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Should I get Married Early?

Updated on May 20, 2012

How old should I be to get married?

What age is too young to get married

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What age is too early to get married?

I thought I'd share my opinion on what age is too early to get married and a few things to think about. In general, I think it's a good idea to get married early. I was married when I was 23, almost 24 and my wife was 22. Some people thought we were too young to get married, others thought it was fine. Almost fourteen years later, I think it was a good decision.

I have a few things to think about to find out if it's the right time of your life to get married. The big over arching question I think you have to ask yourself is "Why am I getting married?" I think there is really only one great answer for this that is logical, although there are several reasons people get married that have nothing to do with my opinion. So, here goes. The only reason you should get married is you have identified a partner that you plan to have children with that is the best possible person to father/mother the children.

I could get into why I believe this like cultural reasons that benefit the children, but I'll focus on the "why not to get married." If marriage were a business, you wouldn't get married at all. You might exchange services for a fee, but never would you lock your business into a single option unless there was a significant strategic reason (children) that would warrant such risk. I'm not the first person to compare marriage to a business, but it's been said, would you invest in something that fails 50% of the time? Most people wouldn't unless there was a risk reward quotient that made the risk of failure worth it and in my opinion, that is children. Even though you don't have to be married to have kids, I think it's best if you're.

So, if you are thinking about getting married early. Do you want to have children and is this the person to raise them with? If yes. You can move on. If not. Don't get married.

The second thing to consider is your timing to when you want children. Like many life changes, there is an adjustment period once you're married. You want to have plenty of time to adjust to married life before having kids. This is sort of like an escrow period where you are in contract, but you can still call it off before the deal is finalized (children arrive). I suggest a four to five year marriage adjustment period if you are under the age of 27 before having children. The older you're, the more likely you're to have a definite timetable to having kids. For example, if you're 38, and want kids, I might suggest just having kids and then getting married because ultimately, kids are more important than the marriage, although it's a more difficult path to do as a single parent. The point of this is give yourself several years as a married couple before having kids. If you want kids at 27, then getting married at 22 or 23 is reasonable.

The third thing to think about is your personal maturity level and that of your potential spouse. People continue to mature as they age and marriage often requires high degrees of personal maturity. If one person is mature and the other is not, that can make for a difficult combination, although it's not as bad as too immature people getting married. If you're young, you'll have to look at yourself and examine your recent history. Are you mature enough to be married? Maturity can be thought of across a few things. Do you take complete responsibility for yourself and are you capable of taking responsibility for another person? How do disputes arise and how are they dealt with? How do outside influences affect your relationship (family, jealousy, time, personal activities)? Dealing with outside influences takes a significant amount of maturity as well as understanding the type of life you're going to create for yourself as a married person. Rarely do things in relationships change for the better or worse, so you're very likely to find yourself in a similar state a few years from now that you're in today. Is this the life you want. It takes maturity to understand marriage won't change the way things are today.

So in real short, are you too young to get married? Do you want children? If yes, how soon do you want them? If in the next four to five years, then are you mature enough to make a marriage work? If yes, go for it. The worst that happens is you get divorced. As terrible as that sounds, many divorced people are leading happy lives and they've gained the experience that only failure can bring, which is a good thing.

If i get married early, what are my chances of getting divorced

Divorce rates do very a bit by age and studies show that really young people get divorced at a higher rate.

As I mentioned earlier, marriage is a contract. If the contract is broken, you'll have to pay the termination fees. With divorce it many not only be a financial penalty, but an emotional one as well.

I think it's worth the risk. If my daughters asked me if they should get married in their early twenties, I'd say yes.

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