THE CASE FOR GETTING MARRIED YOUNG. “It can be beneficial to make marriage the cornerstone, rather than the capstone, of your adult life. . . . Interestingly, in a 2009 report, sociologist Mark Regnerus found that much of the pressure to delay marriage comes from parents who encourage their children to finish their education before marrying. One student told him that her parents ‘want my full attention on grades and school.’ But such advice reflects an outdated reality, one in which a college degree was almost a guarantee of a good job that would be held for a lifetime. This is no longer the case. Furthermore, with so many students graduating from college with knee-buckling debt, they have worse than nothing to bring into a marriage. Indeed, prolonged singledom has become a rolling stone, gathering up debt and offspring that, we can be imagine, will manifest themselves in years to come in more broken, or never-realized, marriages.”

UPDATE: Reader Herb Sorenson writes: “I was married at 17, sophomore in college. After 52 years I don’t know if it was THE right thing to do, but it certainly was A right thing to do. 5 Kids, 6 grandkids, and sold my business 6 years ago.” Mazel tov!