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Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
And earning a college degree. And dancing ballet. And going to nursing school. "It wasn't like I was sitting around saying, 'OK, I'm 23 now. Time to get married. OK, now I'm 26. That's a good age,' " Sklamba said.
The median age for first-time marriages has been rising for almost a half-century and, according to a new Census Bureau report based on 2000 data, it is the highest since the government began tracking the statistic in 1890: 26.8 for men, 25.1 for women. The reasons for deferring marriage are diverse and stem from changing attitudes among individuals and society. For one thing, women are at home in college and the workplace. And men and women both are more interested in achieving financial stability before committing to marriage, analysts say. "More and more women are attending college, and that's seen as an investment. They want to get payback, so they go out and work on their career," said Michele Kelly, a social work instructor at Loyola University. Economics is key, Kelly said. Couples starting out want the same standard of living their parents had, and for some, that means working a few years before marrying. "It is increasingly more difficult for
couples to marry and set up a household to the standard of living they would
like their household to be, so they're waiting until they can," Kelly
said. Arthur Taylor and Christel Barthelemy dated for 41/2 years before they married in June, when both were 30. That had as much to do with their finances as their emotional maturity, Taylor said. They lived together for a few years, before he became a business manager at a car dealership and she became a teacher. "I wasn't ready to get married. She wasn't either," Taylor said. "We wanted to make sure everything was together before we took that step." Metairie wedding consultant Anthony LaLa Jr. organizes about 30 weddings per year, and he said the job always goes more smoothly when the bride and groom are more mature. "Most of the people I deal with are in their late 20s," LaLa said. "They're college-educated, hold professional or executive positions, and they want a nice wedding. "They know exactly what they want, and
they're realistic about the costs. It just makes my job easier," LaLa
said. When the Census Bureau began compiling numbers on first-time brides and grooms 111 years ago, the median age was 26.1 for men and 22 for women. For men, especially, the age was high because the farming boom in the second half of the 19th century had reduced the amount of land available for young adults, historians say. "Most people worked on farms at that time. Generally speaking, if you were a farm laborer and didn't have a farm of your own, it was difficult to get married," said Steven Ruggles, a professor of history and demography at the University of Minnesota's Population Center. Later, industrialization provided more high-paying jobs to younger workers, making it financially feasible for them to marry at earlier ages, Ruggles said. Thus the median age for first-time grooms dropped through the first half of the 20th century, hitting a low of 22.5 in 1956. For first-time brides, it slipped as low as 20.1 in 1956. But since then, the age has steadily risen, to the record high in 2000. "I think the new numbers reveal how the roles of couples have changed," said Dorian Solot, director of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, a nonprofit Boston organization that promotes the rights of nonmarried people. "We used to kind of cling to this 1950s sitcom image of what marriage looks like and means. But that's changing." Women don't have to be married to survive financially or to be happy or fulfilled, Solot said. "Men don't need a wife in order to have
dinner every night," she said. "Men can cook and clean and survive
in a business world without a woman by their side. As all of this becomes
more acceptable in society, marriage becomes less crucial." In Louisiana, men and women still tend to marry younger than the national average. In 1998, the most recent year for which numbers are available from the Louisiana Office of Vital Statistics, the median age was 24.2 for first-time grooms and 22.4 for first-time brides. That could be because Southerners tend to be more conservative and less accepting of cohabitation and dual-career couples, Kelly said. "I think it has to do with the focus on family we have here," said the Rev. Gayle P. Jordan, who has married couples at her New Orleans Wedding Ministry chapel for 10 years. Still, Louisiana first-time married couples are getting older, albeit at a slightly slower pace than the national trend. From 1992 to 1998, the median age of Louisiana's first-time grooms and brides rose by about one year, just short of the national increase from the past decade. And if Ronnel Finley and Belinda Roberson are any indication, it will continue going up. On a rainy day in early August, a dozen relatives gathered in the ornate chambers of the Algiers courthouse, throw-away cameras in hand, to bid good wishes to Finley, 33, and Roberson, 30. After a four-year engagement, the couple exchanged vows in a 30-minute ceremony officiated by Judge Mary "K.K." Norman, promising to love each other, respect each other and, above all, "have fun." "A lot of people I know married when they were real young, and they don't really know what they're doing, or each other," said Finley, an Algiers resident who works for Amtrak. "All of my friends got married before me. "I always knew I was going to get married, but I had to get the single life out of my system." . . . . . . .
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