take care and provide for themselves, and do not concentrate so much on talking to teens about not getting pregnant in the first place, the adolescent girls are therefore going along with the advice given. Gallagher proposes that “a baby is not such a bad reason for marriage; marriage taken to legitimate a pregnancy are no less stable on average than other marriages” (123). There is always that chance that the marriage will survive, like those among older teens, and the baby will grow up with a mom and a dad together. ... Gallagher reports that: In one large, national study, unwed mothers were just as likely to want marriage but only half as likely to succeed in getting married as childless young women. These researchers concluded that ‘it seems women generally are not having children nonmaritally as a response to poor marriage prospect. Rather, having a child outside of marriage appears to derail young women’s existing plans.’(124) Marriage, Gallagher believes, is not for everyone, and that is what should be taken into consideration. Furthermore, the author insists that making teens more aware of marriage and the good that comes out of it, will make other teens “abstain from sex, contracept faithfully, avoid men who aren’t good marriage material, and in cases when marriage isn’t advisable, consider…adoption” (124).