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The decision to marry requires proper timing and this includes taking into consideration issues like age, education and career

Vaidah Mashangwa Gender opinion
A long time ago young adults’ dating and courtship led directly to marriage but it seems now that more and more people who are not married to each other but have a sexual relationship share the same house or apartment.
The changes have also seen others having children prior to marriage and then thereafter live together and totally marry someone else. People who live together and fail to marry later feel used, tricked and tend to be hostile.

It must be noted that the decision to marry requires proper timing and this includes taking into consideration issues like age, education and career according to the book Choices in Relationships. According to research, the age and education of your partner at the time of marriage predicts the happiness of your marriage.

Individuals who marry too early experience problems of extra-marital affairs. Those that marry in their early 20s have a higher rate of staying happily and the relationship lasts longer. Those that marry in the late 20s have a higher chance of divorcing.

Generally those who co-habit are individuals above the age of 25. The percentage of divorced, widowed and separated who co-habit is higher than that of never-married people. While such an arrangement was not encouraged in the past, it seems a number of people have accepted and seem to approve of co-habitation.  Such a transformation is fuelled by the fact that many young people practise sex outside marriage. This has greatly affected the morality attached to living with a partner without marrying.

Apart from that, the improvements and advancements in birth control measures have given the young too much freedom and liberty to do whatever they want, coupled with the Age of Majority Act. There are also young women who practise illegal abortion. There are also some young women who have higher incomes and tend to live and rent far away from home as there is no constant monitoring from the parents. On the other hand, young men may prefer co-habitation as it involves less commitment and responsibility.

It is estimated that one out of 10 15-19-year-old women become pregnant each year. In countries like Sweden, for example, all co-habit before marriage. In the book, Public and Private Families, it is said that when co-habiting relationships end, 60 percent result in marriage and 40 percent in break-ups.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, sexual intercourse, marriage and child-bearing were indeed bound together. This meant that the majority of men and women first had sexual intercourse with the person they would marry and often only after marriage began except those that had intercourse after that engagement. In equation form this would be married- then – have- sex- then –have –children.

It seems that has changed as both courting and dating young men and women indulge in sexual activity more.
In the past, if a young woman became pregnant before engagement, the punishment for both the young girl and the boy was quite severe.
The girl was sent straight away to the young man’s homestead and forced to stay there. Nowadays the parents have also relaxed the rules as they easily look after both their daughter and grandchild.

What is surprising is that even when the child grows up the father always claims the child back despite having contributed nothing towards his/her upkeep. In such instances he may be asked to pay something as compensation.

Generally, it seems parents have generally lost control of their own children as well as the track of whom their children interact with. While the parents have input on the basis of their values, nowadays, the choice of a partner is more on love feelings. It might not matter whether the partner is from a respected family or has the potential to look after the family.

There are, of course, some people nowadays who also choose a partner according to his/her social standing, earnings and trade. These people can actually try as much as possible to change their parents’ negative attitude towards their partners.

Young men and women nowadays also spend too much time outside the home due to technological advances. More leisure time has been created for dating partners. Unlike in the past when partners disapproved of children who came back home late, nowadays older children are allowed to go out to parties, braais, and music shows in the evenings and are allowed to sleep over in most instances.

At times the friends to one’s children are not known. It is a new era where children just do as they wish. Countries like Korea, Japan, and Philippine, still approve of children’s mates.

Of late, there have been reports of young women who are raped on their first date and during the dating period. A research carried out on the issue revealed that 25 percent of women reported that they experienced unwanted attempts to kiss, fondle or engage in sexual activities. On the other hand, only three percent of men reported having been pressured by women to engage in sexual activities.

Parents should be wary of where and how their children spend their time. A night out may end up in tragedy when girls are sexually harassed. It is a fact that at various parties today, girls can be encouraged to drink large quantities of alcohol and raped by a gang or by one of the men at the party. Children need guidance in terms of how they dress and socialise. While this is a must for all parents, some parents hardly find time due to work commitments or otherwise. Advances in technology have also damaged the family fabric as more time is spent on the internet, Facebook, twitter and so on by both the parents and children.

 Vaidah Mashangwa is the provincial development officer in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Bulawayo Metropolitan province. She can be contacted on 0772111592 or 09 889224 or email [email protected]