From The Desk of An Old Maid

I'm 26, single, and doomed for catladydom. I've started trading in my lacy panties for giant, parachute shaped monstrocities...and am considering being a house mom for the local sorority to fill that childless shaped hole.

Marriage is a huge deal. For those of us who take it seriously, we understand and value the commitments involved. We don't want to muddle things up and get divorced, and many of us are delaying marriage. Now - to clarify what "delaying" means, since there must be some average to hold that standard up against. The UK Guardian recently published an article called "Traditional Marriage is Dead. Let's Celebrate." This article basically summed up my own personal reasons for "delaying" marriage, and even pointed out some things I hadn't thought of.

Americans are "delaying" marriage by pushing the average age of first marriage back and back and back. Currently, the average age for college educated women to wed is 30. College educated men, 31. People are living longer, are exploring during their "Odyssey Years" as explained by the NY Times, and are marrying for reasons entirely not economically driven.

The bottom line for delaying marriage is quite simple. I don't need to get married. I'm in a different position than my great-grandmother was in, or my great-great grandmother. I'm financially independent. Birth control was invented and the sexual revolution happened (because, let's not kid ourselves here, some people actually DID get married with the motivation of sex behind it), my life expectancy is somewhere in my late seventies and climbing, and dudes my age are generally pretty douchey. My personal reasons aside, I also feel less pressure to get married, because about half of my friends are single - then again, I don't live in the Midwest.

Which brings me to the real point. I don't think that there is a perfect age to tie the knot, statistics aside. But I'm from a conservative part of the country, and I've seen many marriages that formed in the Midwest during my early twenties that have already fallen apart, and that makes me sad. I was in a serious relationship that fell apart a few years out of college, because it hit that "shit or get off the pot" point that all serious relationships formed in college will hit. And when I didn't marry my college sweetheart, I didn't wilt, or sign up for an internet dating site (nothing is wrong with those, just saying it's not that hard to meet single people my age because I didn't miss the boat by not getting married at 23 or 24.)

In the sick and twisted world of reality TV shows like The Bachelor lies a dangerous message - you have to get married to feel complete, and you better do it soon. That's why there's speed dating, Eharmony, and blind dates with someone you otherwise wouldn't have given a second glance to. Magazines, books, and websites are dedicated to helping you "call in The One" and, in the process, make you feel like some sort of freak with a supposed expiration date if it doesn't happen by such-and-such time. So I'd like to be the voice that says, it's ok to hold off on marriage. If you don't get 'er done by the time you are 25, that's fine. In fact, you have a much lower divorce rate. The 2008 American Community Survey found that the states with the youngest age at first marriage - yes, Kansas, I'm looking at you, (age 26) Utah, Arkansas, Idaho, and Oklahoma, and the states with the oldest age of first marriage - Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, District of Columbia, and Massachusetts, have something very different about them: the divorce rate. Arkansas and Oklahoma have above average divorce rates, whereas Massachusetts and New York have lower than average divorce rates.

The aforementioned Guardian article stated why this might be the case, "Those numbers are no indication that marriage and child-rearing are passé or under-valued – quite the opposite. Marriage, more than ever, is something that more people feel the right to opt out of, which means that those of us who do marry (except those who are shamefully barred from marriage because of their sexual orientation) are opting in, and doing so increasingly because we want to, not because of social obligations. If you believe that marriage can be a good thing for people who choose it, this should be welcome news. Children, too, should be welcome additions and not obligations. The fact that more women and families are delaying childbirth indicates that there's more planning involved, and that women and men are making commitments to familial stability and personal ability before deciding to have kids."

For me, personally, the difference between age 22 (when I graduated college and was contemplating the whole marriage thing for the first time, ever) and only four years later, at 26, is pretty massive. That's because the years directly after college are much more defining than I could have ever expected, and are full of self exploration. Deciding your path without the aid of a class schedule for the first time, ever, is epically eye opening. I don't see how anyone could enter into a permanent union without knowing how to direct their lives outside of homework in the year 2011.

So, my Midwestern friends, and my friends who are feeling that "incomplete itch" (which is something in your head, you complete yourself) I just had to throw it out there. Get married when you feel the time is right - be it 21 or 31 or 51 - but don't do it because you're the only one left (sigh, always a bridesmaid never a bride!), or because it just "seems" like the next step, or because you aren't sure what else to do. I'm not condoning co-habitation, either or condemning early-20s marriage. But I will say that being an old maid, cat lady (free to travel, make massive career moves, and break as many hearts as I like) really ain't that bad of a second place option. Me-ow.