15 Dec Precarious Timing
In most countries, the age at which a person is allowed to marry is usually around the age of 18. The legal age to engage in sexual activity is usually a little bit lower, and in some countries like Tanzania, Bangladesh and India, the marriageable age for men differs from that of women, with that of women being slightly younger than that of their male counterparts.
Over the years, we are seeing less and less people getting married, and when they do, on average, they now tend to be older than they used to in the past. As expected, none of these statistical reports dare go into the reasons behind this social shift, but if I had to point a finger at something I would (loudly) say that the main reason is money.
Of course this might sound like an oversimplified explanation for what is essentially a very complex, (but not necessarily negative) social change, but in this case I honestly think that it all boils down to simple female economics.
In short, women have finally woken up to smell the sweet strong fragrance of economic freedom.
Let’s face it, marriage has always been an arrangement of economic convenience, especially until the 1960s, when very few women went out to work and were therefore almost entirely dependent on men for their daily living and financial security. Even in the late 80s, when women had been ‘doing it for themselves’ for over twenty years, Newsweek magazine published an article saying that professional women over 30 had only a 20 percent chance of ever getting married. The same article went on to claim that when working women hit 40, their chances of ever getting hooked went down to a ridiculous 2.6 percent. The article had caused uproar at the time, but there was no way to prove that it was wrong.
Today, (yet another twenty years later), we know that those numbers were way off the mark. They were published in the middle of a social revolution when women were getting out of the house, getting degrees, and becoming financially independent. The predictions were based on outdated realities. They did not take into consideration the fact that with financial security women did not have to, and neither did they want to, go out and get married by age 20. Today the same researchers behind the Newsweek article claim that a woman over 40 has an over 40 percent chance of getting married and that a man’s financial situation does not play such a major part in his eligibility.
The social trend of waiting to get married, if at all, is however in direct contrast to a recent physiological phenomenon – girls hitting puberty at an earlier age!
According to recent studies, more girls today are starting to develop breasts by age seven or eight, and though an increase in child obesity seems to have something to do with it, some researchers are also blaming certain chemicals that can now be found in our environment. Because there is a direct link between longer exposure to certain hormones and tumors, doctors are concerned that the younger a girl is when she gets her first period, the higher the risk of developing breast cancer.
Such biological changes at such an early age can have severe effects on the social and emotional life of a girl, who might have the mind of a child and the body of a woman, but another study suggests that this phenomenon might not be an entirely biological one. Recently, Dr. Debra Judge, an Australian ecologist reported that girls who have older brothers, first menstruated at a later age than those who do not have older brothers. She investigated 273 women and found that on average, women with older brothers got their periods at least a year earlier than those who have no older brothers.
The current state of affairs is kind of schizophrenic. Whilst women are more financially independent and can afford to wait for the right partner, girls are growing up faster and even getting pregnant at ridiculous ages.
This year alone, two 10 year old girls gave birth to healthy babies and, it wasn’t in some God forsaken country were we can blame it on underdevelopment. One of them was in Spain and the other in Texas, USA. Both gave birth to healthy babies and the grandparents were not totally surprised.
The youngest girl on record to have ever given birth was only five years old. It happened in 1939, in Peru. The girl, Lina Medina, was hospitalized for what her parents believed to have been a tumor. Three months later she gave birth to a boy by caesarean section. The girl had got her first period before the age of two and she had visibly developed breasts by the age of four. The father of the baby was never revealed, and the child was brought up by Lina’s parents as though he was her brother. He only found out who his mother really was at the age of 10.
As much as I’m glad that we’re not still living at a time when women were compelled to get married just to survive, I find this new cycle of life mind blowing. On the one hand we’re having fewer kids, less of us are getting married at a decent childbearing age, and although we’re living longer and feeling healthier, our kids are hitting puberty and getting laid when they should be hitting the school yard.
First published on FM magazine December 2010. Click here for the original feature.
