By Maureen Robinson. Illustrations by Margarete Lloyd

Engaged and then married while still a teenager, Tracy Rose has no regrets. Now 23, she reflects on her nearly four-year marriage with a mixture of scrutiny and reflection that betrays her youth. “Madly in love” and “generally impulsive”, Rose married only halfway through her undergraduate university degree, at an age when 82% of young Australians still live at home with their parents.
“This guy actually cared about me and the matter was brought up in a mutual way,” Rose recalls. “One of my best friends was the male side in a couple that had gotten married their senior year of university. Living on campus on one hand, and seeing a functional married life on the other, I had absolutely nothing against making the switch.”
These days, the married student is an amazingly rare specimen. The lifelong commitment of “Till death do us part” is a terrifying sentiment for most teenagers and early twentysomethings, who can arguably be categorised as indecisive, self-centred, liberal, and in rabid pursuit of education and social status. In an era of skyrocketing divorce rates, broken families, and crumbling pillars of high-profile Tinseltown marital bliss (Susan Sarandon, Tiger Woods, Sean Penn, the Gosselins), it’s no wonder that more Australians than ever are abandoning their parents’ hallowed traditions of early marriage and escaping to the safe waters of tertiary education—a veritable time-out from the social norms of settling down and starting a family. But a small niche of students has battled social scrutiny, parental disapproval, financial risk, and unsupportive administrative policy to achieve something most of us wilfully put off: marriage. Who are these wedded wonders who walk among us, and how have they pulled off such a milestone event while the rest of us can barely bang out an essay on deadline?

The cautiously liberal generation

Demographic trends show that married students are more marginalised than in decades past. Recently released data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) paints a deepening picture of wilful postponement of adult commitments such as marriage. Over the past 35 years, median age at first marriage steadily climbed an average of 6 years between the genders, jumping from 21.1 and 24.6 (women and men, respectively) in 1971 to 26.2 and 27.9 in 1989 and finally to 27.7 and 29.6 in 2008.
While we are putting off marriage, many of us are hitting the books like never before. The ABS reports that between 1998 and 2009, the proportion of 25-64 year old with a non-school qualifications (from university or college) rose from 46 to 61%, while those with a bachelor’s or higher qualification grew from 17 to 26% in the same period.
What attitudes are shaping these demographic phenomena? How do our expectations of what marriage can offer us vary from those of our parents’ generation? Survey results from The Australian Temperament Project, which followed from infancy 2,443 Australian born in the early 1980s, indicate that study participants (aged 26 at the time of the 2006 study) were hesitant to associate financial security and happiness with marriage, and were in no rush to tie the knot. Although 81% stated that they would “probably” or “definitely” marry one day, only 7% answered that they expected to get married in the next year, while 53% of participants expected to marry within 3-6 years.
The study also indicated that young Australians are increasingly liberal in their views of the traditional institute of marriage, with strong support for pre-marital cohabitation and gay marriage, and strong disapproval of marriage for the main purpose of having children. The study notes that overall, young Australians still see marriage as a part of their future but “may be wary or unsure what marriage can offer them.”

The experts weigh in
At the University of South Australia, Associate Professor Judith Gill is conducting research on gender, education, and work.  According to Gill, a number of demographic stressors lead young people to delay settled down and getting married. One is the increasing trend towards cohabitation, with 77.7% of young Australian couples choosing to live together before marriage. “The idea of trial is much more readily accepted and that indeed most young people spend some time living together before formally announcing their commitment,” says Gill. In addition, loosening religious constraints in our increasingly secularised society has normalised the idea of living together before marriage.
Another factor is the expectation of young women to obtain a degree before starting anything else. “The number of women with tertiary qualification has risen dramatically. Getting a degree is becoming part of the expected career preparation for young Australians, especially people from the middle classes.”
“Young middle class women today want to have an education,” agrees Chilla Bulbeck, a University of Adelaide professor emeritus and expert in gender issues. “They want to combine a marriage and motherhood with an established career.” In the course of Bulbeck’s research, she has asked a number of female high school students to imagine what age they wanted to get married and start a family. Many replied that their late 20s and early 30s was the ideal time. “They think, ‘I will establish myself first before starting a family.’” Bulbeck notes that, as part of “notion of that the man be a little bit more mature and make more money”, men have historically preferred to start a family later in the game, after settling into a career. “It’s part of the tradition of the men needing to be looked up to and the women doing the looking.”

Seeking social acceptance
For those that defy social norms and get married during or before tertiary studies, avoiding the scrutiny of their peers and colleagues can be a challenge. Rose balks at bringing up the subject at school and having to “justify a major life decision” to strangers.
“I felt a little bit alone and a little bit weird at school. I don’t really bring up my marriage unless I absolutely have to. In my experience, it’s led to questions about who he is and how we met and how old I am and why and such.”
At an age when the dating game can consume as much time and energy as a part-time job, settling down into marital routine brings with it emotional and financial consistency that many footloose young Australians lack. “I have my family life sorted out,” Rose agrees. “I’ll never have to worry about that. My husband does contract IT work, and I have a school-based part-time job, so money-wise we end up supporting each other quite nicely.”
Rose, who calls married life “fun and exciting”, acknowledges that many young people “cringe at the idea” of marriage. “[But that] simply isn’t relevant for us because we’re that in tune with each other. And as much as social interaction beyond the marriage is completely essential, I’m still never quite alone and always have somebody to chat about something interesting with.
“You have an excellent support system outside of your parents,” says Emma Cunningham, who was married at 22 while working full-time but has since commenced full-time college study.

Money matters
Transitioning from parental dependence to marital inter-dependence means more than just ticking a different box on student loan applications. Whether one or both parties are studying, tying the knot usually necessitates some combination of finances and resources, or else another financial arrangement needs to be hashed out. “You don’t live at home and thus have bills to pay,” explains Cunningham. “I feel bad that my husband has to pick up the majority of our expenses, as we chose not to combine our finances.” She advises other young people considering marriage to “make sure at least one of you is financially stable, unless you’re prepared to live with one of your parents or go so far into debt you won’t be able to get out of it for a decade.”
Although Austudy and HECS loan entitlements are impartial to parental income or dependency status, the government Youth Allowance scheme does take parental income dependence into consideration as a measure of entitlement. This entitlement can drastically change upon becoming independent, which occurs when a student is married or has been in a de facto relationship for at least 12 months—regardless of financial need or whether a student is actually being financially supported by a spouse or partner.

The big day: A 200-hour, $15,000-20,000 commitment
For many students, university is a reckless and indulgent time of two-minute noodles, week-long drinking binges, and dodgy sharehouse arrangements—not the most accommodating circumstances, financial or otherwise, for planning a wedding. Sue Shaw, managing director of ESP wedding planners in Adelaide, estimates that the average time needed to plan a wedding is 200 hours, and the event itself will carry a price tag of $15,000-20,000. “I tend to find that people aren’t getting married at a young age anymore,” Shaw says. “They are waiting until their late 20s or 30s or even 40s.”
Human Rights & Equity Studies student Krystyna Markee and her fiancé Rich, a business student, intend to hire a wedding planner for their 2011 vows, while both are still at university. 19-year-old Krystyna, who hadn’t yet started university when she got engaged, isn’t stressed about planning just yet, but “can see it becoming stressful… although the internet makes things much faster.”
For Candice Eisner, who got married one month after graduation, having school commitments in the background of wedding plans was both an asset and a handicap.  Although “very stressed” from the balancing act, Eisner found that as a student, her flexible schedule accommodated wedding plans much more easily than it would for a nine-to-fiver. “That meant I could meet with wedding vendors or do wedding planning at odd times of the day. It was beneficial having an easy built-in time for all those last-minute details that needed to be done the week of the wedding, and having built-in ‘vacation’ for the honeymoon.” Despite wedding-date chaos at the hands of an exam schedule conflict and a faculty strike at her school, Eisner says that in hindsight, “things went pretty well.”

Getting help: Resources on campus
Married students—an umbrella term which also applies to mature students with families who return to school—face an unsettling void of dedicated administrative attention on at the University of Adelaide. Few in number and largely self-sufficient, this faction is considered too fringe to fall under the purview of university resource administrators.
All university accommodation—including both regular flats and houses and the little-known emergency units for students in crisis—is for single students only. Not one accommodation unit is set aside for couples or families, although Accommodation Services is quick to point out that they do assist couples to find a private rental property with their rental database.
Professor Gill, who lived in married student housing in America in the 1960s, cites cultural differences as Australia’s reason for not providing dedicated housing options for couples or families. “We don’t have the population of people that need that accommodation. Most Australians [go] to university in their hometown.  It wasn’t taken on board for universities to accommodate married students. There were very limited cases… It’s just not part of the university culture and married students nowadays are faced with the lack of opportunity and the cost of private enterprise.”
In the eyes of the university, “family is looked at as sort of an appendage to the student,” says Professor Bulbeck.  “And those students comprise a small percentage of the population who are invisible to the university administration.”
Further disquieting is the university’s lack of specific policies that apply to married students or students with families. In cases of missed examinations or labs due to family commitments (for example, a sick child or spouse, or daycare closure), the onus is on the student to convince his or her respective faculty that the circumstances permit special consideration—a level of non-committal subjective discretion that may leave affected students with few options or alternatives.
(Unquestionably, to those of us having endured a few years at uni already and been subjected to the inner mechanisms of the administrative machine, a vaguely framed policy operated by  a large, multi-armed institution is more than likely to leave students exasperated and defeated than to herald a success story of fair and timely treatment).
“There is no out and out straightforward rule about that,” says Peter Backhouse, Policies Coordinator at the university’s Student Policy and Appeals office. “There is a blanket university-wide policy for supplementary exams, and child care could fall under that category … If you apply for a supplementary exam, you need to have some sort of supporting evidence or documentation, like letters from doctors or treating practitioners. In some circumstances, the school will consider it, but it is subjective and has to be in line with the university-wide policy.”
Chris Gent, an Education and Welfare Officer (EWO) at the Adelaide University Union’s student care office, paints a picture of low demand and subsequently sparse and inconsistent resources. “Married students have never been a particular issue… They are a very small minority.”
Gent claims that the university carries the burden of its scarcity of resources “The majority of our students are school leavers. There has never been any contemplation by the university for married people or people with children.”
“In the case of emergency accommodation, they would be on the open market. There is nothing that the university provides.”
Gent points out that the EWOs can help such students via financial counselling. He also recalls occasions where marital problems have compromised students’ academic progress. “There have been some instances with student marital problems where the faculties have said, ‘well you need to sort out your marital problems or you shouldn’t be taking this course.’ But overall the faculties have been pretty understanding and accommodating.”
Although the Counselling Centre on campus does not host any specific programs relating to marriage or family, the trained psychologists and social workers in the Centre’s employ see a significant volume of students for a range of relationship matters. 50-minute counselling sessions are available for individuals or couples, and regular counselling sessions can be scheduled for married couples with ongoing marital conflict.

Looking ahead
Demographically marginalised by ongoing trends in Australians’ attitudes towards marriage, married students are a quiet minority—although an ever-present one, and perhaps one that does not deserved to be ignored by host universities. The phenomena of student marriage is rarely accommodated and largely overlooked, although the lack of attention thus far may speak to the relative self-sufficiency of this group.
According to these married students though, the payback has, in their cases, far outweighed the stress, provided one avoids the obvious pitfalls while balancing marital and academic commitments. “If you’re in a program that requires a ton of school hours and study time, like mine was, don’t have a short engagement and huge traditional wedding,” cautions Eisner. “You won’t have time to do any of the planning.”

“On the school side,” Rose says, “It’s a bit difficult to get studying done at home when my husband isn’t in school, is chatty and buzzing about and such. I’m not as interested in extra-curriculars since I live off-campus. Generally, though, my schoolwork gets done and I maintain good grades with about as much stress as anybody else.”

Markee advocates for cohabitation before marriage. “ You get used to each other’s habits like leaving empty containers in the fridge or time on the microwave, which drives me crazy.”
Clearly, marriage and academia present a balancing act that young Australians, with their hyper-paced, triple-booked lives, aren’t unfit (but perhaps a bit short on time) to handle. While many university-aged teens and adults have knee-jerk misgivings at mention of the “M” word, success stories do walk among us and prove that “student” and “devoted husband/wife” are not mutually exclusive identities.