What age do you think is optimal for marriage?
My mother married when she was fifteen, had her first baby at sixteen.
My husband's grandmother married when she was fourteen and had three children before she was nineteen.
It used to be common people married in their early 20's. I'm talking about the 1970's and 1980's. The songs back then were all about falling in love and having a baby.
At some point, it was put forth that a woman should not marry until she was in her 30's. Some said, 40's were even better. I don't think people feel this way now, but I'm not sure.
A good number of people may feel that marriage is useless? But for those who do not, what age do you think is optimal?
Is it different for men vs women?
Thanks.
I think female fertility starts to drop off around age 24-25? Ideally, I would have liked to get married around 20-22, and then try to have kids 3-5 years after that.
That simply was not in the cards for me. I had my near death experience/traumatic brain injury when I was 19, and then fostered a disabled orphan when I was 22. The male humans couldn't be too sure about me at that point : )
I didn't meet my now-husband until I was 29. We got married when I was 31, and he was 35. I felt pretty strongly about having at least 1 year of dating, 1 year of engagement, and 1 year of marriage without kids. Now I'm 34, and have never been pregnant. We are still hopeful, but definitely harbor a little bit of anxiety around the question of whether or not we will ever have kids... Almost all of my friends/peers have already had kids or are pregnant. I know of one that is starting IVF treatment - she's 35.
I don't remember anyone mentioning the word "fertility" when I was in my teens. All of the info was about preventing pregnancy. I can tell you though, people my age - in my circle at least, have managed to procreate. I am in the minority being childless.
I love married life and am so glad that I made things official with my better half. I do envision us having kids in the next 5 years.
I think young (between 20-29). I believe a culture thrives on secure families and support of them and the state of our culture in the USA is partly a result of discounting this and other more traditional things.
If you want children and are not wealthy you need to get married in your twenties. Our culture has screwed over a bunch of women by promoting older wealthy socialite & celebrity mothers who have had to invest in costly fertility treatments. The impression left was that motherhood could easily be postponed.
wow that's messed up.
I’m sure some would call me naive but I think the ideal time is when you find someone you want to marry.
@libra-noir You're not naive, you are right. I'm 37 y/o, I got engaged to my ex-boyfriend when I was 24, tho I actually didn't want to be in a marriage with him. My huge mistake for saying 'yes' instead of listening to my gut and not having enough courage to actually say 'no'. I ended that relationship 9 months later, and that was one of the best decisions I've made in my life, tho I hurt him. After him I had 3 relationships, currently, I'm in 3rd. Because of one of those three, I ended up here, looking for answers, because he ended our relationship over an e-mail, over the night, and I think I never really recovered from that. Many times in my life, even when I was younger I heard that "my eggs are getting dry, and what am I waiting for". Well, I'm waiting to get pregnant, have a husband, and a family, not just when I want it but when we both want it, for me it has to be a mutual and shared wish and decision. I always thought I would have kids by this age, but life is unexpected, many things happened to me against my will, there were times I was with wrong people, I've made many wrong decisions, but still I haven't lost faith I will have a family of my own. I have faith and hope. People are putting enormous pressure on me that I have to hurry up and have a kid because my time is up. It's like I'm doing it on purpose, no, I just don't think it's wise to pressure that kind of things in life and I have a feeling even if I do it, it won't turn up good. Each time I was trying to pressure something like that, love, relationship, it ended badly, for me-
@libra-noir I feel and always felt like this. The ideal time is anyway different/ another one for each person.