The promotion and maintenance of marriage and the reduction of out-of-wedlock pregnancy has become a major focus in our society; and these could have the effect – ‘intended or unintended’ – of encouraging early marriage. However, the potential implications of teen marriage and the risk it can pose should give pause to any parent who is eager to encourage a teenage to marry.
It is likely as with all the women that teens experience some current economic benefit from being married. Nevertheless, there are a number of important reasons to questions that such a blanket assumption may be wrong. Notably, high rates of dissolution of teen marriages make marriage a riskier bet for a teenager’s long term economic security, especially when both partners are teenagers. The instability of an early marriage can jeopardize its potentials for economic good of any teen.
Early marriage hampers educational attainment of a teenager; and may intensify the educational harm of early childbearing because married teens are likely to have a rapid repeat birth, yet another reason to be cautions of early marriage especially with a fellow teen is the high rate of abuse they experience in their matrimonial homes.
Marriage is certainly one route to reduce out-of-wedlock births by those teens who become pregnant, therefore, focusing on the responsibility of parenting, the potential value of two parents to children; and the virtue in delaying parenting until one is ready could all be part of a strategy to prevent teen pregnancy.
However, the question remains “should teenage girls who become pregnant be encouraged to marry”?
No comments:
Post a Comment