Although this is likely to be a big failure in terms of scientific citing, I’m interested in knowing what you think is the best age, overall, for people to marry. I am sick of the serial monogamy in the US today.
We’re ignoring all those modern constructions like the endless schooling people get (some people can’t get "real jobs until age 30 now).
Likewise, what should one’s bride of groom be expected to do? Are people demanding too much in the modern US and Europe of their spouses?
My thesis here: I think that people today should marry earlier and not demand so much of each other. Fact is, I think Americans nowadays want to be pleased in every aspect. Call it the Hollywood spoil effect. Having read and seen so many ludicrously over-romantic love stories, as well as people having perfect sex all the time, perhaps we edmand too much and ofer too little. While I’m not a proponent of arranged marriages, I quite a number of societies they occured and still occur and appear to have no negative personal repercussions: peole are fairly happy with them.
Likewise, I think people should get married earlier in life. Late marriages contribute to marital unhappiness, I believe. People who have lived along for 25+ years may not be as willing to give up that freedom and contribute to a family as well as those wh are younger.
Speaking as someone who is well on his way to becoming that unmarried 25 yo.
I think every person is different. I know people in their 40’s who still aren’t in a “place” where marrage is a good idea. I do aggre though that people don’t know how to make marrages work (by people I mean most, not all). They see everything as this perfect romatic thing because of books and movies. Real life is rarely like that.
Even Sven wrote:
So long as their relationships have no moitary of societal effect on me, I DON’T care. But devorce courts cost money, and children from broken homes may also cause futher problems (this is a possibility, not a fact), and their emotional states can effect co-workers (like me). As such, until a time that their multiple marrages have no effect on me I would like to fix them.
I also would like to know what you find wrong with serial monogamy.
I agree with not demanding so much of each other. However, I think that young people are much more likely to be demanding in a relationship then older people. I know when I was 19 I was pissed if my boyfriend didn’t spend every free minute with me. Now that I am older I am happy to let my husband do his own thing.
Again, I think that it is younger people who are often more afraid of giving up their freedom then older people. People change a lot in their early 20s. A relationship can work though those years if both people change in the same direction and still want the same things. It can fail miserably if one person decides they want something different out of life and can’t reconcile that with the marriage.
I don’t think that there is any ideal age for people to get married. As a general rule I think that waiting until you have lived on your own for awhile and taken care of yourself is a good idea.
I am speaking as someone who had a bad marriage at 19 but is happily married to a wonderful man now.
I agree with the Hollywood Effect (aka Cinderella Syndrome), which is not just from Hollywood, but from fairy tales, books, ads, etc.
I think we have lost the idea that a good relationship takes work. People think they will be able to find a good relationship, rather than being willing to work to create a good relationship.
I don’t have any issue with serial monogamy, if that’s what someone wants. But it seems that what they want is a stable, long-term relationship and what they get is a series of unsatisfying, short-term ones.
But there’s no magic age at which this will happen. Maybe some figure it out after several failures, or when they mature. I suspect that waiting at least until 25 is a good idea, but I know no data that would support that.
>> I also would like to know what you find wrong with serial monogamy
It’s boring. Simultaneous poligamy is much more fun.
When should a man marry?
A young man not yet,
an older man not at all.
Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)
He probably also said
When should a woman marry?
before it’s too late.
Yesterday was too late.
I’m sure I could find that kids from the country are “somewhat” better off than kids from the city. Kids raised Methodist are “somewhat” better off from kids raised Baptist. Kids with gold necklaces are “somewhat” better off than kids with platinum (note to literal minded: none of these are true.)
When comparing two groups, one is likely to be “somewhat” better off than the other. But that hardly means its time to go shrieking about an “epidemic” you’ve got to fix “for the sake of the chiiiiiiildren”.
I just don’t see the value in marriage for marriage’s sake. Marriage is a good place to raise kids- assumeing it is a working marriage. But there are many other ways to raise kids which can be made to work and with a few societal ajustments which we are now in the process of instituting (widely availible daycare, for example). I trust parents and their decions about what kind of environment to raise kids in. I know my mom chose not to raise me around an unemployed alcoholic at the cost of her marriage, and that was absolutly the best choice in an unfortunate situation.
And frankly, I’m not going to order my love life around if it makes you stressful at work or not.
SOme responses more general than non-children divorces.
I believe it violates divine law. You may not agree, but I think so, and I oppose divorce on other ground as well.
Its patently obvious that in many cases marriages end in unhappy divorce. Even amicable divorce is no fun. I think most people do have an ideal of an long-lasting marriage.
On a more specific note, thre is a non-trivial economic cost and severe disruption in people’s lives. I think this is obvious.
Even amicable divorce hurts children. I think this is also obvious. people were not meant to be shuffled from one kin group to the next, and its puts great strain on the kids. This cannot be ignored given the high proportion of marriages with children that end in divorce.
My goal is not to raise the rates of unhappy marriages, but rather to make marriages more happy so that divorce is not an issue. Some pro-divorcers (yes, I am well aware that term is unfair, but I have no other applicable words) suggest this is an either/or issue, but I disagree.
I want to create and environment where marriages can be arranged between two people, and have the result be happy and prosperous.
I see three important notations in this:
Economic: Traditionally, marriage is an economic act, because of course it involves the union of households in order to raise children and fortunes.
Social: Marriage should satisfysocial convetnions concering the goodness of the marriage. In other words, the two should fulfill social conventions concerning the marriage. Most notably, this includes religious conventions, such that the two should be recognized by the community. Other social conventions may interfere with young marriage.
Private: The two newlyweds should be fulfilled in their sexual (but hey, this is just practice and study) relations and, more importantly, need to view each other in a friendly and respectful way. They need to know what to expect and how to fulfill other’s expectations. Likewise, I don’t think we always do a sufficient job of raising children to someday raise their own children.
I note in the thread on Russian Mail-Order Brides (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=212249) there was some talk of there being reasonably happy marriages resulting. I submit that this is due to both parties knowing and expecting what the other side has to give.
One problem is that the modern world encourages long-term childhood. While a college-age guy and gal may not be absolutely ready to take on the world, I think modern society does not adequately allow people to move into adulthood,by adequately comunicate its demands or recognizing the new adult.
For example, many societies have a ceremony of adult inititaion. I think something like this is a very good thing, in that it both recognizes and and places obvious demands upon people.
Please excuse holes in my argument, as its a massively complex issue and I’m having a hard time covering everything. You could (and people have) written huge books about it.
You may have a point. I don’t mean to suggest that super-early marriage or child-rearing is good for people. But I think that marriage in the very late teens and early 20’s is not a bad thing. I think that people need to be encouraged to mature in, well, a mature way so as to be able to rear the next generation.
Marriage is never entirely personal. It is intimately involved with the creation of future society. Government and society should not try to absolutely control it, but of all the things in the world that people collectively need to have some oversight of, marriage and procreation is about at the top of the list. Whether that is fair or not is probably irrelevant: society, for good or for ill, has tom be willing to collectively watch itself in this area. This can be good or bad depending on the society. We have groups that try to root out child abuse, and in the past various governments, including the US’s, engaged in junk-science Eugenics programs. But whether the central government is involved or not, more or less all of us have to deal with marriage and procreation at some point in our lives.
Because I want peope to be happy and not to suffer, and I believe that marriage is a good and wholesome thing that should ideally not be broken. And I believe that we can improve ourselves in this regard. I want to make reality closer to the ideal.
Personal Anecdotes That Obviously Mean Nothing Statistically:
In my family, my Aunt and Uncle married right out of high school. My Father and mom had me [eldest child] when they were 25-30. So I can see the oddities in my family, and I think both marriages have been happy and prosperous. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I haven’t had any dark, horrible family secrets - we pretty much all love each other very much.
I’m also not saying that government should neccessarily be involved. Probably wouldn’t help, really.
Sorry for the Disorganization. Too man thoughts at once!
** Not everyone believes in your divine law. You shouldn’t get a divorce if you don’t believe in it. However, your interpretation of divine law has nothing to do with my life. I can’t help but suspect that this is the major reason you are against divorce.
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Most relationships end with someone being unhappy. Should people stick with their first girlfriend or boyfriend just because breaking up is hard to do? If you have an unhappy marriage which is worse: dealing with an unhappy divorce which is over in a short period of time or spending the rest of your life in the relationship?
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For the most part the economic cost is born by the parties undergoing the divorce. I don’t think that it is anyone’s business what I choose to spend my money on whether it is a lawyer or a SUV.
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How will marrying younger increase the happiness of a marriage in the long run? I am not a pro-divorcer. I think that in a perfect world people wouldn’t marry until they found the right person and they were mature enough to make the marriage last. However, the world isn’t and never will be perfect. I know that I wasn’t when I was 19. People make mistakes and it is a good idea to admit the mistake and take steps to correct it rather then spend years regretting it and being miserable.
Marriage in the late teens and early 20s can be a very bad thing for some people. If it becomes the norm I predict that there will be more divorce not less as you desire.
What tangible benefits do you see in getting married at 19 vs 28?
Which is why I posted other reasons. Regardless, I do not rest my case on it.
I don’t think most relationships should be ended with someone being unhappy. if you’d bothered to read what I posted, you may have noticed that my purpose was to make marriages HAPPIER.
Except its not. Millions of people get divorces, and each one entails a small but non-trivial economic slowdown on the rest of us, as well as encouraging long-term social problems.
Neither you nor FriendRob understands: I am not wanting people to just marry younger, I want to transform the whole culture of marriage. This data is contingent on the current culture opf marriage, and is therefore invalid for comparison.
You mistake the desired endpoint with the process: younger marriage is the last step. The first step is to change how we deal with young people in general, and how we deal with marriage in general.
I believe that young marriages are the most worse off category because we are not making young people ready to join society as adults at the ages they should be.
Define “joining society.” And the age when it “should” happen.
Most young unmarried folks are busy getting an education (formally or informally), starting new careers, doing volunteer work, serving in the military, or traveling and exploring. All of these are activities that, arguably, benefit society; many are made harder or impossible by early marriage. It is more difficult to take risks – such as moving to a new city, or joining the Peace Corps, or choosing grad school over a well-paid job – when you’re weighed down by family obligations, and I’d argue that most people in their twenties, not to mention many older ones, should be taking risks.