S/O Beebees getting married

[popcorn]

What age is considered young to get married in your host country? What age is the norm?

This was inspired by tofu's response because she said she side-eyes younng marriages, but then says she and her H married at 26 and 27. I don't think it's too young (obviously) but it occurred to me that had they been in Spain that would still be considered kids getting hitched.

MH was 26 when we got married and people sometimes flipped out when they found out he was getting married so young.

It makes me think all this young marriage thing is really cultural. Obviously there are facts that play into it like the fact that people don't stop developing mentally (frontal lobe or something like that) until 25, but it is interesting to me to see someone say they side-eye young marriage when, by other standards, they married extremely young as well. BTW--tofu this is not an angry post toward you, it just got me thinking, that's all.

[ninjatofu]

LOL. First off, I said 26 OR 27, I can't remember how old I was.

I think a lot of it depends on life experiences as well. I just don't think that at 21 a person has had enough life experience and growth opportunities to get married and settle down. To me, marriage is like settling down and making decisions that you will be living with for the rest of your life, dun dun dun. It's a big deal. And I think that people feel pressured to buy a house and pump out kids as soon as they get married, and in your early to mid 20's, I just don't think that you have really lived enough to do that yet. Just my opinion.

It's funny that in Spain we'd be youngins. I shall consider moving there.

I also think it's funny now that you've pointed out that there is really only 3-4 years of difference between when I think it is too young to marry to when I got married. Kind of got me thinking, but I know that personally I changed so much during my early to mid 20's. Yes, some fundamental things about me didn't change (vegetarian, accident prone, still like the colour black), but a lot of things did ( my outlook on the world, my long term values and goals, I stopped putting ketchup on everything) and those were moulded through experiences during my 20's. (living on my own, tour leading in Asia, moving abroad a couple of times, trying different jobs, careers, meeting different people, travelling, food poisoning [yes, food poisoning can alter a person], and watching my friends marry, settle, buy homes, pump out munchkins and lose all interests other than lawn care and kitchen renovations).

I just feel that regardless of how mature a person is, or how they "practically raised themselves and their siblings through high school" that getting married before 22/23 has a good chance of working out, for a variety of reasons.

[ninjatofu]

Totally didn't even answer the question. In the UK, not a clue. According to the Jeremy Kyle Show, it's common to get married pretty young. I think it's similar to N. American standards, though.

In China, marriage tends to happen pretty young, straight out of university, I think. Rarely before. And usually to a classmate. Divorce still has a huge, huge stigma and people get married young and stay in miserable marriages. No concept yet of "starter marriages" there, that I'm aware of.

[bugabean]

mid-30s is the norm in Denmark
stats! www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/vielser-og-skilsmisser/vielser.aspx

The divorce rate is above 40% which doesn't really support the idea that waiting increases your chances of it working out.

[oneslybookworm]

I have no idea about the NL. I feel like it's getting later and later in life though. I'm guessing the 26 year old me that got married probably would have been considered young.

[popcorn]

Jun 8, 2012 7:18:39 GMT -5 ninjatofu said:

LOL. First off, I said 26 OR 27, I can't remember how old I was.

To me, marriage is like settling down and making decisions that you will be living with for the rest of your life, dun dun dun. It's a big deal.

Sorry if I misquoted you, I was going off reading your post once.

I completely agree that marrying and settling down is a huge decision. The kind of decision that seems crazy to make at any age, but if you know what you expect out of a marriage and out of a partner I don't think age should be the be-all, end-all of whether or not you are ready to get married.

Of course, I actually (surprisingly?) agree that getting married young does mean you have a lot up against you. All the figures point to failure (though, to be fair, marriages have a 50-50 chance of working out any time). I know that I can't even speak to how much I will change in the next few years because I am still a beebee. I also know I can't prove myself to anyone and that doesn't bother me. I'm just looking to have a happy marriage and a fulfilling life. I think MH and I are going to have great adventures with our kids and so far I'm happy with how we've been doing things. Of course I will check back in 10 years from now and perhaps my mind will change, but maybe not. We'll just have to wait and see.

I really am curious about average ages that people get married in other countries or even areas of the US. I know where I'm from (Seattle area) it's fairly common to get married anywhere from 24-28. In Madrid I have met maybe two couples that got married when both parties were under 30.

[popcorn]

Jun 8, 2012 7:21:59 GMT -5 ninjatofu said:

Divorce still has a huge, huge stigma and people get married young and stay in miserable marriages.

This is sad.

I don't think people should go into marriage thinking divorce is "always an option" as a way of downplaying the seriousness of the committment, but I also am glad it is an option in many places and that in those places people are not scared of being shunned by family members and family for trying to find happiness.

[Cheesecake]

Anyone below 30 is considered young to get married here in NL. Also, people who have not lived together for at least a year before marriage is discussed get major side-eyed.

Here the general standard woyld be: go to college, get serious about relationship, move in together (buy home), decide to have children and then maybe get married, maybe not. Once children are conceuved (or before, if house is bought on 2 incomes) sign legal paperwork with lawyer or so to make sure your will is in order.

Marriage is purely for the ones that want to add a pretty princess day to a well-established relationshup.

This is within cities/educated community btw. In farm country people marry slightly younger and have chuldren younger. Average age of woman to have 1st child is 31-32 for higher educated people, 28-30 for the uneducated.

I have fat fingers, please excuse typos!

[clogged]

I had a pretty princess day. Just sayin.

I love wiki.....

Netherlands: 18, 16 with parental consent, under 16 with personal permission from the queen.

(link here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age)

[popcorn]

Jun 8, 2012 7:41:49 GMT -5 Cheesecake said:

Marriage is purely for the ones that want to add a pretty princess day to a well-established relationshup.

So people generally wouldn't elope? Or have a Justice of the Peace courthouse style wedding?

NL sounds similar to Spain, but I never noticed a difference in usual marrying age from rural to city/based on eduation, but I only know a lot about two rural towns--FIL and MIL's respective towns.

[popcorn]

Jun 8, 2012 7:47:20 GMT -5 clogged said:

under 16 with personal permission from the queen.

(link here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age)

How do you think you get that? In that case do the parents AND the queen have to give permission or is it fine with just the queen's permission?

Bonus points if you find me an actual case of this. I'm too lazy to search by myself.

[Cheesecake]

Jun 8, 2012 7:49:13 GMT -5 popcorn said:

Jun 8, 2012 7:41:49 GMT -5 Cheesecake said:

Marriage is purely for the ones that want to add a pretty princess day to a well-established relationshup.

So people generally wouldn't elope? Or have a Justice of the Peace courthouse style wedding?

Oh, the pretty princess day is a JOP wedding, or an elopement with a party a while later.

But why would you elope or get married if you don't necessarily want a pretty princess day and your legal rights are exactly the same if you just shack up? (Which is what I do and what you all voted into counting as being married.)

[mrsukyankee]

In my hometown, I got such shit for not being married before 30...the average was probably 22, with many getting married right out of high school (very blue collar area). I got married at 38 so everyone seems to be young to me...I can't imagine being 23 and married and happily broke off an engagement at 25 to a guy I would have been so unhappy with if I married him - I've changed so much in those years.

[dulcemariamar]

I think in Spain it depends a lot on where you live and the level of education that you have. But I think it is like that everywhere.

I think getting married is a big commitment. But I think having kids is a really HUGE commitment.

I never felt pressured to have kids right away and I dont think that just because you get married means that you have to settle down. I didnt and we waited a long time to have a kid so I think it just depends what you want.

Anyway, like I said before that sometimes it is just a matter of luck. People always go into a marriage thinking that it is going to last but sometimes life just deals you with a really crappy hand and you dont how or your SO is going to deal with it until it happens.

[Deleted]

Anyone getting married in their 20s is considered young in Italy. Actually, I should say Rome since I'm not sure this applies to all regions. I have a feeling it doesn't.
I got married at 31. What gets me the side eye is the fact that we've "waited" almost 15 years to do it. Everyone I know has been like WTF? for a really long time. LOL

[irish]

I just looked it up to see what it was in Ireland! Average age of grooms in 2009 (latest figures) was 34 years and brides it was 31.8 years. They even gave an historical trend for both...

Brides Grooms
1959 27.1 31.1
1977 24.0 26.2
2009 31.8 34.0

The average age a woman gave birth to her first child rose from 25yrs in 1980 to 29 years in 2009. Highest number of births are to women in the 30-34yr age bracket...

[allibally]

From what I noticed and read on the subject. Couples in Switzerland didn't get married till mid 30s and after they had a kid.

It has a lot to do with taxes. They pay a lot more if they are both working and married. Versus be not married an both working. Once you have a kid then you get a tax break.

[Deleted]

What I just google searched said that the average ages for marriage in France are females-30 and males-32. The funny thing is that we got no side-eyes or comments about H being only 23 at the time of our marriage, even though he was (still is!) well younger than the national average.

[mouseinlux]

In Luxembourg most people get married after they are 30, I was very young when we got married by Lux standards but I was one of the last of my friends from college (in the US) the get married...my sister who's almost 3 years younger than me got married before me...

[Deleted]

I reckon the UK is the same average as Ireland.
I was 32, DH was 35. I would think under 25 would be considered young here.
I broke off two engagements. One when I was 23 and again at 27. Both 100% the right decision. I was a different person.

[Wanderista]

I have a diverse range of friends in various places, some expats, some foreign and some American. The earliest that anyone I know got married was the summer after undergrad graduation. Of the people I know who married the earliest, half are happily still together and the other half are divorced. I'd say most of them have married between 24-26. There are still maybe 30-40% who aren't married yet of those a lot are in long time cohabitating partnerships, some as long as 6 or 7 yrs. I could be wrong but I'll guess that maybe 20% of them are still properly single.

We can definitely generalize but there are always exceptions to every rule. A lot of the people I've known in DC have had a pattern of meeting their partner in college or immediately after, living together a couple of years and marrying in the mid-20s. Only a handful of people I know have kids yet, the trend for that is definitely to wait and to be older.

I lived abroad during the college years and when I came back to DC, I was surprised that most people had already seriously paired off. Among my family, the trend has been to wait to commit. My cousins (both male and female) have all been hesitant to start serious relationships. A lot of them are in the rural Midwest and in good jobs, so they do defy the stereotype there.

I am definitely glad that I have waited, taken time, explored, and dated different people. I'm not saying that I recommend that for everyone, but for me, I needed it. If I had married any of my exes, it would have been bad news for each of us. I have a much better idea of who I am now and I have changed a lot.

That said, I don't judge anyone simply on demographics, but I do judge them if I think they are making a poor choice regardless of age.

[tricolore]

Italy seems similar to the States-- older in the cities, younger in the more rural areas. I don't notice a radical difference from DC/MA (my reference points back home). The one thing that does strike me is that couples, on average, seem to wait 'til late 30s/early 40s to have kids, which to me, seems a bit older than the States.

FWIW I got married at 31 (H was 39). My siblings both got married much younger (brother was 21, SIL 20 and sister 22 BIL 23). Happily, we're all happy. Truly is just a different strokes for different folks thing.
I met my H when I was 23, but I darn sure wasn't ready to get married... frankly, I wanted to be "selfish" (or self-absorbed, if that's any better). I had some great opportunities to grow, to fail, and also to succeed on my own, and those experiences were important to me. At the end of the day, I realized H's help/caring/support made the 'wins' that much better and the 'losses' that much easier, so I traded in my single status for marriage.
I'm glad I did things this way, but I'm sure people could probably arrive at the same conclusion in less than a decade .

[GilliC]

I don't know what the average age in Norway is, but it seems to be around the low-30s. Since you get most of the partner benefits just by filing that you live together, there isn't a huge push to get properly married. I have a few friends who'd been with their SOs for years, and when I asked one of them if he was planning to get married, he said, "Oh, we'll probably get married when we're ready to have kids." I also know quite a few people who have school-age kids by the time they actually get married.

[anna7602]

Jun 8, 2012 7:18:39 GMT -5 ninjatofu said:

To me, marriage is like settling down and making decisions that you will be living with for the rest of your life, dun dun dun. It's a big deal. And I think that people feel pressured to buy a house and pump out kids as soon as they get married, and in your early to mid 20's, I just don't think that you have really lived enough to do that yet.

Just wanted to address Tofu's statement before I answer the OP. I don't personally think marriage has to equal buying a house and pumping out kids. Or even necessarily making any other decision about your life besides wanting to be with a specific person. If I had married my HS boyfriend who inherited his grandparents' house, stated from early on he never wanted to leave the city he grew up in and lives in that house to this day, almost 20 years later, that would have been disastrous for me. But, I knew I wanted to get out of that city and that I wanted a life partner who was open to new experiences. I wasn't sure what I wanted those experiences to be yet, but I knew what I didn't want. So, as much as HS boyfriend was awesome in a billion other ways (and is still a good friend of mine), I knew he wasn't husband material for me.

I met DH when I was just 20, but I just knew deep down that we could grow together. It sounds corny, I know. But since meeting, we did a long-distance relationship, explored living in different cities apart and together, went through a ton of career changes, including graduate school for each of us and only bought a house and had a kid much, much later.

I have no idea what the norm is in France for marriage, but there's still very much a stigma attached to being an "older" mom, ie, past 35. Most French people whom I speak with long enough for the issue to come up assume I am done childbearing because, clearly, my eggs have withered by now. (And believe me, people are bold enough to bring up the issue of childbearing pretty early on in a polite conversation.) At home in New York, I was one of the younger moms in my neighborhood. In fact, of my 3 neighborhood friends from home who recently had babies, one is 41 and the other 2 are 40. This is so very normal there that I've had a hard time convincing DH why I feel my biological clock ticking at age 36.

[ninjatofu]

I don't think it has to equal that either, but if I look at my family and friends back home, every single one of them either bought a house or had a baby within 1 year of getting married. Of my two best friends, one just filed divorce papers. He held her back from pursuing her dream of going to medical school because well, they would have had to move and they owned a home, he was settled... A couple of years later they are divorcing. She married at 24. The other is still married, and her husband posts racist and homophobic crap on facebook, and they live in an area that she isn't happy in, and will probably always live there. I'm not saying that they married too young, just that marriage mortgage kids in quick order is the norm where I am from, and I think that making those decisions so young doesn't always work out great.

[ktkl09]

DH and I are the only marrried couple in his group of Swiss friends, we're 27.

I have two other married friends here (both are American), but one is separated from her husband.

[travelingturtle]

I think the norm in Germany is 30s.

I haven't seen everyone's response yet, so I'm not sure if this has been covered. What I wonder is if, in Germany, it's common to get married because you want kids instead of just to be married. The German couples we know here fall into one of two categories. They aren't married and don't have kids or they are married and had kids shortly after getting married. On the other hand, I know lots of people in the US who were married for quite a bit before having children.

Of the couples we know that are married with kids, its the couples that got married when they were older that bought a house first (prior to marriage). The younger, by Germany standards, couples still rent apartments. We know several couples without kids (thus not married) that are buying homes together, too.

[clickerish]

I think in NA it really depends on where you're located and if you are part of a religious community. In the town I currently inhabit, getting married before you're late 20s is frowned upon and laughed at. Most of my friends were seriously involved after 30 and started having kids at 32 or so.

Where some of my family is located, and in my family's religious community, waiting until you're 25 means you're ancient and possibly undesirable. Totally depends.

[bugabean]

I'm not really sure what motivates Danish people to get married, but it's not about having kids. Most of them have kids beforehand.

[pittpurple]

DH and I were both 25 when we got married. We got together at 19 and everyone was bored with us by the time we got married. We weren't at all the first of our group of friends in the states and honestly I was getting a bit impatient! We were by far the only ones of our group of friends in the UK to be married at our age and are only starting to be invited to tons of weddings now at 32. Until last year, we were the only married couple in our group of friends and the couple to get married last year were 35 and 39.

However, we know a very different group of people here. Most of our friends are academics and are much more highly educated and career oriented than our friends in the states (and us!) so it's hard to compare really.