WHEN TO MARRY?

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1930, Page 19

WHEN TO MARRY?

VARIATION IN AGE i

A girl's chances of marriage fall off sharply after she reaches the age of twenty-five, while the young man's chances increase for a time after that age, according to some provocative , statistics gathered by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company on the probability of marriage at various ages, from 15 up. As the Minneapolis "Star" puts'it, "the older a young man gets, the more likely he is to marry, whereas the older a young woman gets, the less chance she has of avoiding spinsterhood." That paper proceeds: "The twenty-year-old girl has a better chance of marrying within ten years than the young man of the same age. By the time each reaches the age of 25, however, the tables are turned, for the young woman has less chance as years go by and the young man more chance to tako the marital vows. We don't quite know. what the moral of this should be other'than the obvious advice for girls to marry when they, get a chance, and young men to take their time and be cautious." ■ ANOTHER OPINION. Taking it for granted that these statistics will be. duly, studied by those who fall within the company's classifications, the Rochester "Democrat and Chronicle" goes deeper into the subject, trying not to appear too serious— thus:. "One learns that at the age of 20 a. young man ha 3 a 41 per cent, chance of being alive and" married within the next ten years, but whether this is to be taken as an encouragement or a warning, the company does not state. The girl of 20 has a somewhat higher percentage of matrimonial risk than the boy, but after that age her stock begins to go down, while for the young man it rises, and he is iv increasing danger of the altar until he reaches middle age. The one momentous fact that we can discover from a study of the whole situation is that there is no period from the age of 15 upwards that : one is entirely„ immune from the possibility of marriage. To be sur,e, the percentage of likelihood declines as years advance, and it appears that a man,of 55 has only alO per cent, prospect of marrying within the next five years. But so long as that percentage of possibility remains in any age, how can one be sure? Why may matrimony not-strike in one place just as much as v : in another?" IMMATURE JUDGMENT. Before the age of 25, the survey shbwa the average young mantis hardly marriageable, because he is not yet earning a living for two. Many, in fact, have not yet decided upon their line of work at that age, and, as the Louisville "Times" points out, most of them are still immature in judgment. "Yet," remarks that paper, "it is between 17 and 25, as a rule, that girls make the. great decision of their lives, as often opposed as aided by their parents. .: It is an axiom of married life that every . one marries a stranger. The wonder — as Robert Louis Stevenson asserted—is not that so many matrimonial barques go on .the rocks, but that so many come safely to port."