To wonder why people used to marry so young

[estrella167532839]

In 1990 the average age for getting married was 24. I know couples who got married when they were 21/22 and had only just graduated from uni. I can’t imagine being married that young.

At the moment, it seems like most people get married in their 30s, if at all.

Depends on where you live, the UK wasn’t and isn’t one homogeneous mass. It was certainly socially frowned upon for couples and to live together in the 90s where I am.

in those days?😂

The 1990s??

I can assure you I recall no stigma at all attaching to cohabitation in Britain then.

DH and I moved in together in 1987 (24 and 22) and got married in 1988. I guess we just did get married in those days. Still married now.

Yeah they did.

all my uni friends lived with their boyfriends before getting married.

only one had his family cut them off because he was “living in sin” and they were bloody weird anyway.

1990 is not 1950. Women could absolutely have bank accounts. I had one and so did all my friends.

Not in 1990 they didn't.

This is nonsense. I had my first bank account in 1975 and mortgage in 1982. I was single.

Definitely, it was frowned on up to the 2000's really. It did happen though

“Britain” is quite a large place. In the early 90s, where I lived, women were very much judged if they “lived in sin”.

I got married in 2006 when I was 22, we’d been together 6 years by that point, were both working full time and had a mortgage. It didn’t feel young or too fast it felt like the right time for our relationship. We’ve been together 26 years and married 20 now so seems to have worked out ok.

In 1990 far fewer people went to Uni. I was 18 in 1990 and out of my year of 350 in a large comprehensive, about 30 of us went on to university. It was very, very normal to leave at 16 and get a job, or do your Highers (Scotland) leave at 17 and join a large bank or insurance company. Do that at 17 or 18 and by the time you get to 22 or 23 you have 5 years working behind you, you've not just graduated.

@Octavia64 I should have probably been clearer. Sometimes it was frowned on to live together. I lived with my dh and my parents were "mortified "

In 1992 when I got married, my parents would have been devastated if we'd lived together. People did, but usually only for a short time with a wedding already planned.

ETA, in my world at least, it was very unusual for a stable couple to have children without a wedding. There were young single mums where dad hadn't stuck around, but where mum and dad were a couple, they were usually married.

I had sex before marriage.

so did all my uni friends (and I know because we talked about it and most lived with their boyfriends/girlfriends in shared student houses).

my university halls of residence had a scurrilous news sheet devoted to who was fucking who.

mid 1990s

No, it really wasn't. All of my contemporaries were having sex in the 1980s, very few went down the aisle as virgins. It wasn't the dark ages.

My parents married in 1980 at 23 & 25. That was considered normal and they absolutely could not have lived together before marriage because it would have been a scandal and made things difficult for their parents because of the gossip!

I do t think it was that frowned upon in the 90s. I 'lived in sin' from 1985 ish and had a baby 1988. I never did marry as didn't want to.

I think we grew up earlier as most of us left school and went out to work or apprenticeships.University was for far fewer people. Agree that living together was frowned upon, my cousin moved in with her boyfriend in the 70s and it was a topic of family conversation! Girls mostly did not aspire to have a career, at least not in my circle, finding a husband who would be a ‘good provider’ was still a thing.

Missed the 1990 bit!!

Still wasn't that many decades beyond 199O - less than two.

Not in the 1990s for either of those! 1960s and 70s, maybe.

Pre martial sex not so much but living together still got looked down on.

Scott and Charlene (Neighbours for the youngsters) got married in 1987 and the writer took a long time to decide that they shouldn’t sleep together before they got married.

22 year olds in the 1990s weren't seen as very young in general, I don't think. Personally I'd been out on my own for several years by then. It was a different time, as they say.

My friends who got married in their (early) 20s in the 90s met while studying/working first jobs and lived together prior to the wedding, so it wasn't for the sex. Most of them are still together at almost 50. I'm not in the UK, though.

Of course they were, young people have always had sex outside marriage, but 'living in sin' was definitely still a thing.

These days no one bats an eyelid if an unmarried couple live together, sleep together, have children etc. Back then it was frowned upon. Some older people still frown upon it. My MiL told me in no uncertain terms was i to even think about getting pregnant before the wedding. I got married at 33. My Mum married at 21, had my brother aged 22 and me aged 24. Even in the 80's she was considered a young Mum.

Are some on this thread reading the second '9' in '1990' upside down? 😆

Of course women could have bank accounts and mortgages in 1990.

There might have been (and might still be) pockets in the UK where 'living in sin' is frowned on but that wasn't my experience of the early 1990s.

As to why people are marrying later - cost, I would imagine, especially housing costs. People can't afford to buy a house/start a family/have a large wedding in their 20s - they might not want any or all of those things, but they're all incentives to marry which have disappeared for the average person in that age group.

Due to the ridiculous and pathetic notion that sex before marriage was the worst crime you could ever commit.