Senior Lindsay Russel poses with her boyfriend of over a year, sophomore James Katerndahl. The couple chose to opt out of an early engagement pose at an NBA game in the fall term. Photo courtesy of Lindsay Russell
‘Ring by Spring’ is a common stereotype on Christian campuses, where college students feel pressured to get engaged by the spring semester of their senior year, according The Institute for Faith and Learning at Baylor University.
Nine out of 10 Pepperdine students said they believe they want to get married someday, according to a poll of 53 students, conducted in February for the Graphic. 60% of the respondents were first-years, 60% were female students, and represented over 25 majors.
Contrary to the ‘Ring by Spring’ stereotype, the poll found nearly 70% of these students do not want to get engaged while in college.
“I’m still in that fun part of life where I want to go out and do things,” said Lindsay Russell, a senior who is in a long-term relationship with sophomore James Katerndahl. “Obviously, with him by my side, but that ring on your finger adds a lot of pressure at a young age that doesn’t need to be there.”
While some Pepperdine students said they still do feel the pressure to get engaged earlier, some of the top roadblocks from saying “I do” include financial concerns, finding the right partner and finishing their education.
Why Pepperdine Students are Waiting for Engagement
The poll found Pepperdine students prefer to wait to get married. 54.7% see themselves getting married between the ages of 24 to 26 and 49.1% of students said they think they’ll start having children around 27 to 28.
The national average age of marriage in the United States. is 28 for women and 30 for men, according to the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau. For women with a college degree, the average age at the birth of their first child has been trending upward and is now at 30 years old compared to a previous average of age 18 to 20 in the 1980s, according to The New York Times.
Loretta Hunnicutt, Women’s Studies and History professor, said marriage is a personal experience that is different for everyone. Factors such as education, cost of living and job opportunities all influence when an individual decides to marry.
“There is no magic formula,” Hunnicutt said.
As women’s roles in society changed, so did women’s views on marriage, Hunnicutt said.
Women’s growing independence in the workplace has led to a steadily declining marriage rate because more women can sustain higher-paying jobs on their own, Susannah Wellford wrote in a 2017 U.S. News article.
Increased independence has led to a decline in the marriage rate, which represents the number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried women, according to The National Center for Marriage and Family Research. From 1970 to 2011, the marriage rate decreased from 76.5% to 31%.
The poll showed Pepperdine students’ primary reason to delay marriage is wanting to find the right partner. Other reasons included desiring to obtain one’s degree first, stabilize finances, wanting to focus on the present and concern about outside judgments.
The poll showed 24 students were very concerned about finding their lifelong partner, and 23 said this fear of finding their lifelong partner was a consideration.
“We’ve only been together for a year,” Russell said. “I don’t think that’s long enough to know you want to marry someone as opposed to thinking you want to marry someone.”
Junior Maddy Zilligen said an engagement between her and her long-distance boyfriend of two years would not be feasible for financial, religious and academic reasons.
“I would be very distracted if I was married while trying to study for tests,” Zilligen said.
Forty-four students said finishing their education was a top reason to postpone marriage.
While Russell and Katerndahl discuss their future together, Russell said she is choosing to put a halt on the pressures of engagement to ensure she has stability and a solid foundation.
Senior Ethan Barragan said he and his girlfriend of almost four years, Kassidy Sandoval, a student at Cal State Fullerton, are choosing to wait until they are both stable in their careers to get engaged.
“Our biggest motivator is being more financially independent,” Barragan said.
Rejecting ‘Ring by Spring’
Hunnicutt said evangelical Christians often marry early because they are waiting until marriage to have sex. She said this idea developed the ‘Ring by Spring’ stereotype on many Christian college campuses.
Students also believe they are supposed to meet “the one” during college. Out of the 10 respondents who do feel pressured to get engaged, nine said they believed they were supposed to meet their partner in college.
Sociology professor Charles Hall said college is one of the few times in a young person’s life where they will be placed in a living situation with so many people so similar to them.
“We make the mistake of saying, ‘If I don’t meet my partner now, when am I ever going to meet my partner?” Hall said.
Hall said college is an “artificial environment” that doesn’t show students what life with their partner will look like when they are working full-time or dealing with adult life.
“You need to get out in the real world and experience your partner in certain situations,” Hall said.
Zilligen, who does not feel pressure to get engaged, said it helped that her parents did not get engaged in college.
Zilligen said college has been a great time for her to become more independent and self-assured in her choices during her first extended time away from home.
“If I want to get married in college, I am the best person to make that decision,” Zilligen said.
Feeling the Pressure to Say “I do”
While 62% of students surveyed reported feeling little to no pressure to get engaged as an undergraduate, the poll shows this pressure is not entirely absent for the remaining 38% of respondents.
This group of Pepperdine students said the need to have children while they still can was their top reason for wanting to get engaged.
Nine students also said they believe college is the right age to find their partner. Others said seeing those around them get engaged made them want to, they were waiting until marriage to have sex or cited their religious beliefs for marrying sooner.
Barragan said he feels pressure to get married from his grandparents, as they are getting older and would like to see him get married and have kids.
“I am the oldest in my family,” Barragan said. “They’d love to be around for my wedding and grandchildren, but I think it’s something me and my girlfriend aren’t ready for.”
Kelly Haer, director of the Boone Center for the Family, said she does not believe students always have to see these pressures as a bad thing.
“You can feel a pressure to do good things,” Haer said. “For everything in life that matters, it takes intentionality and effort. Getting married is not an exception to that.”
Haer said the pressures of getting engaged should never push a student to make a decision one way or another. She said it is still important, however, for students to prioritize relationships by putting value and effort into marriage.
Haer said oftentimes people want to meet their partner when the timing feels right and it is convenient for them. She added this is an unrealistic expectation.
“There’s folks who live in a way of, ‘Whenever I want to get married, I will just kind of snap my fingers, and it will happen,’” Haer said. “Life doesn’t work that way.”
The poll showed almost 58% of Pepperdine students said they know someone personally on campus who is engaged.
“Seeing one of my friends get engaged makes me think, ‘Wow, wouldn’t that be nice,’” Russel said. “But then, when I think about it logically, it just isn’t feasible for me right now.”
Senior Alyssa Hornback, who got engaged in the fall semester, has a different perspective on the stereotype.
“I never felt pressured because we had been dating for years and always knew that we were dating with purpose,” Hornback said.
Religion and Relationships at a Crossroads
In contrast to the ‘Ring by Spring’ stereotype, most Pepperdine students said their religion has little to no impact on their decision to get married.
The poll asked students to rate how much their religious faith influenced their desire to participate in “Ring by Spring.’ More than half of student respondents said their religious beliefs have little to no impact. Only 10 students indicated their religious beliefs significantly influenced their decision to get engaged.
Russell said she prefers to keep a private outlook in her religious life, especially when concerning the idea of engagement.
“They should be kept separate,” Russel said. “My religion is my religion and my relationship with my boyfriend is that, and I don’t like the two crossing over.”
Why Waiting May be Beneficial
Hall said there are many sociological benefits to waiting until one is later into their 20s to marry. Getting an education, experiencing one’s partner in the “real world,” and developing one’s social network are all things that make waiting beneficial. He stressed that none of these points will apply to all relationships.
Married couples in their early 20s have a 60% divorce rate, according to Divorce.com. Couples who marry after 25 have a 17% or less chance of divorce, Nicholas Wolfinger wrote in an Institute for Family Studies study.
Hall said he believes marriage requires a level of maturity where one is willing to make the relationship work no matter what.
Zilligen said she feels an opposite kind of ‘Ring by Spring’ pressure. She said she feels the pressure to not get engaged young because there would be judgement around it.
“If I got married in college, I would feel as if I am ‘Other,’” Zilligen said.
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Contact Jenna Parsio via Twitter (@jennaparsio) or email: jenna.parsio@pepperdine.edu
