The Ripe Age for Marriage- by Dallin

When are you really ripe for marriage?

Have you ever been given the advice that you should wait to marry until after 25, or maybe even as late as 30? Would you give that same advice to someone else?
Chances are, most of us have heard at some point in our lives that getting married too young is a recipe for disaster. And when it comes to basic divorce statistics, such wisdom seems to be supported. But what is too young? Is there really something magical about 25 years old?
According to Norval Glenn at the University of Texas at Austin, 25 years does make a significant difference in the success of marriage, but it may not be in the direction you think.

The Best Age

In his study, Glenn argues that one of the main reasons we are seeing a large incline in the average at at first marriage, approaching 30 for men and 28 for women, is consistent findings in research that the risk of divorce continues to drop with age. Teen weddings are clearly not supported. And since 30 year olds show a lower risk of divorce than those younger than 25, wouldn’t we agree that we should be waiting to marry until at least 25?
But we are missing something. Glenn notes that so much of the research defines marital success as simply the lack of divorce. But how many of us want to define marriage that way? I don’t know about you, but I would rather be happy as well. And according to Glenn, the best age for happy marriages is actually between 22 and 25 years of age.


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Written by: Dallin, Master’s Student in Marriage, Family, and Human Development reviewed by Brian Willoughby, Ph.D.