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Notes -
To add on, neither are teenage girls.
There have been plenty of societies with an average female age of marriage 16 or under. Our society isn’t one of them, and the median teenaged girl probably is not ready to be married off, but it’s not implausible that some might be. Very, very few where guys married under 20, or even 25. Far more implausible for a teenage boy to be ready for marriage, especially considering the man needs to pay the bills.
I was talking about raising kids mostly. Although being an equal contributor in a household in marriage is also something teenage girls won't be prepared for. Older mothers are far more sensible and better at raising children than teenagers. This has always been true, even in historical societies, simply because people are more experienced, worldly and have matured more when they are older.
I don’t believe in the ‘equal contributor’ bs.
Taking care of a baby/young child is well within the capabilities of a teenager. By the time this required an adult adult she would be one.
Our society isn’t set up that way, but it’s much more plausible than in the genderflipped case.
Working a fulltime job as a cashier, or barista, or whatever is also well within the physical and mental capabilities of a teenage male. That is enough to pay for a room or even a studio. And considering how many families throughout history have been raised in similar or worse conditions... it's really also a matter of our society not being set up that way, not of material impossibility.
In an alternate reality, we could end credentialed education at 8th grade like the Amish do, a boy would either start working directly or apprentice into a trade, then a couple of years later when he accidentally knocks up some girl at 16 he marries her at the point of a shotgun and is able to support both at a low standard of living until he finishes his apprenticeship or gets enough experience that he can find better work.
And, ideally, in that parallel universe we also build more fucking housing and train more fucking doctors so that our standard of living does not keep going down even as the economy becomes more and more productive, the way it does in this world.
Unskilled labor has never been enough to support a family- that's why poverty was abject well into living memory. A teenage breadwinner requires supplementation by welfare.
It's certainly possible for a teenager to pay for groceries, diapers, and a room in a flophouse. But not wanting to do that is the reason we don't marry as teens.
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