There are exceptions, of course. For all the fraudulent relationships that have no one but Mark Zuckerberg vouching for them, there exist a small number of students for whom being engaged or married on campus was and is a reality. At least three couples from last year’s graduating class tied the knot after Commencement, and still more current students are engaged or married.
Mirah Curzer ’08 and Josh Stanton ’08 were one such couple. Curzer and Stanton met during Luau TAP their first year at the College and immediately became friends, although they didn’t start dating until the next semester. They became engaged the summer before their junior year and married three weeks after graduation earlier this year.
Not all of the engaged and married students on campus are practitioners of school-cest, however; some students’ significant others are from outside the bubble. Senior Monica Friel, for instance, met her husband, Miguel Salazar, when she was twelve and married him eight years later, in June of this year. While she studies at Amherst, he is at home in Texas, close to the rest of her family.
In a school where the student population always hovers at a little above 1,600, knowing everyone’s business is part and parcel of the college experience. Online networking sites only legitimize the knowing of intimate details. Private information, then, becomes public domain.
Despite this reality of a small liberal arts school, most affected students maintain that their college experience has not suffered due to engagements or marriages. “I like to stay in, watch TV and hang out with my friends. I do not party,” says Friel, “so I basically do the same things now as I did before I got married.”
According to Friel, the only difficulty about being married is she has to be “more responsible than most other students.” In addition to the trials and tribulations of the normal student, she had to deal with the stresses of planning a wedding last year, as well as the worries of home life including bills and family. A self-proclaimed homebody, Friel stresses that family is very important to her and having her husband in San Antonio “as an extension of [her]self” to help out at home is comforting.
Unlike Friel, Curzer had boyfriend-turned-fiancee Stanton on campus throughout their relationship. Curzer points out that both she and Stanton elected not to live off-campus together and that they never had to experiment with the college dating scene, which, she says, was a “blessing.” She too did not feel at all hampered by her relationship in the college setting. “In fact, I think it did us a lot of good. It made it easier for me to have male friends and for Josh to have female friends, because everyone knew we were off limits. And lots of people came to us for relationship advice because they assumed we knew more.”
Almost any student can easily spot one of the College’s quintessential “cute couples”—those committed students that have probably been together since freshmen year and will almost certainly get married upon graduation. Curzer and Stanton were among those ranks, so it hardly came as a surprise to those who know them when they got engaged halfway through college. Still, even the most committed couple will face curiosity from others for choosing to get married at such a young age when they have their “whole lives ahead them.”
“There are many valid arguments for waiting to get married, but an engagement is a promise,” points out Friel. “Most couples who know that they are going to get married after college have already made that promise. So, what is the difference in making it official a year before graduation or a year after?”
Although Friel felt she was ready during college, marriage was something that Curzer and Stanton decided to put off until after graduation. Although they had originally planned to wait a full year after graduation, they ultimately decided there was no real reason to put it off any longer. “It was actually great to get married so soon after college,” explains Curzer. “For one thing, we had a lot of our Amherst friends at the wedding, and they went nuts since it was basically our first reunion. All of our friends were still here before going off to their various jobs, and they all got along very well.”
A college marriage or engagement, though perfect for some people, is bound to draw criticism from others. “I realize that a lot of people here think that I am stupid for getting married in college,” says Friel, “But I have always known that I was the type of person that would. And my husband and I feel comfortable with our decision.” When Friel graduates this May, she plans return to her husband, take a year off, and then attend graduate school in Texas for arts education.
Curzer likewise brings up the fact that getting married so soon after college was difficult in part because so many people questioned her motives and decisions. Some, she said, had good intentions and genuinely worried about her getting married so young, judging her for missing out on “dating and causal sex” or for “sacrificing [her] liberal values and selling out to be a housewife.”
Despite the doubters, Curzer is happy with her decision. “I’m not missing anything but heartbreak and STDs,” she says. Far from sacrificing anything, Curzer is content to learn about life after college with her husband instead of having to adjust to everything alone, or re-adjust with him at a later time. Furthermore, after Stanton finishes rabbinical school in Israel, Curzer will be starting law school at NYU. “Basically, we’re your standard liberal and liberated couple,” says Curzer, who takes offense when called “old-fashioned.”
Two young people meet in college, fall in love, become engaged, and decide to get married immediately after graduation. It is a picture that would not shock or even stand out if it was precluded with a qualifier like “sixty years ago.” But suggest that it describes an Amherst student who graduated, say, last year—or may have not even graduated yet—and all at once, the eyebrows raise, the heads shake sadly, and the inevitable questions and remarks come flooding in. Facebook “relationships” left and right treat lightly a subject that a small group of Amherst students treats and has treated quite seriously. “Getting married in college is not for everyone,” Monica Friel readily admits. “But when you feel ready to get married, and find the right person to marry, then waiting is just putting off the inevitable.”