Monday, September 07, 2009

If You Are Ready to Marry in Your Mid-20s, You Will Be No Happier if You Wait

This is the conclusion of a paper by University of Texas sociologist Norval Glenn and colleagues. One of them, Jeremy Uecker, presented the paper at the American Sociological Association meeting in San Francisco. I attended that session.

The Texans cautiously conclude that "it would be premature to conclude that the optimal time for first marriage for most persons is ages 22-25." The bottom line, though, is this:

However, the findings do suggest that most persons have little or nothing to gain in the way of marital success by deliberately postponing marriage beyond the mid twenties.

3 comments:

Mrs. Adkins said...

that makes sense. i think you get more stuck in your ways the older you get! that's what i'm learning!

Kerri said...

how does this pan out for committed vs. non-committed couples? or people not coupled yet at all?

Gruntled said...

If they aren't couple or committed, they aren't ready for marriage. If they aren't committed because they just don't think they are formed enough to marry, they are missing the point that marriage is a shaping institution.

As a rule of thumb, it is probably more important that he know he wants to marry her than vice-versa; male non-commitment is usually the bigger obstacle to marriage than female non-commitment.