You will most likey get to experience the joys of :
1. Divorce
2. Alimony
3. Child Support
4. Getting married again
5. Grandkids know grandparents more time. Wish my daughter did.
How about this?
It allows you to get that first divorce early while you are still young and can find someone else hopefully seriously the second round?
I was engaged twice before I finally got married at 35.
I think that worked out right. Saved myself two divorces by today’s statistics.
Though I don't disagree with the author's premises about the benefits of early marriage, economic growth as a couple is a relic of an age when politicians actually wanted the US economy to grow. We have now ushered in a new Age of Redistribution, so it is entirely possible young couples are just going to watch themselves get poorer and poorer with each passing year, unable to make progress against the Leviathan State.
I don’t see anything wrong with the median ages... 28/29 for men and 26 for women. I was 26 when I married. I met the right person to spend the rest of my life together. IMHO marriage is a huge step in one’s life and they should make that decision based on maturity. I’m not saying that a 21 year old can’t make a mature decision. I am simply saying that marriage shouldn’t be on some societal imposed age requirement.
Here's one that I'd say is rarely true:
A decade or more of doing what’s best for “me” and learning to love and complete “myself” is not the best way to prepare for the sacrifices and selflessness required to be one half of a couple.
I believe that it is best to get to thoroughly "know thyself" - warts and all - before trying to enter into a life relationship with someone else. For some, it is only through being alone that they will eventually realize just how selfish they actually are - thus permitting them to recognize and address the problem.
My only regret is that I'll probably be ancient before I can dandle my grandkids on my knee.
Regards,
Men and women are different species. As a general rule, women reach their peak of desirability in their 20s and it goes down from there, though the steepness of the downward slope varies. In contrast, men are all over the map. Some men who are studs in their 20s are unrecognizable by 40 (and not in a good way). Others who are “nerds” when they are younger get much more desirable as they age. But, the bottom line is that women have a much shorter shelf life than men in terms of being viewed as a prospective mate.
Many young women fall into the trap of having a boyfriend for 5+ years who has no intention of ever marrying them. I realize that they might love these guys, but they are wasting the best years of their lives on someone who is essentially using them. On the other hand, I think having more experience helps a man stay married. In that way, he won’t feel like he’s missing out on something when he gets older.
There is a rule for men that states: marry someone who is half your age + 7). I think this is a good rule for both men and women.
And for a guy who waits till late in life before getting married, chances are it’ll be to a divorcee with kids of her own who are ultimately going to hate you.......
I got married at 22. I’ve been married 20 years. We had kids at ages 26 and 30.
Another benefit of marrying and having kids young is that they are “gone” while you are still young. Mine moved out at 18, I was 39 and I went to college. A whole new world. And it was fun in class where the young un’s would ask me “do you have a No. 2 pencil? — “an extra scan tron” — “can I borrow your notes from last Tuesday?” Annonyed me at first but I learned to enjoy it.
Lots to agree with in this article…. with the strongest point likely being that sex with other partners (before supposedly that one big final permanent commitment) will mean that one’s heart is just that much more fragmented and hence more unable to love and focus on one’s spouse. This means that marriages between anybody other than virgins have a serious handicap and the divorce stats show it. One thing to strongly disagree with in the article… Sex is NOT just for the young. It is the primary element of the lifelong commitment that ultimately is the essence of marriage itself….in fact, it’s the only distinguishing feature that separates the marital relationship from all other relationships. Without sex, a marriage is for all intents and purposes, dead and that is true for all ages.
This would be fine if we didn’t raise a society of perpetual adolescents.
Married at 18/19 and will celebrate our 33rd year in the spring!
Kids all married and five grands.
Life is good!
My husband and I got married in our 30s. Since we were both really shy and professionally focused, there was no way we would have gotten there any faster.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this:
1. Pros
We have known true loneliness and are really grateful for each other. We are unlikely to “trade up” to a different spouse.
We don’t care about keeping up with what’s sexy and hip. We can raise our kids to be Godly and “square” without regret.
We have been to expensive hotels, concerts, traveled overseas, etc., so we don’t feel deprived if we skip these things to provide for our kids.
2. Cons
We don’t have as much energy.
We don’t have any help from grandparents, because they are frail or dead. And the kids only knew my husband’s parents, not mine.
All the first cousins are older than our kids.
We never knew each other when we were young and hot.
We were so self-sufficient that it is hard to build teamwork, instead of just dividing up chores or goals and doing them alone.
We wanted more kids, but my fertility ended.
I’d like my kids to marry younger than we did, so they don’t have some of the drawbacks we had. But it will be hard for them to find mature spouses with their priorities straight (God, family). I think the countries where parents help winnow out the bad prospects and introduce their kids to good ones are better than here, where people just go to bars and hope for the best.
Furthermore, let’s stop this idea of “meeting your soulmate.”
You don’t “meet” them, you “make” them.
The “evangelical” church I went to in high school and college extolled these four points (mentioned in the quoted article) for “single people” (both men and women) —
– Learning to love herself and accept her self-worth
– Time to become her own person
– Benefit of knowing who she is
– Experiencing life as her own complete person
As a result, there was very little serious courtship and marriage going on within that age cohort (late teens/early to mid twenties). The “Evangelical Christian” culture of the time (many of its books were sold at our local college Bible bookstore) placed heavy emphasis on “the gift of singleness” and only very light mention, if any, on the importance of marriage and child rearing. This was the late 1970s - early 1980s.
In order for this to be feasible, the education system must be dismantled and children should be taught to be mature and responsible, and educated and trained well enough to be able to support themselves. Now we have people being students until they are in their thirties, and when they finally graduate, they still can’t make a living.