Marriage Age

[cheerfulgreek]

I was going to wait until I was completely done with school, residency programs and all. My cardiology residency starts after I finish school for general medicine which will be another 4 years, and I'll be in my early 30s by then. I'll be done with school for general medicine in about 2 years, which means after my exams I'll be a General DVM, so I would be o.k. with that, and I would still be in my 20s. Being married and doing a 4 year residency would be o.k. I mean, I wouldn't be making any money, but marriage takes sacrifice. My friend got married when she was going through vet school at age 23. She's 28 now and going through her residency and she's never been happier.

[WinniBug]

Most of the women around here get married in their mid-20's

[LightBulb]

Most of the people around here get married in their mid-20s.

It seems like a lot of people either get married in college (often correlated with pregnancies) or they marry their sweethearts soon after graduating from college or grad/law school.

Please note that my age group may be skewed slightly older because pretty much 100% of people from my high school attend college.

[PhoenixAzul]

From my own personal experience, I find that people in my hometown (Western PA) typically get married in the 22-30 ish age group. I fall into this group as well, or, I suppose, I will fall into this group after Saturday. I'm 23, my fiance is 28. We've been together for 7+ years, did the long distance, did ultra long distance, I've done my grad school, jobs etc etc...It's about time we got hitched!

In Scotland, I found it more typical that people get married a lot older (at least in the cities), if they do formal marriage at all. Generally people are about 25 at the youngest. I got a lot of comments when I told people I'm engaged.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by aephi alum

Aside from laws about how old you must be to marry in your state/province/country, there really is no "right age".

That said, among my friends and acquaintances in my age group, there have been two "waves" of weddings. Some of us got married within a couple of years of college graduation; others got married in their late 20's.

That is exactly how it's turning out with my college friends. A few of us got married within a year or two of graduation (my wife and I got married in 2005, 2 years out of school; I was 24, she was just about to turn 24). Then, there was a bit of a break, and now the past year or so it's picked up again. Two of my college friends are getting married next year, and there may be more on the horizon.

I agree that it's tough to put a "right age" on it. Some people are ready in their early 20s, some get married in their 30s or 40s and aren't ready at all.

[Kappamd]

I'm currently a senior, and there seems to be an epidemic of engagements right now. Many of my sisters are engaged and a few from home are too. I am not (yet!), but imagine I will be within the next year. Both of our sets of parents are pushing for it, but my bf wants to finish his masters and me my bachelors first. It definitely seems to be the norm for people to be married by 22-25. The only ones I know from home that got married right out of high school were ones that did not go on to college, and most of them have since divorced.

[WVU alpha phi]

I was actually discussing this with my boyfriend and friend from HS the other day. I'm from Maryland, and my HS graduating class (2003) had 650 kids. I'd say probably 100 of them (that I'm aware of) are now either married, engaged, married with kids, or single with kids. I feel like every time I get on facebook someone new is engaged.

I think it comes from maybe only half of that graduating class going to a 4 year college. And a LARGE majority that go to 4 year colleges attend ones in state within 30 minutes of our hometown. So they don't seem to branch out, make new friends, etc. I've looked through pictures and asked why they're all still hanging out together 5 years later, no new friends in sight. Also, when they graduate from college, they move back home. So any friends they may have made in college are no longer around.

As far as my college friends go, only one of my close friends is married. She and her husband met in the fall of our freshman year and got engaged summer before senior year. She'll be 23 this spring and he just turned 28. I've had several sorority sisters get married or become engaged recently, most are 24-26. They all live in the mid-Atlantic or NY.

Now that I'm in the south, I see people definitely get married younger. My boyfriend is 23 and he grew up here and has several friends who are already married or engaged. One is already separated, they were married less than a year. I don't feel any pressure to get married at this age (I JUST turned 23), but I do know that I'd like to be married within the next few years, hopefully around 25 or 26.

[ISUKappa]

Originally Posted by KSigkid

I agree that it's tough to put a "right age" on it. Some people are ready in their early 20s, some get married in their 30s or 40s and aren't ready at all.

Yep. I was 24 and the husband was 27 when we got married. That's what worked for us. I'd say about half my pledge class is married and half isn't, and most of us are pushing 30 now.

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

I also find that the girls who got married right after HS were divorced within two years and left with typically 2 kids. They then became the "socially awkward 22 year old divorcee" who parties like I did when I was 18 (because her social growth is a bit stunted).

My sorority sisters, who are all generally from this area (Northwestern, PA) seem to get married younger (21, 22, 23)

One of them was engaged after her first year of college, she left to marry her fiance and live with him in Virginia (he was in the Navy and was stationed there), and they were divorced within 2 years. Now she's back around here and she parties like crazy. Definitely happens. Fortunately, there weren't any kids involved.

Three of my sisters graduated college and were engaged by mid-summer. Another sister graduated and was hoping for a proposal from her bf of a year, but things happened and they broke up, and she was devastated that she wasn't getting married. Another sister was proposed to during the winter break before her last semestser of college.

Also, a guy that my bf works with just got engaged. Him and his gf have been together for about a year. He's turning 20 in a couple weeks. He won't even be old enough to drink at his wedding, which is planned for summer 2009.

I don't know if it's a trend around here, but it's insane to me.

I also know a couple from back home (MA), and they started going out in September of 07, they were engaged by January of 08, and they're getting married in summer of 09. The guy is 25 and the girl just turned 21.

I'm 24 and I can't imagine myself being married right now. My boyfriend is younger than I am, and I think that when he's ready to get married, I'll be at least 26. Perfect

[Taualumna]

Around my circle, 26-30 seems to be the age range for marriage. All of us have an undergraduate degree and many have grad/professional degrees as well.

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by Benzgirl

I haven't had one friend marry before the age of 28 in over 20 years. Most were over 30. Every one of those friends are still married.

I think that is because most were already settled into their careers and had enough money saved to go into their relationship without a huge amount of debt. I think they were also emotionally mature to make decisions: to stand up to nagging in-laws, to avoid jumping into having kids or buying too many things to keep up with the Joneses.

Is this common for the region? No, but I don't think there IS a standard. Is it common for my group of friends? Yes, but also because most of them go on to grad school or law school before jumping into a life-long commitment.

I wonder if it's another generational thing, Benz, because I relate with this. Except one friend is divorced, interestingly, the one who married a guy who was younger and still in his mid-20s when she was 31 at the time -- turns out he wasn't fully grown after all. I'll always be glad I "had my 20s" to myself, I had the time of my life and became who I am. And looking back, I can't imagine one guy I dated in high school or college (or even my early 20s) I could still imagine being with. But, as with everything, YMMV.

[pinkyphimu]

I guess with my group of friends, we had waves of weddings, too. There were quite a few right after graduation (2 divorced and now on their second marriages). Then in our late 20s. I am one of the last to get married and I am 32. For me personally, I wasn't ready to get married right after college. I needed to be able to live on my own and do things for myself before I could even think of getting married. By my late 20s, I thought I was ready, but I definately had the wrong guy! LOL. I also had friends who had "timelines" and got married because they were not married yet, and should have been according to their timelines. I never wanted to be that person.

[ComradesTrue]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

I wonder if it's another generational thing, Benz, because I relate with this. Except one friend is divorced, interestingly, the one who married a guy who was younger and still in his mid-20s when she was 31 at the time -- turns out he wasn't fully grown after all. I'll always be glad I "had my 20s" to myself, I had the time of my life and became who I am. And looking back, I can't imagine one guy I dated in high school or college (or even my early 20s) I could still imagine being with. But, as with everything, YMMV.

I have posted almost this exact thing in another thread.

There are definitely those who marry straight out of college and stay in happily wedded bliss forever, but those that I personally knew who did this are all divorced now. My close-knit circle of friends all waited until around 30-33 for the wedding and 32-35 for the first kid. We are absolutely very different (and hopefully better?) people now than we were in the 22-25 age range. Our priorities and taste in men is also very different too. I would be so very miserable now if I had married any of the people that I dated prior to age 26!

Interestingly, in the city where I now live it is almost universal that people marry at 22 and start to work immediately on churning out at least 4 kids by thier early 30s. So... as someone in my mid-30s I have been married for 5 years and have 2 children under the age of 2. Everyone else my age has kids who are starting middle school. It is very wierd.

Originally Posted by pinkyphimu

I also had friends who had "timelines" and got married because they were not married yet, and should have been according to their timelines. I never wanted to be that person.

Good for you. No one should be that person.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by pinkyphimu

I also had friends who had "timelines" and got married because they were not married yet, and should have been according to their timelines. I never wanted to be that person.

Agreed. I see this happen alot (the whole "we need to get engaged/married because we've been dating _ number of years and all of our friends who have also been dating the same amount of time are getting engaged/married" thing).

[LightBulb]

Originally Posted by LightBulb

Most of the people around here get married in their mid-20s.

It seems like a lot of people either get married in college (often correlated with pregnancies) or they marry their sweethearts soon after graduating from college or grad/law school.

Please note that my age group may be skewed slightly older because pretty much 100% of people from my high school attend college.

One other thing I'd like to note is that many of these college sweethearts are marrying people of the same age/grade. The ones who aren't are usually not too far apart, usually with the guy about two years older than the girl.