Albert Mohler: Did He Get Married Too Young?

Thursday, February 18, 2010

You have to give David Lapp credit. The 22-year-old young man knew what he wanted, and he got her -- a wife. It wasn't easy. When David and his wife Amber told her father that they wanted to get married (at ages 22 and 21, respectively), he hit the ceiling.

Thankfully, Amber's father changed his mind. The couple is now happily married, and David has told the whole world about it in an op-ed column for The Wall Street Journal. In the column, he deals head-on with objections to young marriage.

He writes, "As college-educated, professionally aspiring young adults in New York, my wife and I were bucking the prevailing social script by marrying in our early 20s." Indeed, the average age for first marriage for young men is now 28, and for women it is now 26. That reflects a significant change in the way Americans live, love, and marry. We now have the twin phenomena of delayed adulthood and extended adolescence. Young Americans, by and large, are not waiting for sex . . . but they are putting marriage off into a distant future. the rest