Today, women are repeatedly told not to marry when they are young; let’s say, before age 25. This used to be the outside edge of when women would marry, 16-25, with the ideal around 18-20.
It is probably not best to start with those women who are well down the road to harlotry, or who have already arrived. Today, the women who are most likely to form a stable and productive family often meet their future husbands before age 25, and often, around age 20. The only difference between now and then is that, in the pre-1920 period, they would soon get married. Today, they become boyfriend and girlfriend; often, cohabitating in a stable, fruitful monogamous relationship. Typically, they then get married later, sometime after age 25, formalizing long years of an almost-marriage.
Today, only a minority of women, I would say, are fit to be good wives. Mostly, these girls are taken off the market, in this fashion, around age 20-22 — either getting married (it still happens), or almost-married. Since they are among the minority of women capable of forming stable, loving, beneficent, monogamous relationships, this is what they do — typically, with a like-minded man. Most men never meet them, which is why they have attained a mythical status, known as “unicorns.” I think they are much more common than unicorns (let’s generously put their number around 30%, but that might be my generation rather than today’s), but they seem uncommon because they won’t be found on Tinder, Bumble, or in a bar or club. They are at home, where, after cooking a nice meal, they are having hot sex with their long-term boyfriends, who they will eventually marry.
I say to these women, and their “boyfriends”: just get married, perhaps around age 21. Why not?
There are actually some good reasons why not, but I would also suggest that there are some advantages to marrying instead of cohabitating.
I have advocated getting married young, and then, having children while young, soon after marriage. But — we will discuss this later — you could also get married, and not have children right away. That is not a bad way to go.
Cornerstone 