'Let's raise legal age for marriage to 30, and see our divorce rate go down'

28 February 2023 , 20:13

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Almost half of all marriages end in divorce (Image: Getty Images)

Finally, a happy union between law and common sense, with the legal age of marriage being raised to 18 in England and Wales.

The main reason to ­celebrate this is because of all the forced marriages it will put an end to, but there’s more to it than that.

Sometimes people need to be saved from themselves, too, and that’s why this could, and arguably should, have gone further. Would we have a divorce rate of 42% in this country if you couldn’t get married until you were 30? I really don’t think so.

This theory is based on the always but never more irrefutable fact that most people are idiots until they are 30. (At least.) And fair enough, that’s what your 20s are for – experimenting, being immature and ridiculous, having fun, making bad decisions and mistakes that you hopefully, eventually, learn from. For many of us, working out what you ­actually want from life purely by process of elimination.

And nowadays, with Andrew Tate, and TikTok, and brutal dating apps giving everyone far too many options, people are probably more confused – making them even bigger idiots – than ever.

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Again, that’s fine. It’s an important part of life, a right, and a rite of passage, an essential stage of human ­development. The Idiot Years. Amazing. Just as long as you don’t take part in a legally binding ceremony, making a solemn commitment until death do you part while you’re smack in the middle of them.

I was hopeless at choosing outfits when I was in my 20s, let alone boyfriends. If I’d tied myself to either for the rest of my days, I cannot imagine how miserable (and cold) I’d be now. At that age, you’re not really a proper person yet, you have no idea who you’re going to be when you grow up. I have two friends who got married in their 20s – one is divorced, and the other definitely should be and hopefully isn’t reading this. Or maybe hopefully is?

Life is – perhaps you’ve heard? – short, after all. Why spend your thirties and forties, and perhaps beyond, fighting to make something work that you’ve long outgrown, standing by a decision a different, past version of you made, trapped in a prison of your own juvenile design?

Of course there will be exceptions to this rule, childhood sweethearts who are as blissfully happy together today as they were in their teens. Good luck to them, obviously, long may it continue.

But let’s never forget that they’re the minority.

For everyone else, it’s much more sensible to do a lot of trying before buying, to save all involved (except the £££ divorce lawyers) from crying.

Polly Hudson