Voices: Millie Bobby Brown’s engaged at 19 – stranger things have happened

Would you get married at 19? If you’d asked me that when I was 19 I would probably have said hell, no – I was far too busy… erm, getting drunk on 99p beers at the student union and dressing up as famous dead sports stars? That’s right. Life choices, we’ve all made them.

But if we’ve all acted with the tempestuousness of youth (see: four-pint jugs of vodka red bull for a tenner, joining the university water polo team) and we understand it, even hold a nostalgic, “what was I like”, eye-rolling affection for it – then why are we so condemnatory of other people’s personal choices? And why is marriage so different?

Millie Bobby Brown is young, but she is also an adult – and is entitled to make just as many good, bad, terrible or gloriously romantic mistakes as the rest of us. The Stranger Things star hasn’t definitively confirmed her engagement to Jake Bongiovi, but did post a telling shot on Instagram of herself wearing a diamond ring, so we can only make assumptions as to what that means. She also added the achingly sweet caption: “I’ve loved you three summers now, honey, I want ‘em all”.

It could be a promise ring, intending to convey their commitment to each other today, with no nod to the future; or they could, at this very moment, be planning out nine bridesmaids’ dresses in pale pink tulle and a cute little fluffy canine ring-bearer. The point is, who cares?

Why is #shes19 trending on Twitter? There is no controversial age gap here – her fiancé is 20. Plus, the worlds they’ve both grown up in (Jake is Jon Bon Jovi’s son) likely means they’ve worked in and witnessed the world of adults far more than the average teenager.

Bobby Brown has spoken openly, for example, about the “gross sexualisation” she was subjected to as a child star: last year, shortly after she turned 18, she appeared on “NSFW” Reddit forums and her social media posts were flooded with sexually explicit comments.

Once you’ve been through that, it would be fair to say you’ve probably been forced to grow up pretty quickly. So what is people’s problem with her getting married? Isn’t she, in fact, the perfect candidate?

If Bobby-Brown and Bongiovi (all I’m wondering is whether she’ll be Millie Bobby Brown-Bongiovi, which is alliteratively pleasing) want to get married at 19 and 20, then good for them.

They’re in love – we should celebrate that, not do it down and talk about how “naive” it is; how it’s “too soon”. We shouldn’t forget that a generation ago, it really wasn’t unthinkable to get married at 19 – it wasn’t even that surprising. So why are we suddenly so bothered?

Would people kick up the same fuss if she’d got a tattoo? That’s much trickier (and often more painful) to get rid of than a husband.

Plus, marriage doesn’t have to last forever, outside of an idealised Disney enchanted castle. It’s great when it does, but given nearly 50 per cent of us get divorced, nowadays, well – the whole nature of what we expect from nuptials has changed, and modernised, and rightly so. If a relationship isn’t working, there’s no shame in calling time on it. It’s only “failed” if you talk about it that way.

Plus, I don’t know that age necessarily dictates the health of a relationship – do you? I know plenty of unhappily married couples in their 40s, many of whom would give anything to feel the flush of teenage romance again: the type of heady, passionate ardour that might just have you writing, “I’ve loved you three summers now, honey, I want ‘em all”.

Good luck to them. If you don’t like it, you’re probably just jealous. I say: keep calm and marry on.