is with a bundle of rope, a can of gasoline, and a match.

YRGGGHHHH...

I'm a lesbian. I'm a radical feminist. I've devoted all my life to fighting for the rights of women and children.

Please, get married, enjoy yourself, make love, be in love,

Robin Morgan says in one of the earliest and most radical feminist tracts, that we're all looking for a Great Love....a person with whom we can be happy with....

I found that person. Sounds like you have found that person. Don't let any individual

or group stand in your way by citing "doctrine".

When I was 19, I was terribly worried because I really, really liked a young woman who was a Republican. An "older woman" (she was 20) told me that we all got into the "movement" because we cared about people. That's the bottom line for radical feminism. Caring. Love.

Susan McGee

OK, to clarify: I am not demonizing the letter writer for her problem or saying it's not a problem. It just seems that once again, Cary has selected a letter that has an interesting surface situation...but the same exact underlying problem as at least a couple other letters recently.

As someone else as pointed out - and the LW makes clear - she is not looking for permission to marry, she is looking for a way to handle her critics.

This is yet another how-do-I-handle-other-people's-opinion letter, I know there's been at least two others in the past few weeks.

I'm not going to make any kind of value statement about that problem itself, because I don't want the crux of this to be deciding which problems are "valid" or not valid.

I guess it's that I've always loved reading SYA for the letters, to see what people are struggling with, a little peek into the personal lives of others. Sometimes I don't even read Cary's response - they're just fine, but I am really here to see what particulars of human experience are going on.

But when the letters start to feel to have this sameness: "People don't like what I do/who I am, how do I handle it?" I dunno, it just feels like a repeat of a sitcom I've seen way too many times.

And it's quite possible the letters selected have always included a high percentage of these, but I wonder if Cary is selecting them right now because he's feeling (sorta rightfully so) a little sensitive from all the nasty letters and criticism here. Maybe he's subconsciously more attracted to this issue so that's why he keeps gravitating to it?

Who knows? I just know it's getting a tad boring. Yes, I know, I can just stop reading them. But again, I always really liked SYA so I keep wanting to give it a chance.

I felt LW went so overboard in demonizing her friends that I started to suspect there was more to this situation than meets the eye. What really leaps off the page (well, screen) is the way she obsesses over what other people are saying. Her question to Cary isn't whether she should get married this young, her question is whether he has a good comeback.

Well, how about MYOB? That was always Ann Landers' response, and it hasn't been improved upon. Cary answered the question she wasn't asking. He told her to go ahead and get married. It's not what she asked him -- but in fact I think it's what she wanted someone to say, and her friends are not saying it for her. That makes them radical man-hating lesbians, obviously.

I'm betting her friends are advising her against marrying the guy, for reasons that have nothing to do with feminism and everything that have to do with immaturity. I'm betting this girl is not able to make this decision on her own, and is taking a public opinion poll of all her friends (and total strangers) instead of trying to piece it together for herself. I'm guessing this letter was prompted because only a total stranger with a completely one-sided version of the facts would ever support her.

I had my daughter at 18---and dropped out of georgia tech to do it. My aunts and and grandmother and many of my friends were aghast that I didn't abort (and even more aghast that I had been so careless and ignorant) My very religious parents and many of the loving yet also very religious folks at church were aghast at my pregnancy (evidence of sin) and felt strongly that the only way to redeem the situation was for me to give her up for adoption. Except for a few folks (also at church)who simply radiated non-judgemental love, and my closest friend from high school, and (much to my surprise) the father's entire family----"how could you hurt you parents like that" was something I heard often. (usually tactfully and in private) My story is different from yours in so many ways---you are obviously a much more sensible person! But we have something in common. It is so hard to know your own heart with all the noise. In the still and quiet you know that you want to marry this man. Do it.

I raised my daughter, and everyone came around, she is wonderful, and my parents have told me so many times how very glad they are that they have the privilege of knowing and loving my Katie.

(ps Katie's father's mother married a man 12 years her senoir and they had a long, interesting, and happy marriage.)

demonizes the advice of her friends, the more immature she sounds. Her friends may or may not be "radical feminists" but that has little to do with the fact that this girl looks as if she's walking into a train wreck. She comes from a crappy dysfunctional family and Mr. Right sounds a. too old for her, and b. too crappy, dysfunctional and immature for her. She sounds like an absolutely classic little girl who wants to rescue a hopeless man. If she were more mature, she'd be more selfish, for her own sake and for the sake of whatever future children she might have, to find the best quality man available.