Is there a perfect age to get married? We keep wanting to say no, of course not! We're all on our own journey, with our unique circumstances. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the age when you marry ... or is there? Wait until you see what the science says.
Sociologist Nicholas Wolfinger of the University of Utah looked at data from the National Survey of Family Growth to find out if there's any correlation between the age when you marry and your likelihood of getting divorced. And surprise! There is a clear connection.
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People are less likely to divorce when they wait until their late 20s to marry. But older isn't necessarily better. Wolfinger found that the likelihood to divorce actually increases again for couples whose first marriage is in their late 30s or older.
So there you go. The sweet spot for your first marriage -- ahem, and hopefully only marriage -- is your late 20s to early 30s.
Why is this so, anyway? Wolfinger controlled for everything from income to educational level to religion and found no data explaining why getting married later increases your chances of divorce. It could be that people who delay marriage simply aren't the marrying kind, he suggests. Or maybe it's because people who marry later have a smaller pool of potential spouses.
But my goodness, we hope this information doesn't fall into the hands of fearmongers who are always pushing women to marry "before all the good ones are taken." I mean, this is just more fodder for the marriage pushers in your life.
I guess this is helpful information to have if you're thinking about marrying someone you're already in a relationship with. And if you want to get married someday, but want to play around a lot first, maybe this would give you pause. But there's so much more that goes into the timing of a relationship that's mature enough for marriage.
Maybe another way to think of this is to wonder what about your age might pose a challenge to your marriage, and then try to work on that.
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