Country and City? Different expectations about engagement age?

emelri27

My boyfriend is from Chicago and I'm an Indiana country girl. Many of his friends are not in a serious relationship (at 22/23 years old) and most of my friends are either engaged or married (same age). I was wondering if this is generally true. He also thinks that city couples date longer before getting engaged compared to country couples. What do you guys think? Have you noticed an overall difference between the city and country couples?

Hazel_B

I too am a country girl. I can't say that I notice a difference between city and country really. However, I do really notice a difference about education levels and whether or not someone is religious. My friends from the country married early if they went to a community college rather than to university (mainly cause they finished school faster)  or were pretty religious. Of my university friends, the ones that were religious got married sooner.

I think there are a lot of other factors that weigh in as well.

noelle24

It really varies from area to area, and no one generalization will apply to everybody.  That being said, in my own experience, kind of.  Where I grew up, I'm an old maid for not getting married until 27.  I know girls my age with 10 year old kids.

Edit: I think it's more of an educational divide than a country thing.  Most of these people didn't go to college or got two year technical degrees. They've been working for 9 years now (or the husbands have) and were in a much different place in life than me.  My college friends are just now settling down, and it really doesn't matter where they grew up, city or country.

jeanacorina

Yes, I have. It seems like, generally speaking, more couples marry younger in less-populated areas. Where I am from (nowhere, West Virginia), most of my high school class (2001) is married with 3 or 4 kids now. They started having kids right out of high school.

My husband's classmates (2002, I think), are mostly in grad school or working on their careers. One of his best friends has his first serious girlfriend that was worth telling his parents about. Another is at MIT and has an awesome girlfriend, but they're not really thinking marriage anytime soon.

One of his friends is engaged and getting married next year, I think. We were the first in his "group" to get hitched.

DH is from the suburbs near Baton Rouge. There just seems to be a difference anywhere you go. Maybe it's the perceived opportunities young adults from the suburbs have- college, career, etc. Even though someone from the country has the same opportunities, it isn't always as clear to them. Many people, consciously or not, follow a similar life-plan that their parents did.

calindi

I think there's definitely a difference, but I'm not sure it's just cities vs. towns.  My college friends are all 24-28 years old and I'll likely be the first to get married (at 26 years old). 

It's not just big cities vs. small town, though that plays a role.  Certain areas of the country, specifically more rural or the Bible Belt cities, tend to get married younger than East/West coast.  I think it's more the culture.  I'd venture to guess that "blue states" tend to get married later and "red states" tend to get married earlier.  Also, it's sort of a mob-mentality - if all your friends and everyone in your town is getting married young, you see it as a viable option and so it's not unusual for you to get married young.  If all your friends wait until their late 20's, then you feel too young to get married right out of college, even if you're in the right relationship, so you wait until you're older.

EDIT:  I agree that education also has a lot to do with it, but again there are a lot of factors.  Where I came from, everyone was expected to go to college and even someday grad school.  It's just what you did.  Everyone was also supposed to wait until mid-20's before even considering marriage.  It's more of a social expectation built on a number of factors, and I think advancing education is part of that.

Hazel_B

Just reading over other posts, I think culture is a huge thing. I was curious if me being Canadian made a difference at all and based on this article from Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_at_first_marriage) it does. The US is 26.8 for men and 25.1 for women, while Canada is 30.6 for men and 28.5 for women. Admitedly the US stat is a little older, so not entirely a proper comparison.

notquiteblushing

Yes I think education and the area you live in definitely affect that age that you percieve that it's "normal" to think about marriage.  I would say at least a third of the people I went to college with are not married and we're all 30.  Even fewer of my law school classmates are married.  I didn't know anyone from college who got married before 25.

bethsmiles

I grew up in a small town and the average age to get married there is definitely younger than in Denver (where BF and I live now). But there its more of a religious influence rather than education because all of my friends that are married or engaged are still going to school to finish their degree.

leia1979

I don't know anyone from the country, but I do think among city/suburb folk that I know, education makes a difference. My friends are mostly getting married within a span of about 5 years, starting in our late 20s. At that point everyone is done with college and possibly grad school.

There are still plenty of people from my HS graduating class with school-age kids, but I don't know that many of them who actually got married--they just had kids young.

StarGazingHiker

I tend to agree that it is the area in which someone was raised as well as the religion and education found in the areas.

I was born and raised in a small rural town in the middle of no where California and the majority of my graduating class is now married with kids or has kids but is not married.

Now out of my friends who I graduated college with, the majority are not married and if they do have a significant other, they are waiting to get married for various reasons, mostly getting settled in a job or finishing grad school

The high number of marriages in my town and surrounding areas, I feel is due to the education level. Until 3 years ago, the only college that there was was 1 junior college. They just opened a University extension but since it's new, it is only offering a few degrees such as teacher education and liberal arts degrees.  My town and surrounding towns also have a very high teen pregnancy issue. I feel that this also adds to people getting married at such a young age.

 

breezerb

My So and I are both from the same small town but moved to the big city about 5 years ago.  We will be more or less the last couple to become engaged/get married (I am 26, he is 30) out of our "country" friends.  But our city friends are mostly in their 30s and while they are in relationships they are no closer to being married than we are.

I think maybe it's because it's such a faster pace and there's more excitement in the city.  In a small town you already know everyone and have done everything (as bad as that sounds). 

Our next move however won't be to a different home in the city, we plan on moving back to our small town to be with our families and friends, and raising our children there.  I miss the small town life a lot of the time but unfortunately you have to go where the jobs are.

Bec20

My mother grew up in a city that has a population more than 10x the one my father grew up in.  People in his hometown seem to get married 5-10 years younger than people in my mother's hometown.  I also thing it has to do with education though, since his hometown has a lot of people employed by the trades whereas my mother grew up in Ottawa.

breezerb

Bec! I live in Ottawa now.  Where was your dad from?

Hazel_B

Breezer & Bec - I live in the Ottawa area as well.

breezerb

Wow... and here I thought I was the only one in this area!!! Where abouts are you hazel?

zipis1

Yeah I think it's more of an education and religion thing. I grew up in a teeny tiny mountain town where my high school class was I believe 68 people (largest graduating class ever for the school at the time), most of which I still talk to. The people who didn't go to college are the ones who got married straight away, especially if they were religious. And the ones who were in that group and religious were the ones that started popping out kids immediately, too (the ones who just didn't go to college but married and were not religious held off on kids, and are only now starting to have them at ~23).

However, the ones who went to college, even when religious, tended to hold off a bit, though I've noticed the religious ones still got married earlier (around 21) and tended to start having kids almost immediately after.

Hazel_B

Well, I work right downtown but live just outside of Ottawa.

emelri27

Yeah, you girls make a good point. I hadn't factored religion or education. I'm not sure education in our case makes a whole lot of difference because a lot of my friends that got married are in college or just graduated, but from a small midwestern town I can see how religion can play a part, although my BF is religious too... hmm.

marinabreeze

I think it all depends, but in generally, I agree with PPs, I think religion and education make a bigger difference than city versus country, although I do think that geography does make *some* impact on age of marriage. 

I'm originally from Detroit, and a fair number of people I graduated from high school with (1999) got married and/or had kids shortly after graduation.  A few even got divorced and are now on second marriages.  Those of us who left town (usually for college or military) were much more likely to wait longer until marriage than those who stayed (most of whom didn't finish college). 

I haved lived in Ohio for almost all of my adult life.  Out of my college friends (some of whom are city folk and some are country folk), most of my more religious college friends got married during or right after undergrad (between 20-23 y/o).  While most of them were from rural Ohio and neighboring states, a few were also city folks.  However, many of my non-religious friends (and a few of my religious ones) postponed marriage until they got older, and some have not gotten married. 

Of my more educated friends (those who went to school past college), quite a few either waited until late 20s or early 30s to get married, or are still single in their late 20s through early 40s. Some aren't religious, but I can think of at least five of my good friends who are religious and are about my age (late 20s) or a little older, and are single.  Of these friends, most, though not all, are from cities.

loves2shop4shoes

I think education and religion play a huge role in how long you wait to get married.  Personally, I grew up in New York (15 min. north of NYC) and now live in Boston.  Most of my friends are still single (and by single, I mean out on the prowl).  FI and I have one set of friends that are married; they are extremely religious and in the ordination process.  FI is 25 and I am 22 and we got engaged almost 1 month ago.  We're planning a 2 year engagement, so he'll be 27 and I'll be 24 when we get married, but even that is early for this area.

I've always been an old soul, 22 going on 42 as my mother says.  FI is too.  His dad passed away when he was 10 and he had to grow up very quickly after that.  I'm in law school, FI is working full-time and we both know what we want out of life.  We've been together for 3 years and have weathered all kinds of storms.  I'm 100% confident in my decision to marry him and I couldn't be happier.

Bec20

Breezer & Hazel, that's pretty cool.  I'm taking correspondence classes from Carleton this year, but I was living in Ottawa last year.

My dad's from northern Ontario, the same town I was born in.