Preparing For Marriage – Age Considerations
Are you close enough in age to each other for marriage?
For youth should not mate with age.
Her beauty was sold for an old man’s gold,
She’s a bird in a gilded cage.
So ran a popular song of an earilier era. In most marriages the man is somewhat older for well-known reasons. Girls usually mature physically and socially from two to three years sooner than boys. Some men do not feel ready to assume the financial responsibilities of marriage until after they have become established in some business or profession, which may require some years.
Most men, even those who are older, find younger women more attractive. So naturally the girls do not want to wait.
Nearly eight out of ten men marry women who are from two to three years younger than themselves. What of the marriages of those who do not? Interestingly enough, the Burgess-Cottrell study indicated that cases in which the wife was older than the husband showed a higher than usual proportion of good adjustments, as did those in which the husband was eight or more years older.
Yet these same marriages showed also the highest proportion of poor adjustments. Terman found that the happiest group of husbands had wives twelve or more years younger, but that the happiest wives were from four to ten years older than their husbands.
Yet the happiest couples were those in which the husband was from three to five years older. So you figure it out.
Posted in Marriage Preparation
