I can tell from sparkly’s writing she’s a girl. We female teens have this writing style it’s easy to pick it out from the crowd.
Sparkly,what I’m saying is marriage is much more than “knowing what goes on out there”. In this specific friend, she actually knew about the outside world at an age younger than I (an american BY litvish girl) did.
But even if she did’t, they know what they need to know. You don’t have to know about TV or what a movie is to have a great marriage (her husband doesn’t) and that’s okay! I know it may seem like you do, but you don’t.
Sure some couples really aren’t ready and are pushed into it because if they don’t marry at 18, they are considered “old”. But the same thing happens by us. There are 21 year old girls “not ready” and people push them into it for the same reason.
Sometimes it feels like (when you are a teen- I have a right to say this to you, for I am one myself although I think perhaps a bit older) that one who does not know about certain secular ideas must be a fool/moron/immature/dumb/naive/and more. But it really isn’t that way, we just put those people down because our neshomah knows they are more pure because they haven’t watched, seen, and listened to the things we have. Our neshomah is jealous of them. So we put them down as being sumb and naive to make us feel better.
They aren’t dumb and naive. Marriage is about selflessness, caring for one for than you do, knowing you are giving up your single life to take full time care of a yeshivah bochur and turn him into a man. Knowing that it won’t be easy, knwoing you need to compromise, that they’ll be fights, the life has problems, that things aren’t perfect
And none of those things depend on the “outside” (secular) world. The time you understand all of this depends on how your parents brought you up, personality, older sisters, life expirience, schooling.
This is my point. Rivka knew all this at age 3. It’s ok. It’s ok to say other girls can get all this before you do.