So said Phil Robertson — back in the news, not because he said something edgy again, but because his antagonists dug up a 5-year old video. It took me a while to grasp that "pick your ducks" means pluck the ducks that you bring home (and not choosing which ducks to shoot). Robertson, we're told in the linked article, married his wife in 1966 when she was 16 (and he was 20). They'd been dating since she was 14 (and he was 18).
This material is right there in Phil Robertson's autobiography, "Happy, Happy, Happy," which has been out since last May. I have it in my Kindle. At page 52:
Miss Kay was the perfect woman for me. I was sixteen and she was fifteen when we were married. Nowadays some people might frown on people getting married that young, but I knew that if you married a woman when she was fifteen, she would pluck your ducks. If you waited until she was twenty, she would only pick your pockets. Now, that’s a joke, and a lot of people seem to laugh at it, but there is a certain amount of truth in it. If you can find a nice, pretty country girl who can cook and carries her Bible, now, there’s a woman. She might even be ugly, but if she cooks squirrels and dumplings, then that’s the woman you go after.Seems like he's been telling that pluck-a-duck joke for a long time. Anyway, how old was Phil when he married Kay and how old was she? The stories in the news and in the autobiography don't match. And what was the law in Louisiana at the time? I think (looking casually on line at what the law is today) that if you're under 18, you need both parents' consent, and if you're under 16, you need a court order.
A page later in the autobiography, Robertson quotes the New Testament (1 Peter 3: 1–6): "Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands...."
You have to go to the Bible yourself if you want to get the significance of "in the same way." The antecedent is not about husbands submitting to their wives but servants submitting to their masters ("not only to the kind and gentle but also to the overbearing"). But the text goes on to tell husbands what to do: "live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex." But that's not quoted in Robertson's book. His Biblical snippet goes on to counsel against "outward adornment" and in favor of the beauty of a woman's "inner self," manifested as "a gentle and quiet spirit." And Robertson tells us that's exactly what Miss Kay is. She doesn't wear much makeup, and she's beautiful "on the inside and the outside."
Kay and I always were the perfect match. I was our high school quarterback, and she was a cheerleader.Speaking of gentle, quiet beauty on the inside, the quarterback goes for the cheerleader. We're told that she sought him out, and they dated until duck season, when he decided that he was going to spend all his free time hunting and that Kay couldn't go along, because "Women are a lot like ducks— they don’t like mud on their butts. I figured she would just get in the way." But then Kay's father died suddenly, when she was only 14, so he "went to her daddy’s funeral, and we made eye contact," and he "asked her out a few weeks later, and we’ve been together ever since." And:
My qualms about taking Kay into the woods were quickly relieved. And Kay wasn’t only a spectator. She helped catch baitfish, gather worms, hook them onto trotlines, and of course, pick ducks by plucking their feathers to prepare them for cooking. You know you have a good woman when you return home from a hunt and she’s standing on the front porch, yelling, “Did y’all get anything?” Before I repented, Kay also drove my getaway car when I was hunting out of season. I always knew my woman was waiting for me on the other side of the woods if I got into trouble.The last page of the book is "A Note From Kay," in which she describes her childhood dreams of the man she would marry.
What I didn’t know when I found the man who filled my dreams was that I had found a diamond in the rough.Which is a way to say, he did not fit those dreams, not for a long time.
One of the great tragedies I see is people not putting every effort into the foundation of their marriage. My grandmother told me that it’s one man and one woman for life and that your marriage is worth fighting for. We had a few hard and bumpy years, but prayer, patience, and some suffering and hope — plus remembering an old lady’s words — were what got me through the difficult times. We have given it our all for our marriage and family, and my dreams did come true.What do we want to say about high school sweethearts marrying (in a world where most of us seem to accept them having sexual intercourse)? She loses her father and her boyfriend closes in on her, limiting her life choices and not really ready to be a man and treat her right. But she sticks to the path she chose, and she makes good, the way wives have traditionally done, and few young women are inclined to do these days.
Here's how Slate's Amanda Marcotte presents the story: "Phil Robertson Says Girls Should Be Married Off at '15 or 16.'" The headline is bad, because "married off" expresses the point of view of the parents of a young woman. Robertson spoke from the perspective of a man looking for a wife who will treat him well. Marcotte goes on to speak from this perspective, but she gets that wrong by assuming he was addressing older men: "His advice for a happy marriage is to make like R. Kelly and hang out in high-school parking lots."
Should 2 teenagers — close in age — marry? We've drifted toward no, I think, mostly because we accept sex outside of marriage, which we do in large part because of birth control (and abortion) and the various sexual practices that don't lead to pregnancy, including the anal sex that we know Phil Robertson can't get his mind around. Before we sneer at the idea that teenagers should marry, we need to be honest about what we are accepting.
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196 comments:
They didn't succeed in bringing him down the first time, but they're not done yet. (I want to say "two men enter, one man leaves" but that doesn't do justice to the liberal fighting style.)
On this one, Robertson's antagonists should have better material about marriage. He's mostly justifying what he happened to have done when he was young and impetuous.
We should give her a lot of credit, but she struggled through a lot fighting to keep the marriage together until he grew up. Would you want that life for your daughter?
MTV has Teen Mom 1, Teen Mom 2, Teen Mom 3, 16 and Pregnant, Engaged and Underage, and Young and Married.
How does MtV compare to Phil Roberstson?
Should 2 teenagers — close in age — marry?
It's OK for teenagers to go off and get killed in war so why not afford them a little of the best on earth? You can still preach statistics to them.
"We should give her a lot of credit, but she struggled through a lot fighting to keep the marriage together until he grew up. Would you want that life for your daughter?"
This can happen even much later in life. It seems to me her struggles paid off for her, him, and them.
I would want that for my daughter or son.
I'd rather my kids have no struggles, but that is usually not an option.
BTW, my mother was 18 and just out of HS when she married. There is also the era to consider as well.
P.S. what has Amanda Marcotte ever gotten right?
I watched the Duck Dynasty Christmas schedule last night, after being aware of the show but never actually watching it.
What I saw was a bunch of self-made entrepreneurs who spend a lot of time together as a family, don't swear, don't snark, and who are comfortable with their religion. This is why they will continue to be attacked by GLAAD, democrats in general, and liberal law professors in particular.
This is the Cosby show with white people and guns. Yes it is scripted (like all "reality" shows). The left cannot stand self reliant people who are secure in their faith and do not give two shits what other people think. I'll take a stable marriage that began young and went through some bumps in the road, than the broken families the policies of Democrats have been encouraging the last 4 decades.
Phil Robertson is perfectly happy to go into the woods, doesn't seem to give a shit about material possesions, liberal opinion, or anything other than his family and his faith.
This type of person is the anti-pajama boy, and a huge threat to the pussification and dependency culture pushed by liberals.
I'll take the Phil Roberston's of the wood over all the liberal law professors and pajamaboys every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
He will be roundly condemned by liberal elites and celebrities who are on their 3rd, 4th, and 5th marriages. The irony will be lost on them.
"Would you want that life for your daughter?"
You raise a great point Ann. Life,, unlike math, is rarely A+B=C.
The first few years with this guy must have been a nightmare and no parent in their right mind would want that for their daughter. The fact that he did grow up and change is pretty remarkable. Until this whole bru-ha-ha over his comments, I had had no idea what his background was. Give him credit for changing. And give his wife credit for doing what was right for her in the long run, even if that is what you or I wouldn't have done.
I'm here because great-grandfather found the girl on the next-farm-over-yonder in Buffalo county Nebraska. Of course, the ability to read the Bible, and slaughter chickens were just part of life.
Would I want that life for my daughter? No, I don't think so. Above all, I want her to be happy and I'm not raising her to be happy submitting to her man.
That almost certainly means waiting. For the sake of argument, let's say Robertson was a polished diamond by 30. Then maybe, looking back from the tail end of long and mostly happy marriage, it was worth it for her to marry at 15 and struggle for a dozen years, but I'd rather my daughter wait until he's closer to 30 and she has to struggle less.
..."but she struggled through a lot fighting to keep the marriage together until he grew up. Would you want that life for your daughter?"
Tell me who that has kept their marriage together hasn't struggled through a lot and fought (sometimes with their partner but mostly with their own selfishness).
My wife and I are in our 31st year now, and if anyone ever asks us to what we attribute that, our answer is: that neither of us decided to divorce.
Other than that (and the absence of some major trust-killing bad decisions in the face of temptation) we're not that much different than other people.
We just decided to stay at it.
So, I can't say for sure, but I'd wager that the underlying implication that marriages later in life are somehow easier or less prone to break-up are not supported by the facts.
Of course, Amanda Marcotte spends a lot of her time complaining about Jerry Lee Lewis.
I would have to know more people who married as teens. The idea is so foreign, I find it difficult to evaluate.
I shocked everyone I knew by getting married at twenty-one. Twelve years later, that's worked out absurdly well. But then, twenty-one is quite a bit different than fifteen or sixteen.
I need to brush up on my bible studies, but I think somewhere in there it says that people with failed marriages who take in lawn maintenance specialists they meet off the internet should not throw stones at the successful marriages of others.
Sounds old testament to me, I'll look into it.
Ann Althouse: We should give her a lot of credit, but she struggled through a lot fighting to keep the marriage together until he grew up. Would you want that life for your daughter?
This seems to assume every guy would act like Phil Robertson did before his conversion, which strikes me as unlikely.
At my 10-year high school reunion, two things struck me: the high school sweethearts who married immediately after and were still together, and one of the school's bad boys who was a friend of mine—we'd been percussionists in band since junior high school—showing up with his little daughter. While she was getting food nearby, he told me the story of the, yes, sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that were his life until his daughter came along. She'd gotten close enough to hear the end without his realizing, and asked "What are you talking about?" He panicked a little, not knowing how to answer. I said "Your daddy was just telling me how important you are to him." They both beamed at me.
Some people don't need to change after adolescence. Some do need to. Some do change (for better or worse). Some don't.
In a December 12 guest post at Joanne Jacobs education website, "Suspended for Kissing," Michael E. Lopez said, "Professor Ann Althouse also jumps into the fray in her characteristic way — trying to find something interestingly contrarian to demonstrate her perspicacity. (Again, that’s not criticism. I find her style charming as well.)"
This post here is a fine example. It's not trying to be outrageous or "edgy" or disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. It's trying to go more deeply and understand more fully (or perhaps understand at all).
Thank you.
Should 2 teenagers — close in age — marry? We've drifted toward no, I think, mostly because we accept sex outside of marriage, which we do in large part because of birth control (and abortion) and the various sexual practices that don't lead to pregnancy, including the anal sex that we know Phil Robertson can get his mind around.
Phil Robertson spoke for most most I think in his GQ article. It's time we heard from a woman whether they prefer anal or vaginal penetration.
I don't understand what's the problem here: doesn't Slate understand that different cultures have differing ideas as to the proper age for marriage? Is there some Book of What's Done she's looking at that tells her these things?
The Robertson's age of marriage was a little unusual for the time, but not that much. Among my parents' friends when I was growing up in northern Alabama were multiple couples where the woman had married under 18. Most often, like it does here, the reason involved, a family trauma where the woman saw getting out on her own with the man in her life as the best option for her happiness. I also suspect that occasionally a "bun in the oven" was involved, but that was certainly not discussed in front of us kids.
The Ridicule Brigades of over educated single women cannot stop publicizing Robertson's vulgarity. He has them fascinated.
Robertson gets to say what he thinks and comes out looking wiser than their last 10 years of snobbery elite nonsense. I suspect that is because in a deep sense Robertson's life style is less Vulgar than theirs is.
"trying to find something interestingly contrarian to demonstrate her perspicacity"
LOL. I hadn't seen that. Well, that's interesting but a bit off. I almost always pass up topics where I feel I've got nothing new to say. So anything I'm blogging about is already a place where I think I have something. But I'm not blogging "to demonstrate [my] perspicacity." I'm blogging as a way of seeing what I think: it's a performance in real time of my being interested in something. I don't have an agenda and I don't care about persuading people. I just like reading and thinking and writing and it's worked out for me to do these things in the format of blogging. I like looking at things from different sides and elaborating aspects of a problem that writers with more of an agenda will downplay.
Another great hero advancing the ideals of movement conservatives. Keep 'em coming.
I must be really out of date. I could have sworn that liberals are supposed to be accepting of cultural differences. Is multiculturalism over so soon?
Well, although I agree with Phil on most points I have to confess that, having married at 22, I've not had my pocket picked and we've been together over 50 years now.
Struggled? Sure you do. You have to learn to "rub along together".
Would I want that life for a child of mine? It won't matter at what age they might marry, they're still going to struggle.
"But then, twenty-one is quite a bit different than fifteen or sixteen."
It seems to me that the age factor is more tied to the culture's expectations and placement of teenagers in the overall culture.
Our US early 21st century teenagers are almost completely made infantile in how we treat them and what we expect from them.
My grandfather told me of how he and two of his brothers, the oldest of which was 16, were told by their father to take two wagons and teams of horses up Parleys Canyon out of the Salt Lake Valley, up to what is now near Park City, and take a load of gear, equipment, and supplies.
This was out in the untamed west, well before paved roads, or much of any roads, grading, bridges. No ambulances, med-vac helicopters, or any way to communicate.
The trip up and back took 3 or 4 days.
And they had their guns with them for protection from any animals.
My friend's grandfather told him the same kind of story. He remembered being about 14 in southern Utah just north of what is now Zion National Park, and getting on his horse, and with his brother and cousins, and being told, "OK, we'll see you and the sheep in a week.")
They had the job to go up to the tops of the mountains and bring the sheep back for fall.
Where is the comparison of trust and expectation today? (Probably 18 year olds in the U.S. Military is the closest.)
Now so very often we baby our teenagers to protect them, don't allow anyone to have hurt feelings let along lose a tooth on the monkey bars, and we ask almost nothing of them in terms of assisting the family.
This is not intended to be an old guy rant. The current kids are not the end of civilization. There is a lot good about them also. It is just an observation and comparison of change.
bbkingfish said...
Another great hero advancing the ideals of movement conservatives. Keep 'em coming.
No, he's just not inside your tent - he's free of your enclosure.
I don't think a lot of people are going to take up duck hunting, Bible reading, or pushing their adolescent children into marriage on the recommendation of Phil Robertson. He's not a grave threat to the liberal, metrosexual lifestyle.......He seems to have lucked into a happy marriage and a life he enjoys living. Good for him. When liberals celebrate diversity, why can't they celebrate a family such as his. Monogamy is not contagious.
Another thought experiment: Say you had to choose between your daughter marrying at sixteen or still dating at thirty-six?
So apparently Phil and Kay did not fornicate before marriage.
That alone must rub a lot of people the wrong way (surely "get to know you're compatible first").
Too many people are forgiving of premarital sex. I guess Phil who will be pilloried just for his 15-year old comment knows more than we think.
I was the same age as my Father when I married (29) in 1973 and my wife of now 40 years was 24 and in grad school (as was I). In those days 29 was considered old for the man (especially in my Father's time) and my wife was seen as beginning to approach the threshold of spinsterhood, lol Remember, in those days (early 70s) women were just beginning to go to law and medical school in numbers. so the trick had been previously to find the best man with the best future prospects while in college (undergrad) and marry him upon graduation--that was the standard model for eons--the early 70s being the transition period..
I've been surprised by a few of my friends who have- they say- happy marriages, but tell their children they should wait until later than they did to get married. I wonder what they are really saying. I'm thinking bout people who got married at 23 and tell their kids to wait until they are at least 29.
Now, I wouldn't advise my kids to get married at 16 and 18. But as Althouse indicates, someone who did get married 18 and who is in a happy marriage would be saying something unflattering about his own marriage if he advised against doing the same.
I also don't think Marcotte understands small town xulture from 30 years aha. Maybe she should watch Tom Cruise's "The Right Moves"
It was about kids in a coal town, but the story was very similar in many places in the US.
Freeman Hunt said: I would have to know more people who married as teens. The idea is so foreign, I find it difficult to evaluate.
I shocked everyone I knew by getting married at twenty-one. Twelve years later, that's worked out absurdly well. But then, twenty-one is quite a bit different than fifteen or sixteen.
It's weird when FH and I are basically the same person, but that's me as well (right down to the marrying at 21 and it working out great 12 years on). I worked with a girl around the time I got married, 2-3 years older than me, who had married at 15, and I know that I found that unspeakably shocking. She wound up divorced with 2 kids at 19, and I'd wager that she's still waiting tables or similar to this day.
What used to work in a different time doesn't work the same way now. My grandmother dropped out of high school and it wasn't a thing, but now it would ruin a person in a lot of ways - my dad never went to college, yet is very successful in a way that would be impossible now.
That said, I do think that many people put off marriage far too long. 21 may be too young for many people, but 30+ is too late to grow together and develop as a couple, rather than trying to merge two set in their ways fully formed people.
Just think how squeaky clean Mitt Romney is, that the left-media industrial complex couldn't dig up any more oppo-research on him, than the useless trivialities they used against him in the '12 campaign.
@Maybee,
I'm thinking bout people who got married at 23 and tell their kids to wait until they are at least 29.
Having lived in the DC area since 1979, I see the downside of that advice: woman who marry late, and then discover how difficult it can be to conceive even in one's thirties. The amount of money spent in my extended circle that I know about on fertility treatments, adoptions, etc. would buy you a decent house in DC.
I've always been biased towards marrying later (I married at 36, wife was 34) but that's because I don't trust my tastes and opinions of women from when I was 18. But plenty of 30-somethings and 40-somethings have proven capable of making terrible decisions as well, so age isn't the only factor.
I will say that my wife would probably offer to "pluck my ducks", secure in the knowledge that if I ever went out hunting I'd have to swing by the grocery store on the way home to pick up some duck, and the only "plucking" she'd have to do is taking the plastic wrap off the bird.
I've been told the longer I wait to get married, the fewer people I'll want to get married to who are available. That's an interesting thing to consider about advising against marrying young. It's sort of like buying anything in a limited market; the longer you wait, you risk limiting your options.
Between my Father's Jr and Sr year in HS he and two buddies drove a Ford Model-T from Bloomington-Normal Ill to LA and back in a day when part of US 66 was still comprised of corduroy (split log) roads. Took all summer and they managed to get back only the day before school started. They slept on the beach at Venice Beach and roamed the city, sneaking into the Rose Bowl to throw a football around (to say they "played in the Rose Bowl" lol) among other things. When 1st gear went out on the way out they backed over Pike's Peak in reverse. And when their generator went out they drove at night by the moon with a flash light hanging from each side as a "warning light." (Of course there was hardly any traffic in the early 30s)
To do what they did today--all alone--would be to think the unthinkable by today's helicopter parents--let alone Pajama-Boy--yet in those days it was viewed as totally unremarkable.
Say you had to choose between your daughter marrying at sixteen or still dating at thirty-six?
I have a say??
I married at 21 too. My spouse and I agree that we would be much worse off financially if we had waited longer. We were dirt poor, yes, but we learned to combine resources and prosper far better than we ever would have living separately. Plus, if you combine a household when you're still in college, the government deems you poor enough to receive financial aid.
While 16 sounds incredibly young, I recognize that the backwoods of Louisiana has a completely different social structure than the one I came from. Somehow, no one would blink an eye when a 16 (or 15 or 14) year old turns up pregnant, but marrying?!?! Eee gad!
My wife recently studied nursing, and one of the prominent modern teachings is apparently that kids are still kids, neurologically, until about age 26.
That's a fascinating dividing age. Robertson married at 16 or 18. Einstein's miracle year came when he was 26. Mozart died at 35. Darwin published his master work at age 50.
Methinks 26 is the new 21, and not for neurological reasons, but for political ones.
"A page later in the autobiography, Robertson quotes the New Testament (1 Peter 3: 1–6): "Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands....""
One thing that I have noticed in watching Duck Dynasty episodes is that the women usually get their way. In the episode in which Phil and his wife were looking for a Christmas tree, Phil spent hours patiently following his wife around as she kept looking for the perfect tree. He explained his attitude thus, "If she's happy, I'm happy." If the episodes are representative, female submission in the Robinson family means the wife is to respect her husband and to give him room to live his life. The Biblical version of a leader is that "he who is greatest of all is the servant of all."
I enjoyed Quayle's examples of teenagers in past eras. I had a patient who had a great story. When he was 15, he had a perforated appendix and when he recovered, he decided to live with his sister because he didn't like his stepfather. That was 1905. He traveled from Denver to Seattle and, along the way, spent part of April 1906 in San Francisco. He was there for the earthquake and it was a great story. Finally, he got to Seattle and found his sister and her husband. He told me the story in 1977 when I operated on him for an aortic aneurysm. He was 87 and did fine. He had had quite a life although not that odd for 1905.
I look forward to Robertson including anecdotes about the glories of high school marriage in the keynote speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Or will it be his acceptance speech at that Convention?
Once again, nothing surprising here.
"Should 2 teenagers — close in age — marry? We've drifted toward no, I think, mostly because we accept sex outside of marriage, which we do in large part because of birth control (and abortion) and the various sexual practices that don't lead to pregnancy, including the anal sex that we know Phil Robertson can't get his mind around."
I also think we have drifted toward no and that is has almost nothing to do with the reasons listed by Althouse. 50 years ago, a kid right out of high school (by drop-out or graduation) could find a line of work capable of supporting a family, this is largely untrue now.
The insertion of anal sex seems strained and for the explicit purpose of harking back to the original Phil Robertson story. It seems highly dubious that teens would engage in anal sex when a more suitable orifice is available and condoms are dirt cheap.
I married young, and am still happily married, and still prickled at reading Robertson's advice. All about getting a girl while she's young and what she should be able and willing to do, nothing about what boys/men should be able and willing to do (except overlook the ugliness of a girl who will cook squirrel) and how they should prepare themselves for marriage.
Beyond that, I just really, really hate the idea that there is one right age for men or women to get married at. 18 was fine for me, but somehow I don't think I'd have gone from hard-working (the implication behind duck-picking) to money-grubbing if we'd waited two or three or ten years.
I'd prefer to see youth not marry. I prefer to see them know themselves more before they try and pick a life mate.
Birches: Somehow, no one would blink an eye when a 16 (or 15 or 14) year old turns up pregnant, but marrying?!?! Eee gad!
No kidding. We've got illegitimacy rates pushing, what, 30, 50, 70% depending on racial group, with all the pathology this entails...but OMG some white people get married at the same age as our grandparents did can you believe these freaks?
Though to be fair, high illegitimacy rates are probably a lesser indicator of severe social decline than the fact that the achingly dim-witted Amanda Marcotte gets money for publishing her opinions.
Young Hegelian and Matthew Sablan-
Yes! That's why I think putting an age on marriage seems like poor advice. Marry when you have found the right person. There's no guarantee they'll wait, or that another right person will come your way.
A good marriage still allows space for personal growth. I don't know why it has gotten popular to see marriage as the end of your personal journey and thus something to be done later.
Biologically, as a species, we are supposed to procreate at the peak of our physical fitness. This is in the teen years. Historically, people didn't have the long lives that we have now and most people were married or parents by their mid teens. Marriage was not always a cultural construct in societies in the past.
It is only recently that we have culturally extended childhood well into adulthood. Even beyond the child bearing years in some cases. Beyond the time span in the past when people would be considered OLD.
So....in some cultures and in some times, early marriage and early child bearing is common and accepted. Who are we to judge? Who are we to fantasize about what people mean or what they think, when their words are really quite plainly stated.
"A Note From Kay," in which she describes her childhood dreams of the man she would marry.
What I didn’t know when I found the man who filled my dreams was that I had found a diamond in the rough.
Althouse: "Which is a way to say, he did not fit those dreams, not for a long time."
Or NOT to say any such thing at all. Perhaps Phil turned out to be such a diamond in the rough because she took the strength and willpower to help polish him. People are not here to FILL or FIT into your dreams either. You work with what you have and with what is given you.
My husband's mother was married and had him at the age of 16. His father was 17. They started a successful logging company the next year that eventually employed over 40 people and made millions of dollars. They went on to have three other children and were faithfully married for almost 50 years, until he died of a heart attack in the bathroom on Christmas Eve 8 years ago. Who are we to judge or try to prevent this marriage based on an arbitrary age requirement?
I have picked many ducks and geese in my day. Have been hunting and shot my share of geese, ducks, pigeons, quail and even deer. Caught fish, sturgeon, large mouth bass, croppie, trout, salmon...Cleaned and cooked 'em all too. (I refused to clean the frogs, though...they give me the creeps. I did cook the frog legs. They are delicious)
Just because it isn't YOUR culture or YOUR preference for a lifestyle doesn't make it wrong for someone else. That goes for the gay lifestyle as well. Not my cup of tea. As long as it doesn't affect me or cause harm. Who am I to stop someone else from being happy happy happy?
When are we going to stop being such judgmental bigots?
Freeman wrote:
"I shocked everyone I knew by getting married at twenty-one. Twelve years later, that's worked out absurdly well. "
That's some damn sweet writing right there.
It seems to me that this phrase:
"She loses her father and her boyfriend closes in on her"
Suggests that he was preying on her vulnerability.
I don't see how that is necessarily so. I don't know their particular circumstances, but people did not postpone adulthood into their late 20s 50 years ago, especially in the rural south, they couldn't afford to.
Just because at this point in history a 15 - 16 year old girl should not be trusted to make such a decision, does not mean one would be unequipped to do so then.
As for Amanda Marcotte, I think she should sue Phil for back rent for all that time he spends living in her head.
DBQ, I tend to agree with some of your points, but Phil Robertson is the one passing judgment on a culture not his own. He comes from a culture of young marriage and asserts that people leaving that practice behind are doing it all wrong. We're reacting to his own judgment of people who marry after age 20, not just his choice to marry young or even to encourage his kids to do the same (FTR, I don't know how old the younger Robertsons were when they got married).
"would you want that for your daughter? "
No, that is what my dad said and I'm happy he did. Phil R is not profound and he is not trying to be that either. Stop making these guys more than what they are. We can laugh with them on their antics in the show but who says we have to take them seriously on other things.
I have a feeling that all of this new-found fame for DuckMan is not going to end well.
It's almost as if we live in a world where everyone's lives and experiences are different or something.
That goes for the gay lifestyle as well. Not my cup of tea. As long as it doesn't affect me or cause harm
I just wish the Robertson's wouldn't push their alternate lifestyle IN MY FACE. Do you duck-fucking or whatever in private and LEAVE ME OUT OF IT.
@ ACM
I didn't get a judgmental tone from the passage that Althouse quoted. He was stating HIS views of marriage and the dynamics between men and women as he sees it. Unless there is more or this is out of context, I didn't see him saying anything derogatory about how other people choose to date, wait and get married or choose to never get married.
Again....getting married at 16 is not my personal preference and wouldn't be for my daughter either. But.....as already stated by others.....almost 50 years ago, it was very common.
I think DBQ nailed the situation. If I could write so well, I would comment more often. I also don't think he was criticizing other cultures any more than a Harvard grad who suggests getting an Ivy League education.
"I have a feeling that all of this new-found fame for DuckMan is not going to end well."
I have the feeling that Phil has come to the attention of the "right sort of people."
Since neither he, nor his fans care what "the right sort of people" think about him I think he will be fine.
Personally, I think the show is hokey and staged and I can't watch it for more than 5 minutes at a time.
But a lot of people don't agree with me on that and you know what? That is ok.
DBQ says:When are we going to stop being such judgmental bigots?
Probably about the time you stop being a shouty ranter. Which is to say, probably never. But seeing that line come from you is like rain on your wedding day.
The speech--done tongue in cheek--was given more than five years ago. Another asshole trying to cash in and a media willing to pay to do it.
@Beta Rube, trouble is he didn't just suggest young marriage, he said something specific about people (women) who don't do the same---that they will "pick your pockets". So, to me, that seems less like a Harvard grad saying "I suggest getting an Ivy League education" and more like "people who don't go to college will rob you". Besides that, a Harvard grad who did suggest an Ivy League education for everyone probably would be called judgmental and a snob, especially here.
So, yeah. Young marriage, like Ivy League education, can be a good thing. People who suggest it for everyone, and say unkind things about those who choose otherwise, are being judgmental and giving generally bad advice.
is like rain on your wedding day
I suppose you think that is ironic, but it's not. Rain on a wedding day would be just annoying and inconvenient or it could be good luck in some cultures.
Ah...here we are again with people not being all the same. Imagine that.
Maybe we should start a movement to force publishers of all sorts to require appending #anecdotal to every reference to personal experience that includes conclusions.
We are so infantalized that we are shocked by the idea that at 16 or 17 people can behave as adults. Look at movies of the mid century or earlier and you will see people in their 20s behaving like 40 year olds in 2014. And that is why many very adult men and women come from flyover land where men and women can change a tire or pick a duck or butcher a hog or put down a dog or fist fight.
Should 2 teenagers — close in age — marry?
It depends on the teenagers. My parents were born in 1928 in rural Alabama. Their childhood was known as the Great Depression and their high school years were better known as WWII. They married following their high school graduation in 1946 and stayed together until my father died in 1974.
IIRC, Phil was married in the early 1960s. He and his young bride grew up in rural Louisanna and both knew how to work. That was a different era when teen marriage wasn't at all uncommon.
Today, I'd only consider young marriage a good idea for kids who grew up with responsibilities and work such as farm kids. They may not be as worldly as city kids but most farm kids are a lot more mature.
@ amc
"...that they will "pick your pockets"."
You did get where he said that was a joke?
Has anyone mentioned that DuckWillie was disinvited by a Christian group because of their new wine label? Yeah, I'm shocked too! Wine?
"I just wish the Robertson's wouldn't push their alternate lifestyle IN MY FACE. Do you duck-fucking or whatever in private and LEAVE ME OUT OF IT."
This reminds me of the time an old Army buddy invited himself to spend Christmas with my family, started drinking my liquor at 10 in the morning, and wouldn't shut up about the evils of Christianity and how it was such a bunch of nonsense.
When I pointed out that he was the one who wouldn't shut up about it he assured me that WE were PUSHING CHRISTIANITY ON HIM (stagger) CAUSE we INVITED HIM TO A CHRISTMAS EVE WORSHIP SERVICE.
We are so infantalized that we are shocked by the idea that at 16 or 17 people can behave as adults. Look at movies of the mid century or earlier and you will see people in their 20s behaving like 40 year olds in 2014. And that is why many very adult men and women come from flyover land where men and women can change a tire or pick a duck or butcher a hog or put down a dog or fist fight.
@DBQ
Sure, he says it's a joke with a grain of truth in it. I've inferred from that statement that Robertson doesn't think that 20 year old women are literally pickpockets, but that he does think they're greedier and less willing to do icky-but-necessary tasks than their 15 year-old counterparts. What else do you think he means by calling it a joke with some truth behind it?
As an aside, google has Phil born in 1946 and Kay born in 1950.
Also, this sorta story really pisses of the feminists out there. I mean, here is a young girl who marries the handsome, popular kid, and things to sour fast.
At this point, Kay is supposed to leave the bum! What was she thinking staying with such a loser and a jerk? Women are supposed to sow and sow and sow their oats until they are in their 30's, been to college, traveled the world.
Hitch your wagon to a man as a high schooler? Are you kidding me?! And now they are rich and happy?
This is a terrible story for the left. They must be stopped.
I would say it depends on the teenager.
I do think true love attachments form at this time, and they can be very deep and very longlasting. I have known of people who lost a spouse to death who connected up with old high school flames and entered into another very true marriage.
But every teen isn't ready for the responsibilities of marriage, even psychologically. And then there's finances.
In the south, many of the young people do seem to grow up faster. The lifestyles are very different, and the very prolonged adolescences of the middle and upper class on the coasts are exceedingly unusual.
The lower cost of setting up a household has a lot of influence in the south. It's simply not possible on most of the built-up coasts.
I think you are right about the honesty part, but in the south, abstinence through teen years is still a preached and admired value, although it is conceded to be very difficult.
In the south, many of the young people do seem to grow up faster. The lifestyles are very different, and the very prolonged adolescences of the middle and upper class on the coasts are exceedingly unusual. The lower cost of setting up a household has a lot of influence in the south. It's simply not possible on most of the built-up coasts.
Um, the lifestyles of middle, upper-middle and upper class people in the South isn't that different than those on the coasts. You aren't going to find many Emory or Auburn grads supporting the teenage bride lifestyle for themselves or their daughters. But please, keep on with the Southern authenticity line of argument here. It's as convincing as the transformation of the Robertsons from polo-clad preppies to Bin Ladenesque bearded men of the forest.
"Um, the lifestyles of middle, upper-middle and upper class people in the South isn't that different than those on the coasts. You aren't going to find many Emory or Auburn grads supporting the teenage bride lifestyle for themselves or their daughters. But please, keep on with the Southern authenticity line of argument here. It's as convincing as the transformation of the Robertsons from polo-clad preppies to Bin Ladenesque bearded men of the forest."
By all accounts, Phil Robertson wasn't in the middle, upper middle, or upper class. Neither was Kay.
Also, when you talk about polo-clad preppies (Phil calls them yuppies) you're talking about his sons.
In other words, look over there, squirrel!
This needs the civility bullshit tag, I think, Professor. More lefty politics of personal destruction.
For poor people who are having out of wedlock births, it's better if they marry, even if they are teens. It would be better if they waited to have kids but if they don't. They should marry. At a certain point, your life is not about self-actualization.
"Would you want that life for your daughter?"
No, but the daughter wanted that life for herself. The best we could do was to butt out unless he was a lazy doping bum.
Ann - I would say that I wouldn't want anyone I care about to go into a marriage without understanding that many times their own immediate happiness would have to be set aside for the good of the person they married and any children involved.
Marriage seems to me to be a paradox. Without the ability to at times ignore our own needs and our own unhappiness, we do not get the richness of a married relationship. And how could anyone explain that richness? The knowledge of each other and also the awareness of each person's failings with each other, plus the love behind the decision to stay, form part of that richness.
As to your question if one would want that for one's own daughter, I haven't in my life seen older marriages as being immune from such stresses. In my own life, I have seen them being even more subject to them.
No one would want a marriage to be subjected to such behavior by one partner, that's for sure!
Somefeller - first, the majority of the people in the south aren't from the upper class, and the middle class from similar roots as those I've seen described for the Robertson family is markedly different from the coastal middle class.
It really is different. It really is. Profoundly different.
I grew up in North Dakota, and in the fifties and sixties it was very common for girls 14,15,and 16 to "have " to get married. Abortion was not considered. It was also very common for high school sweet hearts to wed right after graduation. The shameful thing back then was getting pregnant and not having a guy step up and take responsibility.
Ms. Marcotte strikes me as a somewhat more vulgar, junior varsity version of Maureen Dowd. No doubt she will end up alone with her cats by the time she reaches her 40s. Some man, somewhere, should be grateful for that.
One of the advantages of marrying young is that it affords a woman the possibility of divorcing young. A woman's chances for a happy second marriage increase exponentially for every year she's under thirty five. Too many women wait too long to commit to divorce.
"I just wish the Robertson's wouldn't push their alternate lifestyle IN MY FACE. Do you duck-fucking or whatever in private and LEAVE ME OUT OF IT."
You have my deepest sympathy at having been forced to read GQ magazine. I would appreciate knowing who that was so I can avoid them. I've never read it and would like to continue my life without it.
"Bin Ladenesque bearded men of the forest"
Orang utans! Probably descended from their mother's side.
Come on folks. Get a life. Garage--abandon your secret duckerotic visions of bestiality with a duck.
Robertson and his wife married young; and had some hard times. They've managed to pass through it all. I've seen that story time and again among my acquaintances or children of my acquaintances. I've wondered at the chutzpah of a 16 or 17 year old girl (a friend of my daughter) who thought she could "save" a boyfriend with a drug problem. Some 25 years later the two are happily married with three kids--one ready to go off to college and it all worked out.
On the other hand, I've seen similar efforts crash and burn. Lots of marriages just don't work out for whatever reason.
I'm sometimes bemused by what I see, but I'm not going to waste a lot of time by criticizing other people's choices--and I don't give a flying flip about what someone might say about me. I do know that it takes two to work together at a successful marriage, and I've been blessed with one.
President Mom Jeans wrote:
"This is the Cosby show with white people and guns. Yes it is scripted (like all "reality" shows). The left cannot stand self reliant people who are secure in their faith and do not give two shits what other people think."
Compare this family to any of the family's in say the various Housewives of whatever show. Despite them being backwoods yokels they seem like decent people. Meanwhile these wives and their husbands on the other shows seem like spoiled rotten horrible people pushing the liberal agenda.
Man, this sure beats talking about ObamaCare!
"Before we sneer at the idea that teenagers should marry, we need to be honest about what we are accepting."
We are encouraging this conduct, not just accepting it.
Would you want that life for your daughter?
Spoken like a woman who hasn't grown up. It is the plight of all women and men that they have to put up with the foolishness of their spouse. What you're saying is "I think my fantasy should be reality and I shouldn't have to countenance reality, so long as I can fantasize".
I'm sure Mrs. Kay isn't the saint she's made out to be, but it's politically far more acceptable to badger men, particularly a man like Phil Robertson - old, white, Christian, straight, hunter. The perfect quinfecta of liberal hate. And men are far more willing to take it on the chin to deflect any harm in their women's reputation. It pretty much doesn't matter what Phil believes, liberals will hate him. But it drives them to fits that Phil has the audacity to honestly answer a question put to him.
I have a feeling that all of this new-found fame for DuckMan is not going to end well.
Oh, those wishful feelings. Robertson was rich and famous. Now he's going to be more rich and more famous.
But keep hoping.
I just wish the Robertson's wouldn't push their alternate lifestyle IN MY FACE.
I don't think it's Robertson doing the pushing. He simply responded honestly to a loaded question which the interviewer probably thought would ruin Robertson. That Robertson will not pay a liberal-imposed penalty for his non-Progressive lifestyle transgressions but instead will actually GAIN in fame and fortune is producing hysteria on the Left.
Ann, you miss the context. "Wives, in the same way" refers to 1 Peter Chapter 2. That is the context. Read it and you will find the writer is urging Men to submit to authority, particularly to submit to God. Verses 2:13-17 should clearly set that context. I think you'll agree that changes how you read the "Wives, in the same way.." passages in Chap 3.
1 Peter is definitely not an instruction to use Scripture to dominate and abuse others. Unfortunately that's what people read into it.
Additionally what you and others refer to as 'growing up' is Phil Robertson's encounter with The Savior. I'm sure he would not describe that as 'growing up'.
"Would you want that life for your daughter?"
It would not be my first choice for my daughters, but a life with early struggles, which is ultimately (apparently) very happy beats A LOT of the alternatives.
You aren't going to find many Emory or Auburn grads supporting the teenage bride lifestyle for themselves or their daughters.
Just like you don't find many of them hoeing cotton with poor blacks to earn some money, either.
The young Phil Robertson lived in a whole different world from those people. When he said he was "white trash", he wasn't being hip or ironic. He no doubt heard that phrase growing up applied to him & his, and while it probably didn't hurt as much being called "n****r" did for black people, it sure as hell wasn't meant as a compliment!
And how many of you have daughters raised in the time and culture she was raised in? Apples and oranges. The arrogance of some of these comments is astounding.
Do you duck-fucking or whatever in private and LEAVE ME OUT OF IT.
I denounce you, you Quackophobe.
> It's as convincing as the transformation of the Robertsons from polo-clad preppies to Bin Ladenesque bearded men of the forest.
Which of the Robertsons are preppies and what makes them preppies? I'm serious - this is the second time the claim has come up.
LA Tech, Harding College (Mo), and West Monroe HS are not preppie institutions.
I'm sure that several of them have worn real alligators or parts thereof at one time or another, but Lacoste's alligators aren't actually real.
I just wish the Robertson's wouldn't push their alternate lifestyle IN MY FACE. Do you duck-fucking or whatever in private and LEAVE ME OUT OF IT.
Note to garage, an alleged journalist asked the question, and Robertson answered honestly. If you didn't like the answer, you shouldn't ask the question. I feel about as sorry for your sensitive feelings as I would feel for someone who starts a fight and gets his ass kicked.
If you didn't like the answer, you shouldn't ask the question. I feel about as sorry for your sensitive feelings as I would feel for someone who starts a fight and gets his ass kicked.
This.
At one time most women and a lot of men understood that marriage is a commitment and that making a marriage work takes effort.
Says the man who's been married 39 years next weekend and who is signing off althouse to go do some laundry and set the table.
"I just wish the Robertson's wouldn't push their alternate lifestyle IN MY FACE. Do you duck-fucking or whatever in private and LEAVE ME OUT OF IT"
Good point. To be fair then could we ask those who enjoy sodomy to enjoy their sexual preferences at home and leave the rest of us alone? Not only are leftists not willing to keep their ideas private, but they band together to have a beauty queen fired because she expressed an opinion when asked by a homosexual which they didn't like.
In another post, Althouse mentioned shunning and shaming people who hold the wrong opinions. All in all, I'd say leftists are the most in your face flaming zealots on earth.
In the south, many of the young people do seem to grow up faster. The lifestyles are very different, and the very prolonged adolescences of the middle and upper class on the coasts are exceedingly unusual.
Depends. Amongst the poor, yeah, tends to do that. Amongst the rich? Hells no.
I look forward to Robertson including anecdotes about the glories of high school marriage in the keynote speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Or will it be his acceptance speech at that Convention?
Shall we compare the wonderful commentary from the likes of Marcotte in the past? I bet her discussion of God's cum in Mary would be beloved at the DNC.
He comes from a culture of young marriage and asserts that people leaving that practice behind are doing it all wrong.
Judging by divorce statistics, his criticisms are not unfounded.
I just wish the Robertson's wouldn't push their alternate lifestyle IN MY FACE. Do you duck-fucking or whatever in private and LEAVE ME OUT OF IT.
What reporter asked if Robin Roberts was gay? Ellen? Anderson Cooper? Jason Collins?
None, you say. They came out on their own.
Gee, that seems comparable to this.
And would I want a daughter marrying young? Given how many end up with babies from morons that won't take care of them, yes, that is a better alternative than the one so many young girls take now.
Somefeller - first, the majority of the people in the south aren't from the upper class, and the middle class from similar roots as those I've seen described for the Robertson family is markedly different from the coastal middle class.
Your comment talked about upper and middle classes on the coasts vs. the (idealized?) South, including its upper and middle class.
It really is different. It really is. Profoundly different.
In some cases, yes, but let's not imply it's something uniquely and authentically Southern. It's Belmont vs. Fishtown (Charles Murray reference for those scoring at home). And like I said, nothing new to see here and nothing to idealize or claim there's some great folk wisdom arising from.
"those who enjoy sodomy"
including any straight man that has ever been blown=sodomy. And if he has not.....I'm sorry, not really.
Demographers have looked at these type of questions and have found that chance of divorce decreases with age at first marriage until sometime in the late 20s, early 30s, when it starts to increase again. So in terms of lowering the chance of divorce, get married in your mid to late 20s.
There is, however, a possibility that what's really going on is a large gap in the age of the spouses leading towards divorce, so you should also marry someone about your same age.
Althouse needs to be a bit more observant. Right here in Wisconsin you will find lots of women who marry right out of high school when they are barely 18. Just go to the drive-thru at any random Culver's or McDonald's and observe how many of the young women working those windows are wearing wedding bands.
When I moved to Wisconsin 15 years ago, two things surprised me: the rabid fan support for the Packers, and the number of people who marry at very young ages. I distinctly recall going back to a hotel to hitch a ride to the airport after a round of interviews. The young woman driving the shuttle was married (I'd guess she was about 19). She had never been out of the state of Wisconsin, she honeymooned in the Wisconsin Dells, and she didn't know how to get to Mitchell airport which was just 20 minutes from the hotel. Since then I've met lots of people who are just like her.
I have older cousins married and pregnant in their teens. Still married. My parents and in-laws married at 20. Still married.
If you actually love one another and both sides of the family are pretty stable, it works.
Marriage is a foundation, not a capstone.
@David
But how many cohabitating situations occur before your late 20s?
From my view the break up is much like a divorce.
Sure, he says it's a joke with a grain of truth in it. I've inferred from that statement that Robertson doesn't think that 20 year old women are literally pickpockets, but that he does think they're greedier and less willing to do icky-but-necessary tasks than their 15 year-old counterparts. What else do you think he means by calling it a joke with some truth behind it?
You are incorrect. That is not what he is saying at all. He's saying that the pool of potential women you can choose from at age 16 will be better than the pool of potential women you can choose from at age 26. There's definitely a grain of truth there. He's not saying older women are worse than young women, he's saying the pool of people unmarried at age X+10 is generally less suitable than the pool of people unmarried at age X. This is a fairly common and unremarkable observance.
The actual pick pocketing and duck preparing examples are simply a joke he told years ago. Anyone offended by it is a judgmental bigot lacking any sense of humor (and, apparently, anything of importance happening in their own lives).
@Dewave
Why you should find your husband at college. Someone who owns and uses an alarm clock, and has a good GPA.
OMG! The Robertsons are FORCING Garage Mahal to watch their show! Alert the media!
Maybe we can get George Zimmerman to fix Phil up with a girl friend so we can get some REAL scandal action going....
RE: Couples that married young telling their children not to, and to get married older.....
I have known a few couples that got married fairly young (20-21) but divorced in their 40's. Right away, one or both parties jumps right into the kind of promiscuous life they never got to live because they got married so young. Its as if they want a "do over" to live out the thrill of the sexual chase they missed by being married.
I wonder if THAT is the reason many that married young advise against it - the sowing of one's wild oats must be done: later is better than never. A period of sexual experimentation and exploration is a requirement for maturity now, rather than devotion to one person.
OMG! The Robertsons are FORCING Garage Mahal to watch their show! Alert the media!
Maybe we can get George Zimmerman to fix Phil up with a girl friend so we can get some REAL scandal action going....
As opposed, of course, to the excellent choices being made daily in the hood where baby mommas are often 15 or 16 with baby daddy not in the picture. This being the culture the left created and which it nounrishes, just so.
On Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds characterises the slate piece as a dishonest smear (which it is, of course).
It occurs to me that we should stop wasting our time on these smear pieces, it's like a "dog bites man story", and perhaps focus our attention and praise upon people who write good, thoughtful articles online or in print. People respond to incentives (as most educated people know), so lets incentivize good writing.
Too bad virtually none of the writers or publications so incentivized will be "Progressive", but that was their choice.
GM,
Granted. I'm absolutely sure that Phil Robertson has no expectation of influencing your lifestyle in any way. Interesting that he's so inside your head that you think he's speaking to you.
Yes, I would prefer that my daughters marry at 16, with or without a baby in the picture, than be single at 36.
Family is more important than chasing empty worldly promises of fulfillment.
As long as you are committed to your marriage working and willing to humble yourself and learn, and accepting of some bumps in the road along the way, you can learn to be a mature grown-up and build a healthy marriage at 16 or 18.
I married at 21 by the way, and we've had our ups and downs but learned a lot. Will celebrate thirteen years in April. (Holla to Freeman and Lyssa!)
There are some single twenty and thirty somethings who are single because they are devoted to some worthy cause, but many more of them are that way because they are shallow and selfish. And then when they belatedly realize they want to settle down--well, pickins are slim and the transition is much harder.
Had a confirmed bachelor friend who fell in love and married at 45 or so. Wife was 36. They immediately had a baby and almost as immediately started having serious marital problems over her expectation that he spend every minute of every day worshiping her, and his expectation that he would be able to spend all this free time playing with the toys (boat, guns, garage band, video games) he had accumulated in 25 years of adulthood.
Last I heard he'd cheated on her and they were talking divorce. Stupid.
Marrying in your 30s or 40s after decades of ME-FIRSTism is hardly an inoculation against marital problems.
"A period of sexual experimentation and exploration is a requirement for maturity now,"
It is?
And my inlaws married in 1962 when he was 17 and she was 14. Not in the south. She was pregnant, but this was deliberate so their parents would allow them to marry. Stupid, and not something I would encourage, but also not the end of the world. Still married, happily. They grew up together.
I would hide my face in shame--and my heart would be broken--if my little girl grew up to be anything like that vile creature Amanda Marcotte.
Why do non-liberals keep acting like the facts are a defense when liberals attack? Liberals defend, routinely and consciously, the worst acts imaginable, and then condemn their opponents for rumors of unpaid parking tickets.
When your argue facts with liberals you are just demonstrating you don't understand your opponents. The Mayberry Types are going to abandon those on our side under attack from liberals, for whatever the liberals indict them, and the liberals are going to defend their side from ANYTHING.
Go find their family video at iamsecond.com
My only interest in Robertson is to wonder whether he would have been a good quarterback for the Redskins.
More seriously, I was ready to proclaim that men today can't find jobs out of high school on which they can support a wife and family (when I was young they could) but then I realized he attended LSU on a football scholarship. So this seems truly an unusual partnership, from which few lessons can be drawn.
Mandy Marcotte is a genetic dead-end and she emotes she is even proud of her status when compared to all us "breeders."
My parents were 19/22 when they married (one year after they met, dad was in college & mom was a high school senior ... they had to move up their wedding date to April of 1951 because dad, in Army reserves after serving in Japan from 46-48 was recalled for Korea). They've been married for 62 years. My paternal grandparents were married at 16/23 (1926) ... grandma was Mormon.
My dad had been living and supporting himself on his own since he was 15. Put himself through 4 years of college in 2 since 2 was only what GI bill would pay for.
My maternal grandfather and two buddies left school after the 8th grade and worked their way across the country from Pennsylvania to California.
The vast majority of "teens" up until the late 60s were expected to apprentice adulthood ... taking on more and more responsibilities for themselves, their younger siblings and the family, regardless of the class they found themselves in.
All marriage takes commitment and work. You can work together, or you can been roommates with benefits.
Those from happy families should marry young. Those from unhappy families should probably not marry at all, but if it's felt necessary, waiting would be wiser. An only child should only marry an only child so that at least they limit their misery.
A 16 year-old girl who gets married is a horrible thing while a 16 year-old girl who gets pregnant peachy-keen, especially if she wants an abortion.
Got it.
Or does race matter?
More seriously, I was ready to proclaim that men today can't find jobs out of high school on which they can support a wife and family (when I was young they could) but then I realized he attended LSU on a football scholarship.
La Tech. Not the same thing.
I'm not entirely sure that we've come to happily accept our high school freshman daughters having anal sex.
But maybe this old Gen-X foul-mouthed atheist punk rock surfer type is just too much of a fuddy-duddy, and all the other parents are totally accepting of that stuff now.
Am I that out of touch? Are parents really cool with their high school freshman daughters taking it up the butt, now?
Heck, one of my great-grandmothers was married at age 13 and had 13 kids. From all accounts, she and great-grandpa were very happy together.
" It was a teenage wedding
And the old folks wished them
Well.
You could see that the young
Monsieur
Loved the mademoiselle..."
Chuck Berry
ABC News in 2008 reported that anal sex was on the rise among teens:
"Recently, researchers at the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center in Rhode Island suggested that anal sex is on the rise among teens and young adults, particularly those who have unprotected vaginal sex.
Experts say girls and young women like Carry are often persuaded to try such sexual behavior for the wrong reasons -- to please a partner, to have sex without the risk of pregnancy or to preserve their virginity."
A look at that study itself shows the numbers for teens to be 8% of boys and 6% of girls aged 15 to 17 years.
So while it may be "on the rise," it hardly seems a widespread practice.
We married at 20. Nobody thought it was a good idea. It's been 30 years, seven kids, 3 sons inlaw, six grandkids, and 20 years in the military later and we still think it was a great idea. We don't tell our kids they should wait.
We were immature, dumb, and foolish at 20. But we grew up. And because we were together, we grew up together rather than growing apart.
I have not observed that late marriages are any more successful than ours. In fact, often they are much less successful because the older parties are far too stuck in their ways and unwilling to defer to anybody else.
And, Anne, I'm confused about what version of the Bible you seem to be using, as you missed the paragraph between the one about servants and the one about wives. The passage immediately prior to the the wives 'in the same way' paragraph isn't the bit about slaves and masters- it's about JESUS and how He conducted Himself. That's what 'in the same way' refers to. Furthermore, it's obviously speaking here about believing wives married to unbelieving husbands, and the instruction is about not brow beating them over their unbelieving stance.
And the direction to husbands follows the wives' submission part and begins with "You husbands, *likewise*, conduct your married lives with understanding" and it tells the husband that just because she is physically weaker, that doesn't mean she isn't a spiritual equal, a joint heir of salvation. Furthermore, it concludes by warning the husbands that if they don't treat their wives this way, God won't even listen to their prayers (a threat not given to the wives).
Progressives are quick to defend ancient gay life -- but not so rapid in defending asymmetry of age between men and women in ancient marriage. I guess they're selective in their appeal to the authority of antiquity.
You know, getting married changes a guy. If Phil hadn't married at 18 (or whatever), but rather at 25, I doubt he'd have matured at all during that time of being single.
And if they'd divorced? Not only would both be poorer (per statistics), the kids would have been worse off as well.
Marriage gives people an opportunity to take on responsibilities. We've encouraged people to put off responsibilities for an awful long time, and this hasn't made us, as a society, stronger, or more resilient. If we encouraged people to be more responsible, and to take on more responsibilities, I imagine that would change quickly.
Would you want that life for your daughter?
It's certainly not the ideal life, but I think that it would be preferable to earning a bachelor's degree from George Washington and then marrying a creep at age 33, or earning a JD from Harvard and then marrying a creep at age 29, or earning a JD from Yale and then marrying a creep at age 28. I refer, of course, to the lives of, respectively, Huma Abedin, Silda Wall Spitzer, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Kay Robertson says that she got a diamond in the rough. The other three got turds in Tiffany settings. It's possible that Kay Robertson saw something in Phil that was both good and appealing to her, and that she's happier in her marriage today than any of those other three women.
At the age of 17, my wife's grandfather up and left home--in Sweden!--and emigrated to the US all by himself.
They'd been dating since she was 14 (and he was 18).
Question: Is that even legal?
Question: Is that even legal?
Answer: Shut up, Libtard! Because family values and the South.
@tim_magwire: Would I want that life for my daughter? No, I don't think so. Above all, I want her to be happy and I'm not raising her to be happy submitting to her man.
If you, as her father are not raising her to submit to her husband then it's almost certain that you do not expect your wife to submit to you.
I would say good luck with that but frankly, I don't think any amount of luck is going to save you, your daughter, your wife or your marriage.
I know what it's like not to raise a daughter to submit to her husband and I regret every moment not teaching her this. Every moment.
I know what it's like not to raise a daughter to submit to her husband and I regret every moment not teaching her this. Every moment.
I'm sure your daughter and (ex?) wife regret every moment also, Paul, but for other reasons. Every moment.
On infantilizing:
One of my professors captained a B17 over Germany - at age 19.
A contractor I hired captained a destroyer in the South Pacific - at age 20. After the war he earned 4 degrees, one of them in Law, awarded the same day. (The university changed their requirements to block this after his accomplishment.) He was a contractor in his retirement from being Chief Counsel for a major railroad.
I tried to keep this in mind when deciding what my kids could do and not do. The answer is, they can do what is expected, and do.
I think our parents generation and their parents generation all grew up faster than we do. My dad was a responsible dad to a growing family at less than 25. Now we have pajama boys on their parents health insurance even when they are 26. Go figure.
The left hates Horatio Alger.
Robertson was white trash with a talent for football. Wonder what Kay thought when he turned down an NFL draft offer because pro football would interfere with duck hunting?
Willie has an MBA. (I think all the kids went to college.)
So my guess if most of the lefties Marcotte included of course, haven't done their homework on this family.
And yeah ... anyone not east/west or Chicago who goes to church, doesn't screw around and probably doesn't vote Democrat unless it's blue, instead of being a fascinating token of diversity to be valued is to be destroyed. (Cue Sarah Palin, her 5 kids, her 5 colleges, her faith and her snow machine, Bristol Bay fishing, oil field production operator hubby.)
The Robertsons will do just fine.
Women Should Not Give Birth Until After They Are Fifty.
Men Should Not Impregnate Women After They Are Fourteen.
Let a Civilized Society Commence.
nswer: Shut up, Libtard! Because family values and the South.
Well, although I am a libtard, to be honest the Southerners I've met off the internet and in the business world have all been super polite and least fit for the southern stereotype. Funny, smart, and successful, which is why they were having dinner and drinks with me in the first place, I suppose?
"Marrying in your 30s or 40s after decades of ME-FIRSTism is hardly an inoculation against marital problems."
Severe understatement.
Since the comments are filled with anecdotes, not data- After knowing each other a whopping 7 months, I was 23, my wife 21, we married. 19 months later after the world's longest pregnancy, since everyone just knew I wouldn't get married unless the girl was pregnant, we had child 1 of 5. 18-1/2 years later, we had #5, and other people I worked with my age had already had their last grandchild. Where I ended up settling in the middle of nowhere, quite a few my age had married their HS sweethearts withing months of graduation, with kid 1 within 9 months of graduation day. In my experience, anyone who has dated more then a year and spent more then a year engaged- has divorced within 5 years. Don't know what the ideal length of dating should be, but my thoughts are that if by date 3 you aren't thinking you might want to spend the rest of your life with this person- it's time to move on to the next.
One of the more difficult problems I had was when my boat had a 19 yr old from the Bible Belt report aboard with his 16 yr old wife. 4 or 5 times I overheard other young sailors who had visited his house telling another sailor how she had come on to him. Each time, I pulled them aside and asked, "Remember how you behaved when you were 16? (yes) Remember how the girls behaved? (yes) Were they coming on to you? (uh, no) She's 16! (light comes on) Those misunderstandings very quickly went away. Lost track of them, but they were still, going strong when I transferred.
Most of my HS friends waited until after college graduation to marry, and married other college graduates. And the vast majority have been divorced at least once.
What's the best age to get married? When it's right for you. There is no best. How long should you date? Long enough. Should you stay near family or move away? Yes. Family interference can make or break a marriage, but more often breaks. To stay married there are a few rules. #1- don't go into into marriage thinking "Well, if it doesn't work out- I can always get divorced." Because for sure that's what will happen.
Well, although I am a libtard, to be honest the Southerners I've met off the internet and in the business world have all been super polite and least fit for the southern stereotype. Funny, smart, and successful, which is why they were having dinner and drinks with me in the first place, I suppose?
Possibly, though according to some commenters here, the truly authentic Southerners are the sort who emulate or look up to Robertsons as the Ultimate Southern Men, at least when they are clad in camo instead of Ralph Lauren. You must respect their cultural authoritah!
Everything Amanda Marcotte says is a dishonest smear -- including "and" and "the."
Nice Harold
Yes, once you realize this isn't the person you will marry move on immediately.
If you need to live with someone to know him... then you really don't know him at all with all that time wasted dating.
"My dad was a responsible dad to a growing family at less than 25. Now we have pajama boys on their parents health insurance even when they are 26. Go figure."
I was married at 21 and my wife was 20. Our first child was 5 years later. Had she been supportive of my career goals we would still be married. Even so it was almost 19 years. Wives need to decide whether they will support the husband's career or have one of their own (alone).
I'm reading Herman the German a wonderful book about a guy who grew up in Germany, wound up in China (with the AVG pilots) and spent months with his wife driving 10,000 miles from Thailand to Palestine in 1947. His wife, a lawyer when he met her, is one of my heroes now. Their adventures are incredible. I only hope the book gets reprinted in hardcover as the photos are not so good in Kindle.
Possibly, though according to some commenters here, the truly authentic Southerners are the sort who emulate or look up to Robertsons as the Ultimate Southern Men, at least when they are clad in camo instead of Ralph Lauren.
If you tugged on Phil Robertson's beard, I wonder what would happen?
Reading this anecdote on TMZ.com, my hit was that Phil was being accused of pedophelia -- wanting to have sex with children -- and the progressive left really don't give a tinker's damn about issues relating to being married.
Amusing how Anne and so many of the commenters here talk about Phil as having "grown up," and whether it is worth waiting for a man to "grow up."
"Grow up" is being used as a euphemism here for "finding Jesus" and "becoming a born-again Christian," which is highly ironic, because the implication of the use of a euphemism is that the people using the euphemism don't want to acknowledge the Christian character of Robertson's transformation, yet they clearly see this transformation as so obviously desirable that they label it with the incontestably positive term "growing up."
They are basically saying that they want everyone to achieve the morality of a fundamentalist Christian while maintaining the antipathy to fundamentalist Christianity that their avoidance of its name implies. Hilarious.
I met my wife when I was 19 and she was 23. I had to have my parents' permission to get married (I'm from Louisiana, the year was 1966). We'll have been married 48 years come February 19th.
We knew each other less than six weeks before I proposed, and less than three months when we were married. I was a lowly enlisted in the Air Force. We've been together through several separations (military necessity, not legal-type), multiple moves, more than a decade spent outside the United States, three (maybe four) children, at least three different careers, and much, much more. She is both my wife and my best friend. I can't think of life without her. If God is the center, then it will work.
At a certain point, your life is not about self-actualization.
Indeed. And people who think they must choose between "self-actualization" and marriage are mistaken: there's fulfillment--deep, profound fulfillment, available in marriage, maybe only in marriage, That's why people get married, and don't give up on marriage, even if their first or second one fails. The person who can attain much depth of fulfillment on his own, outside of marriage, is rare.
Ephesians 5:21 is a transitional verse in chapter 5. Some scholars believe, as Ann mentioned, that the verse belongs to the previous verses. Others believe, it refers to the marriage verses that follow, a call to mutual submission. I think much confusion (in and out of Christianity) comes from a misunderstanding of the word submit. Submit doesn’t mean to subject yourself, or allow yourself to be controlled. It means to place ones interests, desires, and priorities, below that of your spouse. The author then goes on to explain how it looks differently for men and woman. For a woman it’s to place her leadership below that of her husband. For a man it is to give everything as pertaining to himself to evoke the inner beauty of his wife..
“Naturally there is an important difference between submission we render to God and the submission we may owe to a fellow human being. For we submit to God just because He is God and He is perfect. Be we submit to other people, it is precisely because they are not perfect, and so are desperately in need of the humble service of our love.”
“ In marriage, a wife’s imperfections are not something a husband can afford to hold against her, but neither can he afford to overlook them. Rather he must bear them with her as part of his cross, just as she bears with him. To live with her in love is to experience at close quarters the way she herself struggles her own humanness.”
The Mystery of Marriage (Mason)
Marcotte is preaching to the choir.
I love that because she likely neither knows preaching nor a choir.
At the tender age of five I noticed a girl with long blond hair standing in front of a sunlit window and I told myself that someday I would marry a girl with hair just like the girl standing in front of the window.
At a more seasoned age of seventeen I met my future wife and married her a month after both of us graduated from high school. Two weeks later she had her beautiful, long blond hair cut.
Come next June we will have been married forty years
I don't see how this revelation(?) is much different from the original attempted smear by GQ (would love to hear the hours of unedited recording).
Here is the basic rub in the culture war.
Phil Robertson is accomplished and principled.
Everyone, even the credentialed left, would enter into a multi million dollar deal with PR verbally His word is his bond.
Few of the left side of the spectrum would enter into a simple contract with Obama, or either of the Clinton's, because no written contract is good enough when one party is self centered, and dishonest.
Phil Robertson is an open book, his past is evil and degrading, but PR has stood tall made appropriate amends and CHANGED. PR is a success by any measure.
Spiritualy
God
Church
Community
5
6
7
Work
Material possessions
The left side of the cultural spectrum is at wits end because they can not find anything about this man and the Family he has reared to mock.
I think the question about 'would you want your daughter to go through what Kay Robinson had to go through' is a question Ann would take back if she could. As an earlier poster already supplied the first thing that came into my mind, Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, and Elliott Spitzer.
Credentials are no protection from future marital pain.
That's the fight. Credentials with no character vs Accomplishment and honor.
"If you tugged on Phil Robertson's beard, I wonder what would happen?"
Not a thing.
The first time.
The man is a holdover from different times. Half a century ago women were much better people than they are today and that's a fact. I have heard the idiot feminists screeching about 'extending their youth' but in reality all it means is that they are refusing to grow up. A 14 year old from the 1960's had the same maturity level as a woman in her 30's today - and the 60's kid probably had a lot more common sense too.
I think the liberal dim bulbs and progtards are flogging a dead horse here. They aren't going to shame anybody, they aren't going to get an apology and nobody cares if they are offended.
"My dad was a responsible dad to a growing family at less than 25. Now we have pajama boys on their parents health insurance even when they are 26. Go figure."
This is the real complaint of the left and the Marcottes out there. They never want to grow up, yet Kay and Phil grew up early in life. This embarrasses them and the Democrats. Why, you should remain a child until you're 26!
Ideally, they'll have us all remain children to the state until we're dead, but that's another story.
Comparing and contrasting bankrupt character vs honor.
Amanda Marcotte:
http://archive.lifenews.com/nat2930.html
Phil Robertson:
http://duckcommander.com/
Phil Robertson is speaking from a cultural past that was appropriate for his generation and region (I am his age, a Texan, who witnessed girls getting married at the age of 14, usually because of pregnancy). Times are different now, the general society is different, technology is different, but Robertson's basic principles are the same. If you get married, do it for the right reasons, decide you are actually committed, and when things get rough (as they inevitably do), work it out before deciding to do the easy thing and jump for the exits.
I don't think people should get married in their teen years anymore (and Robertson probably doesn't either, given what he knows now at his age). I think what he's saying is that a true marriage isn't about the mad, romantic impulse that fades over time, but a lifelong commitment to another human being you genuinely like (even when you hate them sometimes).
Earlier I asked what good Amanda Marcottee had done anyone.
Shilling for John Edwards doesn't count.
Why, you should remain a child until you're 26!
Yeah, Obama and his Dimocrat minions tout that as if it is an accomplishment that they are proud of.
As I've noted before: watching Althouse try to figure out what Christians think and believe =lulz
Garage asked: "If you tugged on Phil Robertson's beard, I wonder what would happen?"
His wife would probably kick you in the nuts....for starters. Ya' know...stand by your man, isn't just a metaphor in some areas.
Phill's comment is humor and strong women will see it that way. In '75 we lived in Bethel Alaska and I decided to start HS in another small village (Unalakleet). My dad flew me there and dropped me off at the airport but was short on time getting back to work so had to leave immediately. No roads anywhere by the way. He gave me the name and about $1000 for a man he owed money to for me to pay back for him and departed. I walked into town, found and paid the man and went to school. I was 12.
Renee said...
"Nice Harold
Yes, once you realize this isn't the person you will marry move on immediately.
If you need to live with someone to know him... then you really don't know him at all with all that time wasted dating."
Can't tell if this is snark or agreement. It does, however, bring up a point that no one else has made. There are valid statistics. One is, one of the biggest predictors of future divorce is living together before marriage. For any reason, including in order to get to know each other.
After 35 years of marriage, my wife and I are still finding out new things about each other. Usually little things, but nonetheless new. We had been married 14 years when she found out I liked deviled eggs. Based on what I normally ate, she simply assumed I wouldn't.
The crickets are deafening.
Seriously Althouse: what are Amanda Marcotte's lifetime achievements? The ones which you feel are so blog-worthy?
I'd rather my daughter marry early, with commitment to make the marriage work, than sleep around.
And become another feminist man-hating slut.
I have a sister-in-law, now 41, who could have married "too young" 20 years ago, and didn't, and has been slightly unhappy since.
Divorce is a mutual choice to be lazy about working on the marriage -- one should find a spouse worth compromising with; and then make the needed compromises.
And the sooner the better -- with an 8 year old as the last of our 4 kid, I fully expect to have many years of fun with my wife when he's off in college.
For Women the Age of Twenty-One Through Twenty-Nine is the Proper Time to Be a Mistress. When the Woman Turns Thirty and Becomes a Wife it is Time for the Man to get a Mistress.
That Way Everyone is Happy for a Decade. Is That Not Enough?
Being a Mistress Lets You Spend the Best Years of Your Life as Someone's Second Choice. Second Choice with No Responsibilities has its Own Rewards.
Some of the stuff Phil and his boys say make me giggle like a loon in anticipation of when the feminists get wind of it. I think the family is darling and I wish them well. The respect and love they show their wives is delightful...which lonely spinster feminazis can't tolerate.
I met my husband when I was 15. I left home at 18 and put myself through college. He put himself through. It was a struggle but it was liberating. We didn't 'mess' around as he was a good Catholic boy and he was taught you didn't marry until you had a job to support a family. We married the year I graduated - age 22 - and are coming up on 27 years. Respect, humor, similar values, and acceptance of the long haul are key. It's not always easy but like river rocks, the sharp edges get honed smooth and round.
We probably would have married sooner but his parents way of thinking was that you shouldn't marry until you had a house. They married around age 30, but then they also didn't meet 'til later because of WWll and Soviet camps.
They'd been dating since she was 14 (and he was 18).
Question: Is that even legal?
Since dating is not synonymous with sexual intercourse, of COURSE dating between a 9th grader and a 12th grader is legal.
gads
Btw, Phil came back to Miss Kay in tears, wanting his family back. Phil and his sons give the credit of their success to her for forgiving him and welcoming him back home...on the condition he dump his drinking buddies. Had she not, who knew how things would have turned out.
Soon after, he found Jesus, changed his ways, and became a better man or as he says, 'Happy Happy Happy'.
People like Marcotte have reached the point where no one who knows anything about them is willing to consider anything they have to say.
Isn't he simply saying that as women get older they're more likely to look for material provision, rather than love? As to later marrying ages...the last 5 decades have been the age of liberalism...which is really nothing more than extended adolescence. It's not surprising people today think marrying early is somehow wrong.
It was not uncommon to get married at a young age in Louisiana in the 60's.
It was not uncommon to get married at a young age in Louisiana in the 60's.
It was not uncommon to get married at a young age in Louisiana in the 60's.
@Harold
No snark. I agree.
Modern Advice:
A Woman Shouldn't Marry a Man Unless There is Enough Room for the Both of them to Stay at His Parents.
This past year I've been working on my 50th high school reunion. 5 couples who were high school sweethearts are still married to each other.
that life you want for your daughter is on you Ann ... projecting your desires on your kids is not healthy ...
Bill Harshaw,
Actually Phil graduated from Louisiana Tech. He was the starting quarterback AHEAD of Terry Bradshaw who - unfortunately for Redskins fans - went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Funny clip on YouTube of Bradshaw on Leno or Letterman or some late night show talking about Phil as duck hunter and quarterback at La. Tech.
Well: all I know is I met my wife when I was 27 and she was 25. Married her as soon as I could convince her of the idea (having served 10 years in the military by them, I thought I understood women...LOL). Best thing that ever happened to me (other than putting my trust and faith in Jesus Christ and Him alone for my salvation). She plucked my ducks also (though I have not brought any home in decades). I think the show is a bit of a put-on, most shows are. No complaints with their positions though I don't watch it. Can see how most 'modern' elite type folks would see this fellow as a threat. js
" She loses her father and her boyfriend closes in on her, limiting her life choices and not really ready to be a man and treat her right. But she sticks to the path she chose, and she makes good, the way wives have traditionally done, and few young women are inclined to do these days."
That's not the picture I got from Phil and Kay at all. Did Amanda Marcotte guest write this post?
Speaking of Ms. Marcotte, she seems to have a talent for twisting things in the worst possible manner. Why have you quoted her without mocking what she wrote? Because, truthfully, her writing and and the rest of what she spews is mock worthy
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