Today, July 3, is my forty-third wedding anniversary. (No gifts, please!)
On a coolish, gray day in 1982, Sophie and I were married at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Alderwood Manor, Washington.
I like to tell people that in those days the legal age for marriage in Washington state was 12 years old.
When my own kids were adolescents and starting to be curious about such things, I was embarrassed when they asked about our ages when we married. Sophie was 21, with a year in college still to finish. And I was 23, one year out of college. I gasp to think of my kids being married at the same age.
I know the average age for marriage continues to rise, and the US average is still younger than in western Europe. And I know that as a male, my prefrontal cortex didn’t fully mature for probably another four years after our wedding.
Still, I’d like to make a case for young(er-ish) marriage. My backing is all anecdotal and mainly personal. It’s worked for us.
First, a little disclaimer. Because I’ll be sharing our story of marrying young, what I write might be seen as part of the current fad of “tradwives.” Honestly, I had to google the term to know what it is. Just in case you’re equally unaware, tradwives is a current fad that embraces traditional gender roles in a marriage, especially idolizing the 1950s housewife of domesticity. I could not yet find a movement embracing women’s roles in the Gilded Age. Give it time. My own simple version is that in some social circles, the ultimate status symbol is a stay-at-home wife. I’d comment more, but I have some vacuuming to do when this blog is finished.
Now, back to our story.
Yes, we were married young, very young. And many of our lifelong friends were similarly married in their early 20s. Overall, our track record is pretty good. There’ve been some divorces, a few of which we could have predicted on their wedding day in 1981.
The obvious explanation for these early marriages is sex, of course.
Sophie and I met at a squeaky clean evangelical college. Many of our close friends met at similar colleges or churchy environments with conservative sexual ethics. Premarital sex was a big no-no. Living together prior to marriage was severely frowned upon. All things being equal, I’d still say I believe this is a good path. Is it the sine qua non of Christianity? No. As a pastor officiating at weddings, it wasn’t a ditch I was willing to die in.
Did young Christians friends in the 1980s marry early because they wanted to have sex within the bounds of marriage? Absolutely. That said, the success rate of these marriages tells me there had to be more to it than that.
In our particular case, there was–consciously or unconsciously–something of a now-or-never sense. Sophie was a foreign student here on a student visa. I was a couple years older, knowing I was heading to grad school soon. It felt like neither of us could simply hang around for a few more years to see what might happen. If I’d gone off to school somewhere and Sophie had gone to France after graduation, I suspect I’d be writing a different story now.
Sidebar: Sophie became a US citizen in 2009, 27 years into our marriage, after years of strong urging from her mother. She had been a young girl in Europe during World War II, and seen bad things happen to families of different citizenships. Such scenarios seemed laughably improbable to us. Times change. Not always for the better.
Once more, back to our story.
Here’s what I think really helped make our marriage successful. Neither of us brought much of anything into it. Of course, we brought family histories, emotional strengths and weaknesses, gifts and wounds, faith and questions. All of the usual below-the-waterline stuff which, no doubt, matters greatly.
But above the water line, there was almost nada. We didn’t both have couches and beds. There weren’t two sets of dishes. We had none. We didn’t have “my way” of making toast or cleaning the sink. We didn’t have my money and your money. We had no money. We didn’t have serious debt either. We didn’t have my friends and your friends. We moved across the country and made new friends together. One of us didn’t always have to do this on Saturday mornings. We made our routines together. We didn’t have competing career tracks. We didn’t have careers. We didn’t have serious exes. We obviously didn’t bring children into the marriage.
And my non-expert opinion is that this mattered. It helped us. We formed a life together, almost from scratch.
When I hear about people establishing relationships today in their thirties and beyond, so often I hear about messiness, complications, and baggage. Baggage that makes it challenging. From possessions to careers to locale to houses to pets to financial issues to exes and kids and more. Getting married at 21 and 23, we had almost none of this baggage. I think it helped. Truly.
I’m not suggesting that everyone should get married young, or that it is necessarily better than the more typical late twenties and early thirties. I’m simply suggesting it might not always be as foolish and disastrous as presumed.
The other explanation, which I also espouse, is that I simply was really lucky.
34 Responses
We, too, married young (both 21), and lived on chile he made (I didn’t know how to cook) until he finished his degree and could teach. And we had no money for a divorce when disagreements inevitable came up. We celebrated 54 years together before heart disease took his life over 10 years ago. I still miss him!
Ah Steve and Sophie. A fine reading to begin this day. Happy Anniversary, and looking forward to another update when you celebrate your 50th!
Thanks Steve! I agree with you. We started young and with nothing, and fifty one years later we love each other more than we did all those years ago. We should start a new movement, the “tabula rasa” marriage.
Wonderful story! Steve, and congratulations to two wonderful people. I love the then and now pictures. You both aged well.
Love this story and its ponderings.
Happy anniversary to you newlyweds! (Susan and I have a 10 year headstart.) Like you we were far too young, far too poor — but we did have LP collections and libraries to merge. The only books we both owned were Bonhoeffer’s Life Together and Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice. (Does that date us?)
Happy Anniversary! May the Blessings continue!
Congratulations, Steve and Sophie! I resonated with your blog this morning. Beth and I met in high school and married in 1972. We grew up together and formed life patterns together.
I too feel lucky that my journey was with Beth!
Hope you are enjoying retirement!
Happy anniversary! My husband missed walking at his graduation from WMU so that we could be married in early June, as soon as Calvin’s graduation was past. Neither of us had jobs; a family friend gave us an apartment in one of his buildings very cheap and hired Douglas to work in his lumber yard so we could eat. We ate meals sitting on the floor, using the fan box from a wedding gift as a table (it was a big fan); with the small bit of wedding money we bought a piece of art to hang on the wall with no furniture to sit on beneath it. We just celebrated our 54th year together, which I think is an affirmation of your point. Was it all perfect? Heck no, but we remain a unit of cohesion, love, and commitment, having shared almost all of life together.
Ah yes, thanks for prompting some good memories. She was 21, I was yet 20 (my mom had to go with me to sign for a marriage license–seriously, in WA State) We had dated for nearly five years, H.S sweethearts, it was time. We too had nothing and a year left of college, though she graduated early, so checks arrived from her teaching job. Phew! In God’s good providence, we flourished, mostly.
And then came the diagnosis, brain cancer, glioblastoma, the worst kind. On our 44th anniversary. Cruel! We lost her, in nine months, June 30, this very week. Yet–“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord…” (Hab. 3), for all those good years
Thanks Steve,
I’m tempted to send your reflection to a grandchild and “friend” who are doing grad school plus : “Make a commitment and enjoy life together….and some sex too. Your recently Calvin grad cousins got it right.” We’re celebrating our 58th.🎶
Yep. I was 20 and just finished my sophomore year of college. Kent was 21 and had a job making minimum wage ($3.75/hour). We lived in Pammel Court at Iowa State—rent $81/month—and ordering a pizza was a big deal. Wonderful years because we charted a course together.
Happy anniversary! We married at age 20, still in college, and no money. Babes in the woods, making many important decisions blindly. No regrets. Best decision I ever made–the love of my life, and vice versa. Can’t help feeling that the destination weddings and need for financial security first, and even trying things out by living together before making promises is much less desirable.
A hearty happy anniversary to you and Sophie!! So much of this resonates (as you know). Similar college background, same era, same ages and starting from virtual scratch (aside from college degrees and no debt), working it all out as we found our way together. When it works, it’s a beautiful thing.
Thanks Steve, and congratulations, happy anniversary and all that good stuff. Jen and I married young (22/21), probably didn’t know much better. We didn’t bring anything into the marriage either. Never thought much about it, but it probably helped. One thing I might add. We were able to wait 5 years until we had children without feeling all the pressure of, “if you’re going to, do it now.” That 5 years gave us a lot of time to “grow up” together. Now, we’ve been married 28 years this August, we turn 50, and our youngest graduates college next year. Feels like we have a lot of time together without kids, relatively young.
Of course, our son is engaged and getting married in 2026 at the age of 24, and we are all kinds of worried because “he’s soooo young!” Irony (I think).
I have to say that had I gotten married before my Dad got treatment for Alcoholism, I would have been divorced several times. As it is, it took him admitting to being treated for Alcoholism, for me to realize that I had been attracted to similar men. My husband was going to be my practice nice guy. Only I discovered he had a sense of humor.
My sister was a much more realistic person than me. She had long ago figured out my Dad was an Alcoholic and she married in her early 20s. Stayed married until her husband died.
What a sweet story! Congrats on 43 years!
I wonder how we can better encourage young people in the church when it comes to dating and marriage. I’m in my late 20s and single, and lately I’ve asked some of the more mature, married couples in my life how they met their spouse. Many of them were introduced by friends or family. There seemed to be a strong sense of community involvement in introducing young people to one another.
Today most people in their 20s and 30s are meeting online- which is not all the at different from online shopping: comparing profiles and options. Could we create more of a culture of that supports relationship and intentional introductions with the hope of creating healthy, godly, marriages?
Happy anniversary, Steve & Sophie! I hope you celebrate well!
Steve, I think your assessment is correct. My late husband and I also married young (22) and built our adult lives together. Being married presented its own challenges, but we didn’t have kids or assets or jobs to add to those challenges. We had 29 good years together before he died 4 years ago.
As I entertain the idea of a 2nd chapter, the thought of blending my established life with another’s sometimes gets overwhelming! My kids, his kids, my house, his house, my furniture, his furniture….you get the idea. A second marriage seems daunting, and yet, so does being single for the next phase of life. What a conundrum!
I think there’s a lot of sense in the “tabula rasa” theory you suggest, plus a strong faith commitment to the vows we made in marriage. I was the oldest of the 5 children in my parents’ family when I married in 1972, and I was 19, still 11 days from turning 20. My wife was 18. My 2 brothers and 2 sisters married equally young spouses. We are all still happily married, even though we shudder to think of our own children marrying at that age!
Happy anniversary!
Happy anniversary! Love the story and the thoughtful questions you ask. Susan and I were young too, and poor, and somehow we’re closing in on 49 years.
Happy Anniversary, Steve and Sophie! May you be blessed with many more years together.
We were even younger than you two, when we were married just after my graduation from college. We recently celebrated our sixty-ninth anniversary, and rejoice at every day that we have together. We have been blessed with four loving daughters, nine wonderful grandchildren, and ten beloved great-grandchildren.
Congratulations on 69 years, Jack! We’re just a year behind you, also got married young with very little in the bank and in our apartment, and still had to finish college. But we did have four children within five years, and we felt rich.
(The fifth child took a bit longer – nearly 15 years longer!) And we still have each other! Plus lovely and loving grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Thanks Steve and Sophie for stimulating us to look back and feel grateful.
Happy Family Birthday to the Mathonnet-VanderWell Family!
We were married between our sophomore and junior years at Calvin and we wouldn’t change a thing. Celebrating 47 years this month!
Happy Anniversary, you two. Gefeliciteerd, en Lang zullen zij leven, enz. And all that. We also were young and poor (but privileged) but we had a thicker web, apparently, than you two. Two successive “intentional communities.” We were married within eleven months of meeting each other, when Melody moved into that first “community.” I think we could assume very many advantages, and a more generous culture (at least to us White people) than can be assumed today. As for all that, are you and David Letterman related?
Congrats! Today is also our anniversary- 28 years. Every season has been a gift- the lean and the fruitful years. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve tried to protect the next generation from the lean years, forgetting everything we learned during those times.
We got married late in life (37 & 34, both of us first-timers). Now, 28 years later to sum it up, it’s been great. The advantage of marrying late is that I saw all my friends get married, start families, some did well, and some divorced. I took it all in and throughout I was observing and thinking to myself, “I’m going to remember to do that (whatever ‘that’ was) in my marriage”; and of course the inverse, “I’m never doing that when I get married.” Even though my wait was involuntary, the wait was informative and an advantage in most respects.
Happy Anniversary! You clearly have a lot of love in your story. And you do say it could just be luck, it’s anecdotal, and not your recommendation, so I say this less as a critical response but just to add something else to it. Consider the stories, often of women, who married very young, ended up in abuse, and felt forced to stay because they had no work experience and independent living skills. Waiting to marry may have made a dramatic difference for them. And I fear there are even more young women getting themselves in the same situation, because of the tradwife trend. Somehow in my algorithm now I have reels of couples bragging about how young they got married and had kids. Now, I also have a married young story with a lot of love in it, and thankfully mine does not fit the above abusive scenario. My hope is that we grow young people that are emotionally healthy, have a healthy view of sexuality, and we actively teach against the wrong reasons to get married. Then age isn’t really the issue. But let’s also remember to be empathetic if young women find it wiser to wait, even if it means navigating challenges those of us with happy young married stories did not face.
Thank you for adding these insights and thoughtful comments!
Congratulations and may God bless you with many more. Like you folks, Pam and I married young and are together after 44 years. There is much wisdom in what you say.
We also married young; I was 19, Dave was 20. He was changing schools to complete his engineering degree so we married so I could go with him. We also married in Washington, where I was born and had spent much time in the San Juan Islands! It’s 50 years for us this year, and we’ll be back there in September. Blessings to you both, and thanks for the writing.
In a recent conversation about marriage with our daughter I told her that Les and I ‘grew up together’. We married at 23 and 26. Not as young as some. We hadn’t known each other for a year and had no idea what we each wanted to be when we grew up! Celebrating 52 years in August. ❤️
You mentioned starting off married life without much, and I’d say that my marriage is similar. One other thing that both my husband and I did not carry into marriage was trauma, sexual or otherwise. We didn’t fear of intimacy because of this, and we were not put into the place of helping our partner process trauma. We could just be young people enjoying a young marriage, and we did that well. You said you were lucky, and I’d say the same about us, given the stats about abuse. We might say that it was God’s grace, but then how do we describe the many, many people among us who do carry the scars of childhood abuse in their life? Even after much time thinking about this, I’m still not sure.
Wonderfully written. Jeff and I will be married 40 years this month-we were 22 . I’ve often said that the fact that we simply grew up into adulthood together was a huge boon!