is there a "right" time?

"Bless your beautiful hide,
Wherever you may be.
We ain't met yet

But I'm a willin' to bet

You're the gal for me.

Bless your beautiful hide

Prepare to bend your knee.

And take that vow

Cause I'm tellin' you now,

You're the gal for me.

She's gotta be right to be the bride for me.

Bless her beautiful hide

Wherever she may be."

My hide is hiding indoors, far away from the two feet of snow accumulating outside our house.  What better way to spend this snowed in snow day than watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (the source of the lyrics above) snuggled up next to my loverrrrrr?!?!

source

I truly love this movie- for the dancing, the feisty nature of the main character Millie, and the bright technicolor of the film- but in watching again, as an engaged woman, with a keen eye toward the underlying chauvinisms, I've noticed more than a few things.  Beyond the song solely devoted to being a June bride ("for they say when you marry in June...you will always be a bride"), there are a gagillion things that make you wanna say "ooh" and "no!" Take the first song, where the mountain man Adam comes down from his farm into town to sell his recent crop and find a wife.  Of course, this is Hollywood, so he finds Millie, the perfect woman who can cook and clean and has blue eyes and blonde hair to boot.  There are some trials, but of course, heathen Adam finds out about true love after a few songs, dances, some kidnapped girls, and Millie having a baby and they all live happily ever after.

Looking past every not-so-subtle reference to true love being found in a shot gun wedding, the movie makes another statement.  Adam has decided it is "time" to find a wife, which is what leads him to marry Millie the day he meets her.  It reminds me of a story line in the timeless classic series Sex and the City (yes, I said classic).  In this episode, the girls compare men to taxis.  Know where I'm going?  Essentially, it boils down to a simple assumption that there comes a point, or an age, when men become "ready" for marriage and whichever woman he happens to be dating will become his wife (because it was finally the "right time" for the man).

source

I love me some sex (and the city) but you gotta wonder about the chauvinistic undertones of this modern day analogy.

So we women are just supposed to lolly gag around, get gussied up and keep looking purty until a man's "available" light comes on and he descends from the mountain because he's "ready" to marry now? Hmmm...

Where I come from (one large city in that remote state of Idaho) it's pretty uncommon to be 25 and unmarried, or even married sans children. Calling it like it is, 7 years out of high school graduation, most people in my graduating class can now check one or both boxes.  For this reason and many others, during high school I surrounded myself with friends whose mindset was similar about marrying pretty young.

Now, I'm about to check one of those boxes, and I am the second out of our friend group of seven.  It's an overstatement to say I'm ashamed, but I will admit to surprise.  I always thought I'd be thirty before I got married.

This topic came up in dinner last night with my future family and I had to clarify myself then, as I will now.  I am beyond happy, even ecstatic, to marry Topher in May, at the ripe old age of 24.  However, he and I are both incredibly surprised that we'll be signing that marriage certificate so soon in our lives.  It's not that we haven't dated for a long time- nearly six years- and it's not that we aren't sure about our decision.  We both just had to come to terms with this idea of when the "right time" is to get married.

According to Hollywood, it's when the man grows up enough to turn his "available" light on and/or sing about it.  For my high school self, the "right time" would have come around 28 or 29.  For my lovely, darling, amazing aunt who also lives in Idaho, the "right time" seemed to be as soon as Topher and I had met, as she would ask my mother every. single. week. if we had gotten engaged yet.

I don't know if there is a "right time."  I'm pretty sure I don't think it relies on the man, as movies and shows would have us think, but I do believe there is some truth to the idea that men need a little longer to mature and realize certain things about the woman they are dating and the future.  In the end, though, both Topher and I had to have our "available" lights on at the same time and agree that it was, indeed, the "right time" before he could slip a ring on my left hand.

Do you think there is such thing as a "right time"?  How did you know you were ready to be engaged and get married?