Let's keep it calm with the discussions here, huh...there aren't really extreme enough questions to get highly agitated about.
intedomine said:
The older a couple is, the more likely it is that the union has developed out of a desperate need to find a partner quick. Whether it be because the woman is getting too old to have kids, to satisfy some " 'you-must-marry' old school" parents, or to marry into financial security.
I see from your profile that you're 21. How many recently married older couples do you know, and know well? I'm 36, have seen a lot of friends and coworkers and relatives in the 30-50 age group get married over the last several years, and I don't get the impression from that, that these "desperate need" scenarios you speak of are very common at all (nor do I know of any sociological data that supports that they are). On the contrary, I'd say the more common pattern seems to be that these relationships are already several years old before they turn into marriage (and for that matter, it's not infrequently a second marriage for one or both partners). I can't think of an instance where rushing into it because the woman was nearing menopause, or 'old school' parents were pushing for it (not many people my age have that sort of dependence on their parents nowadays anyhow), or dire need for a serious cash infusion on the part of either partner appeared to play any role. You almost come across as if you assume 'older' people getting married for the first time must be basket cases in some way or another that they hadn't gotten around to it sooner, or perhaps (formerly) hellbent-on-permanent-singlehood types who recently experienced a total collapse of self-confidence and thus threw all caution to the winds.
With mid-teens, relationships are usually based on a genuine physical or emotional desire to be with someone.
Relationships, period, are usually based on that, in Western societies anyhow. Of course 'genuine' doesn't always mean mature or healthy, but to be fair that can be true at any age, too.
Again, it almost sounds as if you think 'older' people must necessarily be driven by all kinds of wildly dysfunctional motives in their romantic lives, otherwise they'd surely have found 'genuine' love sooner. I suspect the response of most 'older' people to that would be that they've already had several relationships from their teen years onward as it is, thank you very much, and in fact they trust themselves a lot more now to be ready to commit to sharing the rest of their lives with someone than they did at 18 and certainly at 15; that they have a clearer-eyed view from experience of what their own flaws as a companion are, what kinds of fulfillment anyone other than themselves will never be able give them and thus shouldn't be expected from a romance, and so on. Does that mean all teenaged relationships are 'doomed' not to have those qualities, or that all 'adult' relationships will automatically have them; no, obviously not. But I don't think you'll find too many 'older' people lamenting that they sure wish they could know 'genuine' love again like they did in their teenage years, and that now that they're older it's all become one long sordid tale of desperation and ticking biological clocks and an inability to recapture what 'desiring' someone 'genuinely' feels like.
Is there really something wrong about a relationship between a 22 year old and a 15 year old?
Not intrinsically, no. On the other hand, 'marriageable age' worldwide is generally based on what by consensus is seen as the average minimum age at which a person is ready to assume adult responsibilities as that society understands them. Are you OK with 15-year-olds being subject to the draft, for example? Being fully financially responsible for themselves (whether they want to be or not)? In the US at least, many states require you to be in school until age 18 (some states allow you to leave at 16 with parental permission). And in most all states, your parents are still legally responsible for you until age 18. How far would you be willing to go to change those things in the interests of letting 15-year-olds marry whomever they want, whenever they want? I think most Americans would agree with Irvine that there are few good reasons for not waiting until you've at least attained the age of majority (and completed high school) to get married. Your partner isn't going to disappear off the face of the earth.
As far as the legal issues surrounding the case in question, those are pretty cut-and-dried really--the marriage itself broke no laws. But I'm still dumbfounded that this school's principal found "nothing inappropriate" in his employee regularly giving one of his 14-year-old charges of the opposite sex private rides home, and text-messaging her at 2 AM. Legality before the state--in the abstract sense of their ages only--is one thing; the professional appropriateness of a coach dating his 14-year-old student is something else. Like I said earlier, your students are not there (and a captive, paying audience at that) in order to to supplement your social circle and dating pool. And not many people could honestly say they perceived their relationships to their teachers in high school no differently than they perceived those to their peers--there's almost always a felt level of beholdenness, and a presumption of overall life competence, with the former that there wouldn't be with the latter.
at the parents.
at the sleaze.
