I married my first wife when she was 18 and I was 20. We went through a lot of hardship. It should not have worked out: we were both poor, from broken homes, in an LDR from different worlds. She was the popular girl, I was a shy and awkward nerd. When we got married, we had only been in one another's presence for a few weeks total. I went into the marriage not expecting a path or plan, as my parents were toxic which ended with my mother's suicide, and my mother in law had been married 4 times before she became single for the last time. None of us had healthy marriages to draw from. At our wedding, her relatives even said, "I give it two years, tops." We were desperately poor, and struggled most of our marriage with health and money issues.

But we made it work for 25 years. We'd still be married, but she passed away ten years ago. We became "foxhole buddies," us against the world.

I swear some people go out of their way to judge others for the most ridiculous things. Maybe try asking yourself why you are not happy about people finding love without going through half a dozen shitty relationships.

It goes up. Now I think people that get married before 40 are weird.

On serious note.... It's any age. You can tell when a couple is just trying to reproduce an image of "family" because they were told it's the next thing to do in life. Working in retail id often see families you could tell just went through the motions and that everyone was disconnected from one another. It's sad.

Imagine the following scenario: you meet someone in college, and when you graduate at 22 you don't want to split up. They say sure, let's live together, but we need to get engaged; if it doesn't work out we can just break it off. After a year you realize your lives are much better together. You decide to get married but not to have kids until you're 30. If it doesn't work out you can divorce, but you sign a prenup and at least no kids would be involved.

If you both have clear and compatible career goals, that scenario saves you a lot of dating drama and gives you valuable support. I wouldn't call someone in that scenario "weird."

Wife an I met and got married when I was 25 and she was 19. We had some life experience and knew what we wanted. 15 years later, it's still amazing, we're still best friends and inseparable. When I met her I got this weird feeling, like I met someone I had somehow known all my life. It felt like I met my wife in a past life, and was immediately like "oh there you are!" When I met her in this one.

I'm in my mid-50s. The generation older than me - my aunts and uncles - generally were in school until grade 8 and were out of the house and working by 16. My mother had her older sister as her teacher.

24 is not a child. You can vote drive, drive, drink, marry sign legal documents etc. And at least for women fertility begins to decline at 32. If you mean you will continue to grow as a person and develop new interests that hopefully never goes away. I went to grad school and was in academia for over a decade after my PhD. I have made two major shifts in my career since then. Old people still feel like they are in their twenties or early thirties mentally, we joke about it all the time. So congratulations, this is it.

At what age are you supposed to know what you want for the rest of your life? You will never have an answer to that in any capacity, and not just in marriage. You evolve as a person, you'll never have a fixed desire for your whole life. And that's the great thing about marriage and relationships, they also evolve. And it's about who you want to try doing that with

The age at which you meet has nothing to do with it. Healthy relationships are about evolving together. If you can't do that or if you do it separately, that's when it falls apart. Sometimes you're lucky and you find a compatible person early, sometimes you don't. That's all there is to it.

Seems like 24 is an arbitrary number. Some folks consider themselves "ready" for marriage at 18, some at 40, and some never.

I think its very subjective and situational.

Maturity plays a much more important role than age. Some people are never fit to marry, some have what it takes by the time they are 16/17. It's not often that it plays out well for the youngest ones, and since each year brings new experiences and understandings each year moves along the bell curve of "marriage readiness". So is it more likely that a 24 year old is more ready for marriage than a 18 year old. Yes. Is it guaranteed? No. I know some 50/60 year olds that still aren't ready for marriage. They just never learned the skills it takes to have a healthy marriage. Giving an age as a hard cutoff is too arbitrary a measure. Age doesn't guarantee shit.

Can we stop extending "just a kid" into ever older years? Society already years anybody under 18 like they're the same as a goddamn fetus. Human life expectancy being what it is, we shouldn't be treating people... not even like they don't know anything but like they couldn't even conceivably know anything for fully a third of it.

Me 32, i dont have a fucking clue of what i want for the rest of my life. Maybe those couples that married in their early 20s wanted to explore together what they wanted in life. Good for them.

Not going to try to change your mind about this opinion, but I'll take a stab at shaming you for being so vocal about a thought that is very much "othering". Maybe turn down the judgement a bit, you don't know people.

24 is just as arbitrary an age as 18, change my mind

I see a pretty stark difference between people who married young and had kids right away, vs people who married young and enjoyed their time for a while before having kids. The ones who had kids seem weird to me, never got a chance to goof off in their 20s and figure out who they are. The ones who waited feel more normal. But that's just my experience.

I married at 22 over 20 years ago did not regret a day... I think a happy marriage is just a lot of luck a lot of self reflection and effort. No matter the age it is not a self running maintenance free system

I got married at 22, (wife 21) and on the 17th of Feb we will celebrate our 32 year anniversary. Seems to have worked out ok for me.

Do whatever you want. Maybe your marriage will last, maybe it won't. Live your life. Take chances.

I met my wife at 37 and married at 39. Best decision I ever didn't intentionally make :)

But looking back, I had a TON of growing up to do before I was ready to seriously commit to marriage the way I personally view it. Pair bonding for life. Sure, people, things and desired change, but I've watched far too many god awful divorces to ever want to go through that, so I wanted to be really sure and I totally was. It's been an awesome 16 years.

If you know you want to marry and have kids, and you know who you want to marry, it's weird to wait, especially since you can avoid being a creaking old person who still has young kids.

If we make it to 24 that'd be 8 years of dating and id feel bad not marrying her by then. My only caveat is I want to be out of college by the time we marry tbh

I'll probably still go to grad school but I'd atleast like my BS

Well that’s just like your opinion man. But yeah.

If you don't know what you want before you're 24, should you be allowed to make any decisions?

Worst mistake of my life. I love my kids, though.

As a rule of thumb I'd agree

That said, few people I can immediately see are extremely compatible and uniquely similar would be fine marrying that young. I could see how having a kid even at 20 could be appealing. Imagine being 40, your kid is 20 and finally cool to hang around with while you're still healthy

I am guessing this is mostly informed by your own experience, personally I feel the same, but I was a fucking moron at 24, certainly not ready for something like marriage or kids, hell I am 31 and I still don't feel that way.

Others might feel otherwise or grow up faster, to better parents and that's okay, no need to label people who do things different than you as weird imo.

Say that to the ppl in countries/places where people start working from the age they are old enough to hold tools, or after high school, they or their parents are not gonna bother delaying their marriage well past puberty, it varies wildly depending on the place(and culture), not everyone is living in a rich country and want to complete masters before doing anything else.

Throwing my anecdotal 2 cents in -

Married at 23 (wife just turned 21) straight out of college. We were both very immature, and we divorced two years later after she fooled around with her 55 year old boss. Left me devastated at 25 going on 26 thinking I was used goods. After a lot of maturing, a few more relationships, I remarried at 33.

It takes a lot of self reflection - because even though I could chalk up the previous marriage to “lol she a hoe” - I had piss poor financial skills, was very immature and lacked a lot of self confidence which manifested itself in toxic behavior all around. There are times I just cringe at who I was at that age. Not that I’m a perfect person now, I’m just more aware of what I needed to improve in myself to be a decent person and partner.

Part of it is the age old wisdom of learning to love yourself and figuring out what you like, versus just trying to mold yourself into the person you think your partner wants. And not to say that “oh I’m an asshole, They have to deal with it” but truly understanding what makes you tick and finding someone who loves and accepts that part of you.