Search icon

Life

07th Sep 2016

Everything we thought about the ideal age to get married is a lie

Maths scaring the absolute sh*t out of us again.

Cassie Delaney

Given that we are mentally still children, we always assumed that the older we got married the more mature and prepared we would be. 

We were wrong.

There’s a brand new study after being published that’s scaring the living bejaysus out of late twenty-somethings everywhere.

According to the new report, the best time to get married is between the ages of 28 and 32 as it means that the chances of your marriage being successful are higher.

Sociologist at the University of Utah Nick Wolfinger conducted the survey and, according to Time, people who get married between the age of 28 and 32 are the least likely to split up. Those who wed in their late 30s on the other hand, seem to be fast-tracking their way to divorce.

Wedding bouquet on a background of the bride and groom

“For years, it seemed like the longer you waited to marry, the better,” Wolfinger wrote. “That’s because the relationship between age at marriage and divorce risk was almost linear: The older you were, the lower the chances of divorce. Although teens still face an elevated divorce risk relative to older adults, my analysis of more recent data shows that those who tie the knot after their early thirties are now more likely to divorce than those who marry in their late twenties,” wrote Wolfinger.

“The odds of divorce declines as you age from your teenage years through your late twenties and early thirties,” said Wolfinger.

“Thereafter, the chances of divorce go up again as you move into your late thirties and early forties.”

According to the study for each year after the age of 32 you get married, the chance of divorce increases by about 5 percent.

age-at-marriage-divorce

via Family studies

Additional tests revealed that the relation seems to function more or less the same for everyone: male or female, less or more educated, religious or irreligious, intact or nonintact family of origin, and limited versus extensive sexual history prior to marriage. For almost everyone, the late twenties seems to be the best time to tie the knot.

So we’d want to get moving…

Or we could just curl up on the couch and prepare for The Great British Bake off either.