When To Get Married?
Mark Regnerus’s blog-bait op-ed in The Washington Post purports to make the case for getting married early. “Say yes. What are you waiting for?” reads the headline. It’s not would you would call a “hard” case; he doesn’t argue that it’s better to get married before 25, full stop. But he does repeatedly express his own support for getting married in one’s early twenties, as he and his wife did. What he fails to do, however, is offer any substantial, convincing reason why anyone else ought to do the same.
First, he claims that “as ever, marriage wisely entered into remains good for the economy and the community, good for one’s personal well-being, good for wealth creation and, yes, good for the environment, too.” Aside from noting rather broadly that it’s “good for one’s personal well-being” (about which more in a moment), all of the reasons he essentially boil down to the notion that early marriage is good for society as a whole. Now, the greater good may be a good reason to, say, sort out your recycling, or install a low-water-use toilet, or give money to your church, or spend time volunteering. But is it really a compelling reason to get married? Perhaps in ages past that was the case — but that hasn’t been true for a long time. And while Regnerus might argue that he’s not saying it should be the primary factor, I question whether it should be a factor at all. Really: decisions about marriage should be made on the basis of whether or not you think you and your potential spouse will be happy and successful, not whether or not your marriage (or lack thereof) will make a positive impact on the economy. And as for the environmental impact, can you really imagine a strong, stable marriage founded on “Well, honey, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to marry you, and I’d thought I might wait a few years to take the plunge. But if we tie the knot now, while we’re both 23, it’ll reduce our carbon footprint. Will you marry me?”
What about those individual benefits? The “personal well-being?” Well, Regnerus manages to go through most of the essay without actually listing any particular benefits to early marriage, preferring instead to argue against the notion that getting married in one’s early twenties might be harmful. He points out that women are typically prepared, emotionally and mentally, for the commitment at a younger age than men, and that men become more stable as they grow older. He also notes, correctly, that young marriage doesn’t “cause” divorce, and that what really matters for successful marriage are “mentalities: such things as persistent and honest communication, conflict-resolution skills, the ability to handle the cyclical nature of so much of marriage, and a bedrock commitment to the very unity of the thing. I’ve met 18-year-olds who can handle it and 45-year-olds who can’t.” That’s all absolutely right! But none of this suggests anything about what age one ought to marry, and it certainly doesn’t suggest that early marriages provide any advantage. All he’s done is push back against some commonly given reasons why one ought to wait to marry; he’s not made the case that it’s actually better to do so while young.
Finally near the end, he writes: “Today, there’s an even more compelling argument against delayed marriage: the economic benefits of pooling resources.” He follows this with:
Married people earn more, save more and build more wealth compared with people who are single or cohabiting. (Say what you will about the benefits of cohabitation, it’s a categorically less stable arrangement, far more prone to division than marriage.) We can combine incomes while reducing expenses such as food, child care, electricity, gas and water usage.
It’s of course true that marriage, on average, tends to make people more financially stable and well off over the long term. But those are accumulated benefits over time. So it’s not true, as he says, that “today, there’s an even more compelling argument against delaying marriage.” Financial stability isn’t something the pastor hands out after the kiss, not something they issue with a marriage license (too bad!); it’s something that takes years of planning and saving and earning to accomplish. And even if it provided a small short-term benefit, temporary economic turmoil isn’t a good reason to commit to someone else for life.
Regnerus, I think, makes only a single point in favor of early marriage, and it’s not a very strong one. It’s that female fertility dwindles with time. So for those who want children, there might be some very small benefit to early marriage. But I’m skeptical that even this should be a terribly significant factor; couples want kids when they want kids, and increasingly that’s going to be in the late 20s and early 30s. And in fact, I’d worry about any marriage founded in significant part on the decision to marry young because of fertility stats. Again, what sort of odds would you give to any marriage of 23 year olds founded on, “Well, I don’t know if I want to get married to you, or if I want to get married now, but my fertility is going to decrease in my late 30s… alright, baby, let’s get hitched!”
In the end, Regnerus has only really made that case that getting married young is perhaps not as bad as some have said. But he doesn’t manage to make a positive case for doing so, and in fact, stumbles onto a nearly contrary truth, which is that, at the individual level, the decision to marry isn’t really about age all; it’s about commitment.
Update: I should probably clarify somewhat to say that I’m not in any way opposed to people getting married before twenty five. Quite a few of my closest friends from college got married within a year of graduation; it seems to be working quite well for them, as I know it does for many folks. I just don’t think Regnerus makes much of a case for making the decision to get married early.
For the most part I agree with you on the piece, but as an addendum to the fertility justification, though, the data that shows women in their mid-thirties and after are significantly more likely to have a child born with autism than mothers in their twenties could be another concern. That’s a justifiable concern, I’d say, for women wanting to have children in their twenties.
— Kat · Apr 27, 05:17 AM · #
Kat: Even still, is it a reason to get married in your early twenties, which is what the piece purports to argue in favor of? Maybe, I guess, if you want to have a few years of single life with your spouse before having a kid. But let’s say you’re 23, and you’ve found the person who you’d like to marry and have kids with. If you want to have them immediately, you will, regardless of fertility stats. If you want to have them in your late 20s, you will, again regardless. If, on the other hand, you’re not sure you’ve found the person you want to have kids with, then you probably shouldn’t let concerns about fertility make the decision for you. I’m still not seeing a real reason to get married before 25 here, except for the one that already exists: you’re 23 and you want to get married!
— Peter Suderman · Apr 27, 05:22 AM · #
Well, what sort of odds would you give to an arranged marriage? But apparently these things often work out …
Seriously, though, the fertility considerations are no joke; I know – and I’m sure you also know, Peter – quite a lot of couples who’re having quite a lot of trouble having kids. But this is really much more of an argument not to put off having children after you do get married (there’s no such thing as the “right time”!), as opposed to jumping on the marriage wagon before you feel fully ready; perhaps, though, it could count as a decent reason to look for alternatives to that super-fancy venue that’s presently booked every weekend in May and June for the next two years.
— John Schwenkler · Apr 27, 05:29 AM · #
I think the most sensible reading of the piece (and maybe this is too kind to it) is not that it aims to give reasons that some individual would consider when deciding whether to get married, but instead to push back on a social norm of delaying marriage. Such a social norm not only reflects but also shapes individual choices, because people see a variety of stigmas associated with early marriage. At that level, the various considerations Regnerus cites are relevant, because the norm has an awful lot to do with these kinds of secondary considerations.
I guess I’m ambivalent about whether people marrying later is desirable or not. . Ultimately, desirable or not, it seems inevitable, given individuals’ career paths. But I’m highly conscious of how that norm shapes our decisions and expectations, and I think it would be better if young folks were less primed to think of marriage as something that comes later.
— Justin · Apr 27, 05:53 AM · #
Actually, that hasn’t been true for me. A not-insignificant part of our decision to get married early was because we want to have lots of children and we feel it’s better for them and us to have them early. Of course we wouldn’t have decided to marry if we hadn’t been “the one” for each other, but it was there in the back of our minds (mine, at least).
— PEG · Apr 27, 06:21 AM · #
As a young marrier (23), I can say that the fertility question never crossed my mind. I am sympathetic to the “general pushback” mentality, but ultimately, I have to agree with Peter in principle, though I think that equates to Regnerus in practice.
The real conversation should be about people who have spent several years being single together and still don’t want to tie the knot. In many cases I’ve witnessed, that means one of two things:
a) They are getting what they think are the benefits of marriage without the commitment (sex, intimacy, comfort) without the biggest costs. In that case, why the hell would you get married? After all, even most happily married people would admit that you can get sex, a surprising degree of intimacy and a level of emotional comfort from people that aren’t the “one and only.”
b) Okay, I forgot while I was writing a).
Point is, it should always be about commitment. But an environment that permits young people to retain their mistaken notions about marriage for as long as possible is bound to be less conducive to successful marriages. Getting married younger doesn’t MAKE you a smarter partner. But an environment that presupposes or encourages younger marriage might encourage people to think about it critically sooner.
As it is, we live in a world where a close friend of mine felt comfortable delaying marriage as long as possible because his wife would get better health care if she stayed on her dad’s policy. To be sure, that was actually true: she had significant health issues, and she would benefit enormously from staying on her dad’s health plan since he was an exec at a health care company.
But that didn’t stop them from doing everything else married people do: they moved in together, shared a life, etc. What they didn’t do was get engaged or make any kind of explicit commitment. And that, Peter, is where I think simply saying “it’s about commitment” breaks down. That’s technically true, but we should also encourage an environment that promotes commitment, rather than discourages it.
— Bill · Apr 27, 07:11 AM · #
As a writer of op-eds, I want readers of op-eds to have more children and at an earlier age.
— Steve Sailer · Apr 27, 07:17 AM · #
What Bill and PEG said, too.
— John Schwenkler · Apr 27, 12:03 PM · #
Look, there is a pretty clear statistical trend that shows that the longer the wait, the less likely your marriage is to end in a divorce.
— Freddie · Apr 27, 12:20 PM · #
And there couldn’t be any complicating factors that might be influencing those data, could there?
— John Schwenkler · Apr 27, 12:25 PM · #
John, don’t be crazy, my regression shows a clear correlation!
— PEG · Apr 27, 12:51 PM · #
<i>So for those who want children, there might be some very small benefit to early marriage.</i>
The premise of this statement hits the problem on the head. I would speculate – and the statistics bear it out – that those that get married to form families with children tend to stay married whereas those that get married to affirm monogamy do not.
<i>Look, there is a pretty clear statistical trend that shows that the longer the wait, the less likely your marriage is to end in a divorce.</i>
No there isn’t in the subsets we are discussing. Marrying 17 is worse than marrying at 22. Marrying at 22 is not worse than marrying at 27. The benefits of age end at 25 for men and 23 for women.
— Badger · Apr 27, 01:10 PM · #
Peter Suderman fearlessly takes down an op-ed that never was written. What Mark Regnerus’ WaPo piece argues is that the social stigma attached to marrying in or immediately after college is misplaced for several empirically-based reasons. Along the way, he makes the point that the stigma against early-20’s marriage may be improperly derived from the better-grounded stigma against teenage marriage. The sociological and – why not? – environmental points he makes along the way are in support of his argument. However, I see this as the real focal point:
In other words, it’s marriage as a means versus as an end, a vehicle versus a destination. And with all that is implied in that distinction, it’s a very interesting question. The narrower questions it raises first for me are, has American adulthood become mapped out too rigidly in terms of financial/academic achievement? Is society delaying any expectation of emotional maturity among its “best and brightest” until 30(ish)? Is the fear of actually staying in nights and living a middle-class (or lower) lifestyle through your 20’s trumping the desire to cement relationships, start families, think long-term? Are we reluctant to have children at all, if we can’t send them to language camp and private school? Are we couching selfishness in the guise of responsibility (feel free to exonerate yourself of this, IF you’ve never bemoaned the renowned selfishness of the boomer generation)
Peter Suderman mocks the notion that anyone would get married, at any time, because of sociological or environmental reasons. But who said you should? To the extent that you would apply the op-ed to the case of two individuals, it presumes a basic assent and wish to marry – but also that the wish is stifled on various economic or emotional pretenses that may be invalid. He doesn’t say it this way, but marriage is too potentially valuable to delay it simply out of fear. Implicitly, if you don’t have someone you otherwise want to marry, it’s a moot point – but Suderman somehow manages to miss this.
So the point isn’t for 21-yeard olds to marry their current girlfriend/boyfriend. It’s for those who want to marry but are pressured to wait, to push back and get on with it.
— biwah · Apr 27, 02:45 PM · #
I have to agree with biwah: this post was mostly aimed at a straw man. To the extent Regnerus’ op-ed was addressed to individuals contemplating marriage at all, he was merely suggesting that individuals who DO want to get married young try to withstand the peer pressure against their decision. But most of the op-ed wasn’t addressed to individuals; it was addressed to all of us, trying to convince us NOT to exert peer pressure against early marriage. Thus, when he refers to fertility, he wasn’t saying, “Get married to the first guy you find at 21, just so as to preserve fertility.” He was basically saying, “Why are all of us creating peer pressure for people to avoid getting married, even though they want to do so, at a time before their fertility drops drastically?”
— Stuart Buck · Apr 27, 03:00 PM · #
And there couldn’t be any complicating factors that might be influencing those data, could there?
I’ve been silenced by the sheer logical rigor of this sentence.
— Freddie · Apr 27, 03:59 PM · #
Freddie, consider the difference between correlation and causation. Waiting to marry may be correlated with slightly less divorce; but that only tells us the static correlation that exists when the majority of early marriers (these days) are from lower economic classes and educational levels. It doesn’t say anything whatsoever about what would happen if society as a whole stopped pushing people of all classes to wait until their 30s to marry (and stopped pushing credentialism by which many jobs are needlessly held out of reach unless you spend several post-high school years in school).
— Stuart Buck · Apr 27, 04:14 PM · #
Who is this “society” guy who keeps pushing people to delay marriage? He must be very influential.
That out of my system, I think it is mostly market forces causing marriage delay. Marrying early, starting a family right away and trying to be successful parents while beginning a career is quite a handful, even if your career is punditry. If it is a job that requires working long hours, weekends, holidays it becomes very difficult until you have the accumulated financial resources. It also takes more maturity than most 21 y/o’s have. (Since fertility is central to the argument I assume starting a family early also.)
Steve
— steve · Apr 27, 05:11 PM · #
Not to get too biblical on you, but why no discussion of the moral issues involved, and the relevant objections to what used to be called fornication and living in sin? Sociology can show the bad consequences of wrong moral decisions.
— PlanetAlbany · Apr 27, 05:15 PM · #
Hitler said that if you tell a lie enough times, that people will believe that it is true. this is called the “big lie” theory. That married people are both physically and financially healthier than singles is an example of the big lie in action..
Most people I know tend to gain 20 pounds of weight within 1-2 years of marriage. The singles I know continue to work out in the gym and stay in shape. Also, single people are more likely to engage in outdoor sports (I live in the Pacific northwest, which is a haven for outdoor sports) than do married people. As we all know, outdoor sports help keep one both physically and psychologically healthy.
I also challenge the notion that getting married improves one’s financial health. It is far easier to pursue a lucrative career or business opportunity without the distractions of a wife than it is with. Also, women tend to desire things like a big house and late-model cars, whereas most men I know are content to drive a reliable 10 year old car so that they have more money to travel, do outdoor sports, or just save money. It is also easier for a guy to live a low-cost “slacker” life-style (while pulling in good money) to save money for early financial independence while single. Most women I know do not go for this.
It is also easier to live the “lonely planet” adventure travel lifestyle being single than being married. Most American women I know do not go for this (although many Australian and European women do).
— kurt9 · Apr 27, 05:37 PM · #
Waiting to marry may be correlated with slightly less divorce; but that only tells us the static correlation that exists when the majority of early marriers (these days) are from lower economic classes and educational levels.
This is very easy to control for. Studies that include education and partner’s education (as well as many other things) still find a very high and significant correlation between age and divorce, reaffirming Freddie’s point (see table 7 here , grabbing something random off the net). You’ll have to try again.
Steve nails it, imho. The increasing tournament style of white collar, where the work done in the 20s is of increasing value for the lifetime stability of income, requires re prioritizing one’s 20s.
— rortybomb · Apr 27, 06:07 PM · #
rorty,
Reread the table. It doesn’t even have data for the 20-24 demo. The original article linked actually cites a study stating exactly what the author claims, there is no signficant benefit of marrying in one’s late twenties versus one’s early twenties.
— Badger · Apr 27, 06:20 PM · #
There is a strong decrease in divorces for people married at 25-29 controlling for education – Freddie’s point. A strong increase for 15-19. 20-24 is removed to keep multicollinearity from blowing up the regression. Point stands, no? (The bottom of page 6 points out that the literature review accepts this as fact, as well it should.)
The WP original argument does back this up – “Marriages that begin at age 20, 21 or 22 are not nearly so likely to end in divorce as many presume.” Not nearly so likely as many presume! How’s that for a way to phrase “the large increase in divorces among 20-24 that popular culture assumes is really just a moderate increase in divorces.”
— rortybomb · Apr 27, 06:56 PM · #
Rortybomb — unless someone has figured out a way to do random assignment here, no study can demonstrate causation. Moreover, studies that necessarily took place within the culture/society that already exists don’t tell us anything about what would happen if societal norms changed such that early marriage was more supported.
— Stuart Buck · Apr 27, 08:16 PM · #
Actually, Regnerus is wrong that people who get married become happier or more connected to community. There is truth to the wealth argument, but part of the reason is that marrieds get discounts and other financial advantages that singles don’t. I’m a social scientist and have written about these issues at length in my book, Singled Out. I also posted about it at my Living Single blog at Psychology Today:
http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/200904/don-t-just-marry-marry-young-so-says-the-op-ed-page-the-washington-post
— Bella DePaulo · Apr 27, 08:39 PM · #
“Who is this “society” guy who keeps pushing people to delay marriage? He must be very influential.”
A Thatcherite! If “society” isn’t a term that you recognize, read “all of us people.”
— Stuart Buck · Apr 28, 03:02 PM · #
“the longer the wait, the less likely your marriage is to end in a divorce.” Freddie
To what point? Do you think people who wait until forty-five are less likely to divorce than those who marry at thirty-five? (And I do know of people whose first marriage was as late as 45)
— Thomas R · Apr 29, 09:12 AM · #
I have been dating the same guy for about 5 years. We are 24. My family looks down on the fact we’ve been together so long (and I’m not slobbering over frat boys at bars, dodging STD’s?). I’m doing very well in my career, so its not like I’m sacrificing that. Marriage should be looked at on an individual basis. As a young feminist woman I’ve always put my professional life first – but falling in love and finding the person I want to spend the rest of my life with should not have to be separate from that. If anything the thought of getting married and having a few years to ourselves, without children, is incredibly appealing.
— Blue · Apr 29, 09:27 PM · #