That's what it looks like over on Boundless. Yesterday I answered a question from a Mom writing on behalf of her daughter who's 20. She's seriously dating a man 22 and they want to get married. Soon. Foolish, right? It's depends on who you ask. I wrote,
Despite a long history of young people getting married and having children during their prime season of fertility, conventional wisdom at this minute seems bent on the notion that the longer you wait to get married, the more prepared, self-aware, and divorce-proof you'll be.
Is such wisdom true?
A number of insightful articles and even a book have been released very recently that dispel those myths. There is nothing magical about the passage of time that makes you better prepared to get, or be, married. An intentional 20-year-old can be more ready to wed than a 30-year-old who's simply let time go by with no thought to becoming one in marriage. And it's often those who've walked away from an early proposal who are disappointed and frustrated that another (or a better one) hasn't materialized later on.
Age at first marriage matters. But it's not everything. And its effect is often overstated, or misconstrued. (You can read the full article here.)
Also on Boundless today is a 2-part article by Heather Koerner. In "I Got Married Young," she ponders (along with her husband Kevin) if they should have gotten married even earlier than they did.
Kevin thinks so.
"Do you think we should have gotten married younger?" [She asked him.]
"Absolutely," he called back, head still buried in the fridge.
"Really?" I was a little surprised by the quick confidence of his answer. In over a decade of marriage, I couldn't remember us ever discussing this before.
He took a break from his snack searching and turned around to where I was snuggled in with my laptop. "Well, of course," he repeated, "don't you?" [keep reading]
It's a good time to rethink our assumptions about age of first marriage. With so much data now showing the benefits of not waiting, we're free to be about forming families for God's glory sooner rather than later.