In wealthy countries, marriage is no longer a rite of passage but a sign of having arrived

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2017/11/23/marriage-in-the-west

IN A CLASSROOM in southern England, a group of 17-year-old girls has just learned something extraordinary. The pupils are interviewing a couple, Jane and Graham Marshall, who have been sent to their school by the Students Exploring Marriage Trust, a charity that tries to promote wedlock by providing teenagers with real-life examples. Mr Marshall has mentioned that he has been married to Mrs Marshall for 48 years. “Aww,” say the girls. Then they stop to think, because Jane and Graham do not look terribly old. Hold on, asks one pupil after a few seconds—how old were you when you got married? Nineteen, says Mr Marshall. The pupils gasp. “Whoa!” says one.

It is a long cultural journey from half a century ago to the present. Out of every 1,000 unmarried adult women living in England and Wales in 1970, whether single, divorced or widowed, 60 got hitched. Women married for the first time at a median age of 21, to men who were two years older. One-third of brides under 20 were bounced into marriage, with a baby arriving less than eight months after the wedding. To have a child outside wedlock was almost unthinkable.