By: Jessica Brite and Alyssa Nepomuceno, Features Editors
This summer, Americans witnessed a number of historical meetings, from the monumental Trump-Kim summit in Singapore to the Trump-Putin summit in Finland. Of these engagements, however, one in particular had taken the internet by storm.
This engagement, of course, belonged to singer Ariana Grande and comedian Pete Davidson. After only one month of dating, Grande announced to the rest of the world her plans to marry the Saturday Night Live regular.
Grande is not the only celebrity to have donned the ring out of the blue, as celebrities such as Justin Bieber and Nick Jonas also plan on tying the knot with their respective partners. These whirlwind engagements led us to ask students about their views on marriage traditions.
In accordance to its nature, the Internet had blown up. These surprise engagements sent up a flurry of discourse throughout comment sections and forums alike, highlighting the brevity and unexpectedness of the latest news from pop music’s most-streamed female soloist, one tweet saying, “@carolynrfreeman: the b in ihob stands for but they’ve only been dating for a few weeks.”
Students have had mixed reactions to the whole situation. Senior Brenden Picioane said, “I don’t really care about celebrities’ [personal lives] but I definitely do not agree with their decision to get married so soon.”
However junior Faye Shemper thinks “that if a celebrity couple is ready for marriage, they should make that decision regardless of time spent dating.”
Sophomore Bianca Palmer highlighted that “if it was any normal couple it wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but since celebrities are so scrutinized, we make their marriages a bigger deal than it should be.”
Changing times continue to challenge the norms and traditions of what was thought to be basic marriage values. In recent years, couples have begun to stray from marriage constructs such as asking permission for marriage, having males propose to females, and, of course, dating for a lengthy amount of time before getting engaged.
The time at which a couple decides to get married varies from couple to couple. Some individuals choose to get married within mere weeks of knowing each other, while others choose to wait until they are at least financially stable.
“A couple should know and strongly trust each other before making the obviously big decision to get married,” Faye said. “Often times, in order for this to happen, I feel that it is especially important for each person to meet the other’s family. Being on good terms with each others’ families early definitely minimizes problems post-marriage.”
One of the most prevalent traditions that spans across multiple cultures is to ask for the man to ask for the woman’s hand in marriage. “It depends, because some people would do so just out of respect,” says Bianca. “When you’re marrying someone you’re also becoming a part of their family, somewhat, and some families might see it as a sign of respect to ask permission to marry someone while other families may not see it like that.”
Another engagement trend that defies tradition is that women are now proposing to their partners rather than the tradition of a man asking a woman to marry him. One video that has gone viral is of a couple in Disney who proposed to each other at the same time.
Junior Lucas Ayala shared, “It’s totally okay for a girl to ask a guy to marry her. Guys wanna be surprised sometimes, too.”
Brenden added, “Women are their own persons and [they] can make the decision to marry someone on their own.”
In today’s society, not only are women proposing, but data also shows that for the last fifty years there has been a steady increase in the age at which females are getting married.
“The emphasis on education and career establishment has become considerably heavier and has certainly developed into a standard that society sets up for the average citizen,” Faye stated. “Many feel the need to put college completion and career establishment ahead of relationships… and as people make time to work on themselves as an individual, they push back working on themselves in a relationship setting to a later time.”
“The old idea that a woman’s purpose is to have and care for a family is fading away in our society,” Brenden said. “People tend to [just] wait so that they can ‘live their lives’ and try to find ‘the one,’ not just anyone, before settling down.”
