Title: Key Factors That Impact Your Odds of Marital Success | Psychology Today
Headings: Key Factors That Impact Your Odds of Marital Success
Shauna H Springer Ph.D.
Key Factors That Impact Your Odds of Marital Success
Well-educated individuals spend more time dating a potential spouse.
THE BASICS

Content: Within the Lifestyle Poll sample, the average age at marriage was also significantly higher than the average age of marriage for the population at large. Specifically, the average age at marriage for women in the Lifestyle Poll sample was 27.17 and the average age for their husbands was 28.94. The average age of marriage across the United States for the same time period was 23.6 for women and 25.8 for men*, so the men and women in this sample were 3 to 3.5 years older on average at the time of marriage. I suppose the relatively high average age of marriage in the Lifestyle Poll sample would explain a curious personal experience that I once had that has never been repeated at other weddings I’ve attended. I was attending a close friend’s wedding at the Harvard Club of New York, an elegant “Harvard on Harvard” marriage. When the bride threw the bouquet, the cluster of single women immediately jumped away from it and the unclaimed bouquet landed on the floor. I believe it may have ricocheted off my hand, because someone handed me the bouquet (now that I think of it, I realize I was, in fact, the next to get married). This bouquet toss experience was illuminated when I reviewed responses to the open-ended question “At what age or stage of life do you feel is the optimal time to get married and why?” Here are some representative answers to this question: • I believe you should not get married before your late 20s at the very earliest.