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.

I was responding to a comment about the poster’s mother in the early 1970s, not the original post.

No, but living together was definitely 'not done' into the late 80s/early 90s unless you were engaged with a wedding booked. Friends of DH had 2 single beds which they pushed apart when his mum visited 😆

I got married first time round in the early 80s, when I was 19 and he was 20.

We had both left school and got jobs at 16, so both felt quite mature and worldly-wise at 19/20.

Our joint gross incomes came to about £27k p.a. - our first flat was about £15K and we got 100% mortgage so no huge deposit required. Our housing costs were not a large chunk of our monthly income, we could pay a mortgage, socialise and save as well.

There was no mobile phones or internet, or talking to each other unless you were actually face to face, so if you wanted the opportunity for intimacy (not just sex) then getting married was the next logical step.

It was different times. Not worse, not better, just different.

It was a different world.
Young people were adults more quickly. Lots of girls at my school left at 16 for ft jobs or YTS. More left at 18 to work in banks or accounting. Only a few of us went to university.
Housing was cheaper so couples could buy a house and set up home.
I’m from northern wc background and I’d say it was still a bit frowned upon to live together certainly long term and to have children unmarried.
Expectations were different. A hen do would be a drink in pub. Weddings often were church followed by buffet in working men’s club or church hall, auntie make the cake.
Holidays were a week package holiday or uk. I don’t know anyone my age who had a year abroad or went travelling in SE Asia etc.
I’m in my early 50s.

I’m 68 and got married at 20, having lived with my husband for two years beforehand. Most of our friends were in their early 20s when they married, and with one exception, stayed happily married. I had a couple of friends who married at 16 and who are still happy now. It was quite frowned upon by some people to live together withiut being married in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and it was still relatively unusual to have children withiut being married. I’ve never had any regrets at getting married at 20 - if you know you’ve met the right person, why would you waste any of your life not marrying them?

You do know you’ve made this up? (Unless you’re speaking of a specific location outside my experience.)

I went to university as a young single woman in the early 1980s. I’d had a bank account for a couple of years beforehand. (And my bank offered £300 overdrafts to freshers of both sexes.)

Everyone had boyfriends / girlfriends. Everyone was free to have sex with no stigma whatsoever. Most of the people I knew best went on to cohabit immediately after graduation - as did I. There was no question of it not being socially acceptable - it was considered perfectly normal. Our careers centred on London - but these were people from all over the country.

I married in the 80s at age 19 and he was 21 . Had our first at 21 and 2nd at 25 .
had a mortgage at 23 .
Married for 20 years and then divorced .
Way too young , but back then it wasn't really unusual . People assume you were getting married because you were pregnant but ( for me ) it was two years before I was .

Did you not have a (landline) phone? Why couldn't you talk to each other?

Agree with @TheBayHorse It was the 1990's not the 1890's. I was living with my partner in 1982 and most of my friends were also living with their partners. Of the people I was friends with back then very few of us married yet most remained in long term relationships. A couple of friends married once they started having children and a gay friend married when it became legal. Now we're retiring more of us are considering it because it makes pensions and inheritance easier. I'm surprised so many people still get married and even more surprised that so many young women still choose to take their husbands name.

I went to university in the late 70s. In Freshers week all the big banks held talks in order to recruit new customers of both sexes. I already had my own bank account. There were no problems in the late 70s where I lived with single women getting mortgages as long as you had the requisite regular income.
I also think women were less naive about the intentions of some men. Look at all the threads on MN about women keen to marry with boyfriends stringing them along and making vague promises. Back them I think women were more prepared to ditch men who didn't fulfil their promises sooner.

Could your mum and dad have afforded a house as a single person though?

In the late 60s I married straight after university. I was just 22 and DH was still 21. We're still happily married and wouldn't have done it any other way.

We got engaged within 24 hours, after a blind date in our first few weeks of Uni. Got married just after graduation. Here we are nearly 35 years later. He’s currently snoozing on the sofa (old man) and I am still pinching myself at how lucky I’ve been.

I’d love to say it was our working class backgrounds and my hothoused catholic background. Truth is we just wanted to be together. There’s something beautiful about building a life together from scratch and having someone who knows you better than you know yourself.

Though he did make me look “wanton” according to my mother by using the same address for both of us on the banns and shaming her in front of the Legion of Mary.

You must live in a very conservative place. I also got married in 1990 and we had been living together prior to that. No-one turned a hair, not parents, grandparents, or anyone else.

I turned 23 in 1990, sex before marriage, having babies before marriage and living together wasn’t quite the same as now but it was certainly pretty normal and plenty did it. I think some parents put a bit of pressure on their children but not so much as someone would be shunned for any of those things. I’m one of 8 cousins, 2 were married at 16, 2 before they were 20 and 2 before they were 23. There was only my sister and me who waited, my sister was 27 and I was 37, lol. All of my closest friends were in their 30s too. I also had my own bank account in 1983, fgs it wasn’t the dark ages, lol

A single woman could get a bank account and a mortgage in 1975 without a guarantor.

Yes - on the telephone table in my parent's hall. Freezing cold in the winter and no privacy for sexy chatting. His land line was in his parents lounge, even less privacy.

Reading this thread it's clear that those who went to university between 1970 and the nineties tend to have a different opinion than those who didn't.

I got married at 22 in 2012, had a lot of funny looks and assumptions that we were Christians and wanted to have sex 😆 this from people who didn’t know us, obviously - we’d been living together for 3 years already.
Settling down young felt pretty rebellious tbh, everyone around us single, travelling and building careers. Us too, we just did it married 🤷‍♀️

Was it bollocks im 53
Me and all my friends were all merrily having sex circa early 90s nobody waa disproving of us.

I was a teen in the 60s, people were having sex! Not with the blessing of parents of course, but there was a big hippy movement, especially in the USA, 1967 was titled ‘the summer of love’.

In the 90s DS was finishing uni and his steady girlfriend at the time often stayed in his shared house, and occasionally with him at ours.

No

I think some people are confusing 1990 with 1890

I wanted to get married when I was 21 (my boyfriend didn't propose until I was 25).

I wanted to marry young for three reasons -

1. I was besotted with him, we'd dated for 5 years by the time he proposed and I felt totally ready for the next stage of life together.

2. we were both Christians and wanted to be married before living together, having sex and having children.

Reason 1 was the main reason. I am convinced I'd still have wanted to marry him young if we were atheists.

Loads of the practising Christians I know got married young and this was in the 2000s.

A schoolfriend got married at 19 in the mid 90s because her parents didn’t approve of unmarried couples living together. A uni friend got married at 22 in the late 90s. Her boyfriend actually lived in her parents house with her but they were not allowed to share a room until they were married. Also in the late 90s, my FIL went mad when my SIL and BIL started living together six weeks before their wedding. My parents were pretty relaxed but many others were not.

I married at age 23 in the late 70's, I was living with him at the time and it was (shock horror!) the second man i'd lived with. Contrary to what younger people on here think loads of couples lived together, there was little stigma maybe because we all lived in a big city. I have friends who have been together for decades, have had kids and never married nor felt any pressure to do so. My sister had two children and did not marry the dad, nobody turned a hair, it wasn't the dark ages pre the 90's