One thing I want to emphasize, though, is that I do not suggest in any way that getting married earlier makes you happier. I don’t think anything of the sort, and Mark Regnerus (the one who wrote the original article that inspired this post) says the same thing. I’m only arguing that our bodies were designed in such a way that bearing children and raising a family at a young age makes the most sense, and so we shouldn’t postpone marriage unless we have good reason. There is a strange discrepancy in our culture where we’re putting off marriage longer and longer even though our fertile years stay the same. Christian culture encourages to save sex for marriage but encourages us to get married at an older age, making it harder to save sex.

This post is mostly about young people who are in serious (especially sexual) relationships but are putting off marriage for various reasons. I’m asking the question, “What are you waiting for? You can get married now!”

Perhaps it’s because I’m 28, single, and even if I were to meet my future wife tomorrow chances are we wouldn’t get married until I were 30, but I’m not buying the bliss of marrying early and its advantages. Would my life be better now if I had met and married someone when I was 18-21? Absolutely not! Considering the stuff I went through well into my mid-20′s (99% of which was none of my doing), the last thing I would have needed was a wife (and probably a kid or two) to worry about as I went through all of that.

Of course, the comments about, erm, having guilt-free sex at a time when humans are most fertile is a very powerful argument, and it’s something I’ve personally dealt with on many occasions. I’d love to have my own ankle biter of my own and frankly I get jealous of my peers because I’m the only one in my circle of friends that isn’t married, much less have a kid, but what am I to do?

Sorry, but this just reads like yet another “Marriage is great! And you suck if you’re not married, especially if you’re older than us!” post.

We got married at the exact median age, 25, after two years of dating/engagement and two years of friendship and it was a perfect fit for us, especially because with our lines of work require a few years of work related near-poverty and lots of traveling to get on your feet and it was good thing that those years coincided with the dating/engagement portion instead of the newly-wed portion as its easier to spend 50% of year away from your significant other if you’re not married yet.