Studies reveal the best age to get married – and it’s not what you’d expect

Sociologists Nick Wolfinger and Phillip Cohen put forth two separate age-brackets in answer

A new-found study seems to have cracked the code to a question that has plagued the South Asian culture since the beginning of time; on what exactly is the right age to get married.  Surprisingly, the verdict reveals that one should just stay put until the age of twenty-eight. Yes, we know; we too can hear the neighborhood aunties having an affliction.  

A study at the University of Utah by sociologist Nick Wolfinger reveals that those who marry between the ages of twenty-eight to thirty-two are least likely to split or divorce in the ensuing years. While there had been much speculation around whether waiting to marry leads to more stability, this is the first study that actually provides hard evidence towards it.

Analysing data from 2006 to 2010, and then from 2011 to 2013 from the National Survey of Family Growth, Wolfinger revealed, “the odds of divorce decline as you age from your teenage years through your late twenties and early thirties,” further continuing on to write, “the chances of divorce go up again as you move into your late thirties and early forties.”

In hindsight, this makes complete sense. The late twenties and early thirties time period allows one to understand whether they are taking a decision out of pure infatuation – or in our case, pure societal pressure – or whether they are able to logically determine whether they are in a position to understand the gravity of such a responsibility. The age bracket also allows one to financially settle on their own feet, and to fully develop characteristics that are pertinent to their own selves. You can also hope to not come across some man-child you’ll have to explain the basic ethics of hygiene 101 to. One hopes, at least.

However, the sociologist in question also seems to believe that a selection bias comes into play the older one gets.  He writes, “The kinds of people who wait till their thirties to get married may be the kinds of people who aren’t predisposed towards doing well in their marriages,” later continuing on to say, “people who marry later face a pool of potential spouses that has been winnowed down to exclude the individuals most predisposed to succeed at matrimony.”

Other sociologists, however, are doubtful of these conclusions. Phillip Cohen from the University of Maryland uses data from the American Community Survey to conclude that increasing age is not proportional to a marriage that has a lesser chance of survival. Instead, he proposes a completely different timeframe between forty-five and forty-nine as the best phase to tie the knot if one does not want to divorce.

While a sure-cut statistical analysis is not evident given the difference in conclusion between these two studies, it is worth acknowledging that divorce is difficult metric to measure, specially in the United States. Many states choose to not collect data on the matter, adding on to the fact that a growing number of individuals have begun living together without obtaining an official marriage certificate, making any type of separation, let alone success story difficult to measure.