By GABRIELLE MARTIN, Staff Reporter.
The average marriage age has never been higher, according to census data dating back to 1890. The average age to wed for a woman is currently 27 whereas the average age for a man to marry is 29.3. There are three key factors playing into the rising average marriage age and the recent decline of marriage itself.
Neither the Bonems nor the Andersons cohabited before marriage and Janelle Bonem married at a very young age for a millennial. Their love stories are certainly unusual by today’s standards in more ways than one:
Changing Social Norms
Cohabitating before marriage used to be quite taboo; however, recent attitudes about it have changed and cohabitation has become much more commonly accepted. In 2012, 7.8 million couples were living together outside of wedlock compared to fewer than 500,000 couples in 1960, according to the National Marriage Project. When you combine that information with studies done by Pew Research that find only 20 percent of people ages 18-29 were married in 2010 compared with 59 percent in 1960, one cannot help but see a connection.
“Because cohabitation is a viable option there is a trend of testing the waters before it is legally binding,” says Donna Giuliani, associate professor of sociology at Delta College and instructor of Delta’s marriage and family class.
Daniel, 29, and Molly, 27, Murawski were couple for four years before tying the knot and lived together for part of that time.
“I think you really really really get to know a person by living with them and being their roommate,” says Molly Murawski.
It used to be said that couples who cohabitated before marriage were more likely to get a divorce if they did decide to marry. However, more recent research has shown that is not necessarily the case.
According to a study by Arielle Kuperberg, PhD and assistant sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, what does make a difference in divorce statistics is the age at which a couple makes a large commitment – whether it be to marry or cohabitate. When a couple makes their first major commitment after the age of 23, their chances for success rise.
Greg Allison and Kristine Gotham were married at the age of 23. They had dated for nine months prior to marrying, during which time they lived together.
“We did everything possibly wrong at the age of 24 learning how to be married and not quite learning the lessons,” says Allison. After a couple of years, they divorced. Their story didn’t end there though. Gotham and Allison found each other on social media and have now lived together for nearly five years.
“The older I have gotten, the wiser I have gotten and a little less selfish,” says Allison, explaining one reason why their relationship is going along more smoothly this go-around.
However, this time, marriage is not at the top of either of their minds.
“I love him, I know that he loves me, and we’re committed to each other,” says Gotham. “We don’t have to have a marriage license to say that’s how we feel.”
Education Opportunities
A second key factor playing into the changing marriage age is education opportunities. According to Pew Research, those who attend college tend to marry later in life. As time goes on, we are seeing more of that.
For men, the introduction of the GI Bill after WWII made a college education something that wasn’t just for the wealthy of intellectually gifted. However, the average marriage didn’t start to go up drastically until women began to have more equal educational opportunities.
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title IX of the education amendments (established in 1972 it banned discrimination based on sex) in particular got the ball rolling on education opportunities for women.
“Because young women have so many opportunities for employment and an economic alternative to marriage, it becomes less absolutely necessary to wed before you’re ready,” says Giuliani.
Before women had the opportunities for higher education (and the jobs that come with those educational opportunities), being unmarried as a woman wasn’t economically easy. With the jobs that were available to them, not many women would have had the income necessary to be self-supporting.
Data on the Statistics Portal website reveals that in 1960 only about 6 percent of women had attended college for four or more years while in 2010, 29.6 percent had.
Economic Attraction
Opportunities in education directly play into another affecting the average marriage age.
“Education level is very tightly tied or correlated to income level so what usually happens is the less education you have the less money you make,” says Giuliani. “So then if having more education and a higher income makes someone a more attractive permanent partner, it makes sense that couple who have more education and make on average more money are much more likely to be permanently paired off.”
As harsh as it may sound, people who are financially stable make more attractive partners from an economic standpoint. With the downturn of the economy, more people have been seen as less economically attractive as permanent partners. Giulini adds that history has shown that women show a preference for men who make a decent living; that’s not changing. What is changing is what attracts men to women. Traditionally, men have been attracted to a woman based on her physical attractiveness. By monitoring click patterns in online dating, it has been
“As a result of the economic meltdown what you now see in male online dating patterns is tat the first thing men are interested in – based on their click patterns – is the income and educational background of potential female partners,” says Giuliani.
A survey done by Pew Research found that millennials are fully aware that their economic standing plays a role in their suitability as a partner; 69 percent of unmarried millennials say they would ike to marry but feel that they lack the prerequisite of a solid economic foundation.
Conclusion
With these three factors in mind, the question rises of whether or not they will continue to affect the marriage age at the current rate and even if marriage will eventually become obsolete.
“If I had to project I would say that cohabitation is not going away any time soon,” says Giuliani. “But as the economy becomes firmer you will likely see more people legally committing.”