I was 23 when I got married, almost 15 years ago (reading through these comments, I don't even know if that counts as young in this context, but it was sure unheard of in my neck of the woods!). My husband was 24. I wouldn't change a thing. Other people have said this, but we were both so clueless, we were just clueless together, which helped. Right before we got engaged, we were having lunch with his pastor, a man who'd gotten married at 19 (I think he was in his 40s at the time), and he said he'd always been grateful that he and his wife had grown up together. That's stuck with me for the last 16 years or so. My husband and I really have grown up together. I told him the other day that I loved him for who he was, always, but that now he's growing into what I always knew was in there. I remember thinking at the time that I didn't know what would happen with us, but I just wanted to be there for the ride. Our circumstances have changed, many many times, but that feeling has never changed. It's been a hell of a ride!
I had the opposite experience. I didn't marry until I was 38. I used to joke that I was 'skipping my first marriage.'
The joke was on me when I divorced 8 years later. Turns out there's no age limit on foolishly going into a marriage because it seems 'good enough'. "Marry someone you're friends with," was the advice I listened to. This resulted in being married to my roommate, which was lonely indeed.
Here's the kicker - shortly after I divorced, when I had no business dating again yet, I sat down in a church meeting next to this very nice man who offered me his coat. I declined, but remembered his kindness. And remembered his face when we ended up in another church meeting together about 4 months later. And then again when we met at two more meetings in the following weeks. Then we started meeting on purpose!
I fell in love for the first time at 46, and married the love of my life two years later. It's been 10 years, and it's still the greatest miracle of my life.
We both think of marriage as 'practice', just like any other practice in our lives - running, praying, etc. We show up every day, and we devote ourselves to each other, and to our life together.
I don't believe there's any age limit on this. You can find it very young, you can find it pretty old. I have a friend who fell in love for the first time and married delightfully at 64!
One of my favorite artists, David Gates of the 70s band Bread, married his high school sweetheart and stayed married. That always made me respect his love songs so much more because they seemed so genuine. He was a rare exception of someone in super stardom who was able to gracefully bow out of the limelight and enjoy his life with a single spouse.
I was stunned to learn Bon Jovi had been married for 35 years. I just assumed rock stars don't do that!
Actually, both Brown and Bongiovi's parents are still married, and they both were raised with some kind of religious tradition (Church of England and Catholic respectively). This also bodes well for them.
Jon BonJovi is an admitted cheater. Is length of marriage what constitutes success? Please, let’s not hold him up as a shining example of #maritalgoals
I loved this piece ! As someone who will be marrying old and is susceptible to the fear of losing my freedom / judging those that didn’t have the experiences I had in my 20s— I really applaud your writing and voice in this piece. Also love the odd drop about demons and the red thread on choosing community over isolation.
I got married last year when I was 22 and my wife was 21 (we're now 24 and 23). We're both loving it - highs and lows.
Of the many things I could say in favour of marrying young, one most related to your article is - marrying young means neither of you know what you're doing, so you'll get loads wrong, but at least you're wrong together. Getting married later means you're well practiced in your own ways, which is great, but when you join with someone else, then you'll simply clash when those ways don't align.
Both options have pros and cons, but I like the former most!
My husband and I married at 19. We got a few negative comments, but it wasn’t unheard of in the rural, mostly Christian context we lived in at the time. It’s been almost 22 years, and 5 kids later, we’re so grateful for God’s faithfulness and the way He very much caused us to grow up together in our young married years. All of our kids (ages 20-10) who are old enough to have opinions on the subject hope to marry relatively young too, so there is that. Part of it, I think, is in how we tell our stories to ourselves and within our families. They know ours is a story of God at work through difficulties in ways big and small, and our belief of our marriage and family being a special calling that, I think, lends a sense of deep meaning for us and our children (as it’s the root of their very existence).
My husband and I were both 21 when we were married. A lot of people asked us even then if we weren't too young. I was asked if I was afraid of missing out on some things by getting married then.
Nope. We were able to grow together and grow up a bit more together--we met when I was 14, by the way. The way I see it, we were able to have adventures and spend time still being young, together, before we added kids to the mix. We've been married almost 24 years and I wouldn't have done things differently.
I was 19, my husband 20 when we married. We met in jr high and we celebrate 20 years married this May. It’s truly a joy and honor to spend our lives together. Easy? No. Without struggle? Absolutely not. But our love and desire for only each other grows with the adventure, fun, and hardships we face together. And having so many shared memories prior to marriage is THE BEST. Thanks for writing this article! While I know early marriage isn’t possible or recommended for everyone, it sure saved us heartache, money, and to be honest a lot of arrogance. We’ve always done it all together. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s on my team because it’s been that way since the beginning of adulthood.
At first I was annoyed by this essay. I’m a woman who is single, 30 years old, and I thought a woman was writing this and just bragging. Because for women, getting married young is getting chosen young. It’s not that you did anything special or acted better—many times in today’s society, you can act worse and getting married because of it. The sinful behavior is incentivized. And I have married friends who will admit that they lassoed their husbands with sex. When you don’t have that, you’re at a disadvantage in the dating market so it is grating to hear young women act like they were so perfect and made all the right decisions. And they can’t take responsibility for pursuing a man or proposing to him so if a woman extols the virtues of young marriage, it’s usually a humble brag, or at least that’s how I interpret it. But when I realized a man was writing this, I was actually so glad that it was being written. I think the reason more and more women can’t get married young is because the men won’t commit young—because so many girls are throwing themselves sexually at every man that why would men commit to one girl? Why would they commit to a chaste girl? She’s boring. It’s probably not this simple—there are a variety of factors that influence these things, some are on a macro/societal level and others are on a micro/personal level, but either way I think men need to be considerate, be holy, do what they can to marry young (and be mindful of women’s biological clocks instead of exploiting their masculine/evergreen advantages) and just find a good woman and marry her! Obviously easier said than done when most of the women don’t follow God anymore, but I just wanted to say thank you, Ben. Thank you for writing this, thank you for marrying your wife young, and thank you for encouraging other men to follow in your footsteps. God bless you and your family! ♥️
Wow, I loved this! I was 20 years old and my husband was 27 when we got married, we will celebrate our 18 year anniversary this April. We have three children. We both always wanted marriage and kids so waiting didn’t make sense. We fortunately have a very solid friendship that has carried us through the inevitable turmoil of life and marriage. His masculine influence has blessed my life and taught me how to be more grounded. My feminine influence has helped him be more intuitive with our children. As a team we have become better individually. Some days I think “look how far we’ve come”, we are the best versions of ourselves so far. Lastly I’d add that our marriage had required a HUGE level of vulnerability and forgiveness from both of us. It hasn’t been effortless. You can truly reap so many rewards in marriage by putting in the hard work.
I'm a 24 year old who got married at just 21, my husband at 20. We just had our first child. I can't agree more with this - getting married when we did really is the best decision we ever made. We have become adults together in a way that is deeply formational in all the best ways. People talk endlessly about compatibility, but at the end of the day marriage is a choice. Are you going to choose to work with your partner, or not? Are we going to choose one another, choose to be compatible in the way we make choices, or are we going to seek our own ends and be upset if the other doesn't agree with our actions? When we seek compatability, what are we actually seeking?
I have friends who've been in relationships for almost as long as my husband and I, who aren't anywhere near marriage yet. It seems to me holding off commitment in a long term relationship creates emotional distance and stops you from experiencing the best of a relationship. Why wait 4 years, then 2 of engagement, to experience real intimacy, by which point it's harder to achieve because of ingrained habits of independence? Why is depending on someone else a bad thing?
I love this conversation, and was also fascinated to hear about MBB getting married so young. Thanks for an awesome piece!
I know it’s wrong but I have secretly envied my older sisters who married older (29+), thinking that they are better off or have an easier time in their marriages for having had years to be their own person and learn what matters most to them in those confusing years of one’s early 20s. One can change so much during these years it seems. God has indeed blessed them with wisdom from those years and it does bless their marriages. But I am thankful to be reminded by your article that marrying young is its own profoundly beautiful gift though maybe messier at the start. It was humbling for me to marry young and be so immature, so that is good. I can gladly say it only keeps getting better. Glory to God for all things.
I got married at 19 and my husband was 20. We’ve been married 6 years now and have 2 kids. Ironically, the discipline and sobriety that parenting has given me has freed me up to enjoy my 20s a lot more and truly feel young. After facing the life-and-death heaviness of bringing children into the world and caring for them, my eyes feel open to the incredible privilege of being a student (we are both in school now). I remember seeing an RBG quote where she described being a parent in law school — she credits her daughter w her success, saying that parenting made her more fully present in her life, w each part of her life (parenting and studying) being a relief from the other.
People think of parenting as a mature activity but there is nothing more gorgeously youthful than seeing the garbage truck out the window and screaming with joy as you grab your son to show him. At 25 i feel much younger and more wide-eyed than i did at 17.
Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes married a girl who he’s Ben dating since they went to a jr high dance. I’m a Niners fan but I think they’re cute. Think they have three or four kids too.
I was 23 when I got married, almost 15 years ago (reading through these comments, I don't even know if that counts as young in this context, but it was sure unheard of in my neck of the woods!). My husband was 24. I wouldn't change a thing. Other people have said this, but we were both so clueless, we were just clueless together, which helped. Right before we got engaged, we were having lunch with his pastor, a man who'd gotten married at 19 (I think he was in his 40s at the time), and he said he'd always been grateful that he and his wife had grown up together. That's stuck with me for the last 16 years or so. My husband and I really have grown up together. I told him the other day that I loved him for who he was, always, but that now he's growing into what I always knew was in there. I remember thinking at the time that I didn't know what would happen with us, but I just wanted to be there for the ride. Our circumstances have changed, many many times, but that feeling has never changed. It's been a hell of a ride!
This is a beautiful story!
I had the opposite experience. I didn't marry until I was 38. I used to joke that I was 'skipping my first marriage.'
The joke was on me when I divorced 8 years later. Turns out there's no age limit on foolishly going into a marriage because it seems 'good enough'. "Marry someone you're friends with," was the advice I listened to. This resulted in being married to my roommate, which was lonely indeed.
Here's the kicker - shortly after I divorced, when I had no business dating again yet, I sat down in a church meeting next to this very nice man who offered me his coat. I declined, but remembered his kindness. And remembered his face when we ended up in another church meeting together about 4 months later. And then again when we met at two more meetings in the following weeks. Then we started meeting on purpose!
I fell in love for the first time at 46, and married the love of my life two years later. It's been 10 years, and it's still the greatest miracle of my life.
We both think of marriage as 'practice', just like any other practice in our lives - running, praying, etc. We show up every day, and we devote ourselves to each other, and to our life together.
I don't believe there's any age limit on this. You can find it very young, you can find it pretty old. I have a friend who fell in love for the first time and married delightfully at 64!
Blessings to you.
One of my favorite artists, David Gates of the 70s band Bread, married his high school sweetheart and stayed married. That always made me respect his love songs so much more because they seemed so genuine. He was a rare exception of someone in super stardom who was able to gracefully bow out of the limelight and enjoy his life with a single spouse.
I was stunned to learn Bon Jovi had been married for 35 years. I just assumed rock stars don't do that!
Actually, both Brown and Bongiovi's parents are still married, and they both were raised with some kind of religious tradition (Church of England and Catholic respectively). This also bodes well for them.
Jon BonJovi is an admitted cheater. Is length of marriage what constitutes success? Please, let’s not hold him up as a shining example of #maritalgoals
I loved this piece ! As someone who will be marrying old and is susceptible to the fear of losing my freedom / judging those that didn’t have the experiences I had in my 20s— I really applaud your writing and voice in this piece. Also love the odd drop about demons and the red thread on choosing community over isolation.
I got married last year when I was 22 and my wife was 21 (we're now 24 and 23). We're both loving it - highs and lows.
Of the many things I could say in favour of marrying young, one most related to your article is - marrying young means neither of you know what you're doing, so you'll get loads wrong, but at least you're wrong together. Getting married later means you're well practiced in your own ways, which is great, but when you join with someone else, then you'll simply clash when those ways don't align.
Both options have pros and cons, but I like the former most!
My husband and I married at 19. We got a few negative comments, but it wasn’t unheard of in the rural, mostly Christian context we lived in at the time. It’s been almost 22 years, and 5 kids later, we’re so grateful for God’s faithfulness and the way He very much caused us to grow up together in our young married years. All of our kids (ages 20-10) who are old enough to have opinions on the subject hope to marry relatively young too, so there is that. Part of it, I think, is in how we tell our stories to ourselves and within our families. They know ours is a story of God at work through difficulties in ways big and small, and our belief of our marriage and family being a special calling that, I think, lends a sense of deep meaning for us and our children (as it’s the root of their very existence).
My husband and I were both 21 when we were married. A lot of people asked us even then if we weren't too young. I was asked if I was afraid of missing out on some things by getting married then.
Nope. We were able to grow together and grow up a bit more together--we met when I was 14, by the way. The way I see it, we were able to have adventures and spend time still being young, together, before we added kids to the mix. We've been married almost 24 years and I wouldn't have done things differently.
I was 19, my husband 20 when we married. We met in jr high and we celebrate 20 years married this May. It’s truly a joy and honor to spend our lives together. Easy? No. Without struggle? Absolutely not. But our love and desire for only each other grows with the adventure, fun, and hardships we face together. And having so many shared memories prior to marriage is THE BEST. Thanks for writing this article! While I know early marriage isn’t possible or recommended for everyone, it sure saved us heartache, money, and to be honest a lot of arrogance. We’ve always done it all together. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s on my team because it’s been that way since the beginning of adulthood.
At first I was annoyed by this essay. I’m a woman who is single, 30 years old, and I thought a woman was writing this and just bragging. Because for women, getting married young is getting chosen young. It’s not that you did anything special or acted better—many times in today’s society, you can act worse and getting married because of it. The sinful behavior is incentivized. And I have married friends who will admit that they lassoed their husbands with sex. When you don’t have that, you’re at a disadvantage in the dating market so it is grating to hear young women act like they were so perfect and made all the right decisions. And they can’t take responsibility for pursuing a man or proposing to him so if a woman extols the virtues of young marriage, it’s usually a humble brag, or at least that’s how I interpret it. But when I realized a man was writing this, I was actually so glad that it was being written. I think the reason more and more women can’t get married young is because the men won’t commit young—because so many girls are throwing themselves sexually at every man that why would men commit to one girl? Why would they commit to a chaste girl? She’s boring. It’s probably not this simple—there are a variety of factors that influence these things, some are on a macro/societal level and others are on a micro/personal level, but either way I think men need to be considerate, be holy, do what they can to marry young (and be mindful of women’s biological clocks instead of exploiting their masculine/evergreen advantages) and just find a good woman and marry her! Obviously easier said than done when most of the women don’t follow God anymore, but I just wanted to say thank you, Ben. Thank you for writing this, thank you for marrying your wife young, and thank you for encouraging other men to follow in your footsteps. God bless you and your family! ♥️
Wow, I loved this! I was 20 years old and my husband was 27 when we got married, we will celebrate our 18 year anniversary this April. We have three children. We both always wanted marriage and kids so waiting didn’t make sense. We fortunately have a very solid friendship that has carried us through the inevitable turmoil of life and marriage. His masculine influence has blessed my life and taught me how to be more grounded. My feminine influence has helped him be more intuitive with our children. As a team we have become better individually. Some days I think “look how far we’ve come”, we are the best versions of ourselves so far. Lastly I’d add that our marriage had required a HUGE level of vulnerability and forgiveness from both of us. It hasn’t been effortless. You can truly reap so many rewards in marriage by putting in the hard work.
Nice post. I have teenage sons. I’m always interested in this perspective.
I'm a 24 year old who got married at just 21, my husband at 20. We just had our first child. I can't agree more with this - getting married when we did really is the best decision we ever made. We have become adults together in a way that is deeply formational in all the best ways. People talk endlessly about compatibility, but at the end of the day marriage is a choice. Are you going to choose to work with your partner, or not? Are we going to choose one another, choose to be compatible in the way we make choices, or are we going to seek our own ends and be upset if the other doesn't agree with our actions? When we seek compatability, what are we actually seeking?
I have friends who've been in relationships for almost as long as my husband and I, who aren't anywhere near marriage yet. It seems to me holding off commitment in a long term relationship creates emotional distance and stops you from experiencing the best of a relationship. Why wait 4 years, then 2 of engagement, to experience real intimacy, by which point it's harder to achieve because of ingrained habits of independence? Why is depending on someone else a bad thing?
I love this conversation, and was also fascinated to hear about MBB getting married so young. Thanks for an awesome piece!
I feel like Wendell Berry should add a new line to his poem, “Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Front”, something like:
“Reject your age and marry young
Grow old together amidst the yelling crowds,
Have children.”
https://cales.arizona.edu/~steidl/Liberation.html —> poem I am referencing
Loved this piece a lot.
I know it’s wrong but I have secretly envied my older sisters who married older (29+), thinking that they are better off or have an easier time in their marriages for having had years to be their own person and learn what matters most to them in those confusing years of one’s early 20s. One can change so much during these years it seems. God has indeed blessed them with wisdom from those years and it does bless their marriages. But I am thankful to be reminded by your article that marrying young is its own profoundly beautiful gift though maybe messier at the start. It was humbling for me to marry young and be so immature, so that is good. I can gladly say it only keeps getting better. Glory to God for all things.
This is a fantastic piece.
I got married at 19 and my husband was 20. We’ve been married 6 years now and have 2 kids. Ironically, the discipline and sobriety that parenting has given me has freed me up to enjoy my 20s a lot more and truly feel young. After facing the life-and-death heaviness of bringing children into the world and caring for them, my eyes feel open to the incredible privilege of being a student (we are both in school now). I remember seeing an RBG quote where she described being a parent in law school — she credits her daughter w her success, saying that parenting made her more fully present in her life, w each part of her life (parenting and studying) being a relief from the other.
People think of parenting as a mature activity but there is nothing more gorgeously youthful than seeing the garbage truck out the window and screaming with joy as you grab your son to show him. At 25 i feel much younger and more wide-eyed than i did at 17.
Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes married a girl who he’s Ben dating since they went to a jr high dance. I’m a Niners fan but I think they’re cute. Think they have three or four kids too.