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.

Because some loved each other and knew they wanted to spend the rest of their lives married to each other.They saw no reason to wait another 10/15 years to do what they could at 18/20 years old.

It just makes sense to do that. People can still live full lives even if they are married.

1750s did people get formally married and actually register the marriage or was it a quiet thing just done by the church and the parish records?

Agree

People were definitely wildly having sex before marriage in the 90s. But I do think people followed a 'life script' more then, school, college, university, job, house/marriage, babies in that order. And once out of uni you were definitely adult ing. It was rare I think for people to return home after uni, certainly with people I knew. Lots married in early 20s, half still together, most of the other half on second marriages now. It was just a social norm

My circle of friends would have been early 20s in 1990. No one married in their early 20s. Youngest was 29, I think, and most in early 30s. Almost everyone lived together pre-marriage too. All these descriptions of people frowning on sex before marriage sound like the 1950s not the 90s.
But there was a big difference back then between those who went to uni and were only just getting going in their adult lives by 24, and those who had left school at 16 and by 24 had been working for years and felt ready to settle down. Non-uni folk were much more likely to marry young.

Wow! One of our good friends was an vicar who didn't seem fazed by us living together. His daughter lived with her boyfriend in the 80s.

I started 6th form in 2003 (born in early September so nearly a year older than everyone else). Everyone seemed to be at it all the time! If anything, still being a virgin was frowned upon 🤣

@RedSpotTeaPot my mum told me she had to get permission from dad to get sterilised been mid 70s ish.
I was taken aback by that revelation.

To address the actual question im the post title, I think it's more that people are getting married quite old now - 34.8 for men and 33 for women. That's the anomaly.

Rubbish - I was in my late teens in the early 80's and living with your boyfriend was not frowned upon.

I got married at 18, in the 90s. No-one cared about sex before marriage in the 90s, we just wanted to be together. I can't imagine waiting till 30 to get married and have children. I was happy to have my last child at 30. It's just how it worked out that I met the right person early. Obviously, if I hadn't, I'd have been older when I got married. No regrets, it was right for us.

Blimey. I didn't know that but have looked it up and apparently it was commonplace well into the 20th Century. Doesn't that seem absolutely bananas now.

I was cohabiting in the early 80's and no-one batted an eyelid. Totally normal. Same for all my friends too. You'd have to go back to the early 60's I think to find that being unacceptable in the UK.

1975, with the Sex Discrimination Act. Before that, women had to have a male (father, DH) co-sign it. My now-DH and I were turned down in about 1988 for a mortgage because we weren't married, and therefore seen as unreliable. We're still together!

Strongly agree with this.

I also think the stigma around cohabitation was far more nuanced than some here recall.

In my staunchly middle class social circle, living with a partner was definitely frowned upon. None of my friends luved together before marriage. My father didn't speak to me for 3 years because I was 'living in sin' (1995 onwards).
My brother never stayed with my parents again from his early 20s because he wasn't married and my father wouldn't let them share a room. That persisted until my father died 2 years ago.

I witnessed similar in friends' families. It was more about parental attitudes than my own generation.

I think that very much depends on social circles, who were raised in the church too.

I have friends who have celebrated 30th wedding anniversaries who were virgin brides.
I also have friends who 'lived in sin' for a few years before getting married to have kids.
And others who weren't interested in kids so never married.

1990s was probably the last of the shotgun weddings.

One of the most noticeable things about this thread is how willing people are to say other posters experience is rubbish or nonsense because it's not the same as theirs.

My parents married in December 1955, and I was born early August 1956. They were 20 and 22. Before contraception was reliable, so before the Pill -- until roughly 1962, women were incredibly careful about intercourse. Casual hook ups, never. Paid for encounters, yes. There is and always has been a commercial sex market. Sex workers probably expect to pay for abortions.

No 🤣

The life I lived at uni mid 90s was very different to life friends who didn’t go.
If you were working 9-5 in a building society for 5 years, had to be home by 11pm (dads rules), going steady with a lad and could buy a nice little house together the appeal to marry was there.
In offices I worked in young women would read wedding magazines, lots of chat about weddings.

Where on earth did you live???

I was at uni in the early 1990s and at the weekends, pretty much every room had a boyfriend or girlfriend staying over. I lived with my ex husband from 1997.

Oh, come off it! I lived with my uni boyfriend in the late 70s and then another in the 80s. I wasn't unusual. I didn't marry until my early 40s although had a near miss in my early 30s. All completely normal in my social circle.

Is that not also because the 80s was the end what was essentially forced adoption.
Young mums were no longer forced to give babies up.

In 1990? In 1950 maybe.

I was 30 in 1990. I had my own house and lived independently through out most of my 20s. I met DH in 1989 and we got married in 1991. We were together all the time but didn't officially live together.

Some of my friends got married in 84/5. Most of our friends got married early 30s. Many, many couples lived together. I don't recall many people who weren't sexually active.

Mother and MIL got married aged 23 in 1960 ish.

This thread is wild and feels a generation out of date.