The median age of first marriage in the US, today, is higher than it has ever been.
Today, we talk about those women who squander their youth and beauty on sluttery and concubinage, and then have an “epiphany phase” around age 28 (coinciding perfectly when they perhaps realize that single women are in the minority), where they decide that maybe being a slut/concubine forever is not such a good idea. Certainly, there are millions of these women.
Nevertheless, there are also many women — half — who get married at the median age of 28, or younger. If you consider that it often takes 6-12 months from the decision to get married to actually doing it, and that we can imagine at least 6-12 months from first meeting until the decision to marry, again we find that about half of the women meet their future husband during the ages 16-25. I would say that this is the better half — those women who are, obviously, not wasting the entirety of their twenties on sluttery and concubinage, and among them, some pretty decent girls. It is hard to imagine a slutty girl who then somehow marries at age 25, unless perhaps to an unusually wealthy and stupid man, who makes an offer she can’t refuse.
I guess that nearly all the women who go on to make decent wives are in this younger-half category. Some of them take a little longer, and get married around 28-30 perhaps to a man that they have been in a monogamous relationship with for a long time, like five years. These are the women who naturally form lasting relationships; and this is what they do. Thus, they are gone: only the leftovers remain. The back half, after the median. Among these leftovers are some decent girls, including the “never had a boyfriend” girls and even some very high quality but deluded Christian girls who are waiting and waiting for God himself to deliver Prince Charming on a cloud with a host of angels. No mortal man is good enough for her; and even if she does find such a man, she waits and waits and waaaaaits for him to chase her, as if a man of that sort needs to do that.
But, mostly, the good ones are gone. Increasingly, men understand this. Something happened to her between the ages of 16-28; and mostly, it was something bad. I think that we are going to see many men decide that they would rather be single than take these old and damaged leftovers. The risk and disaster of divorce, or an unhappy marriage even if one doesn’t get divorced, is too great. Mostly, these will be the men of insight and self-control — that is, the best men. Until now, nearly all women (92% of white women) eventually got married, but I suspect that, going forward, of this latter half who aren’t married by 28, perhaps half of those never will; thus, 25% unmarried, which will seem like a very big number.
This is not just my opinion, but the conclusion of the Pew Research Center:
Since only the good girls are likely to be reading a site like this, I interpret this to mean that good girls should endeavor to be in this earlier-than-the-median half, which is where most of the good girls already are today.
The men who are interested in marriage and family would do well also to search in this younger-half cohort.
Cornerstone 