That is a question that many people have, particularly young people… and it actually can be read two ways:  “Am I too young to get married?” and “Have we been together long enough to get married?”

The answers to both questions vary from person to person, of course, as does nearly anything so personal.  There are some general guidelines that it wouldn’t really hurt for anyone to follow, however.

What is too young to get married?

To be honest, giving an age would be silly, because the real answer to this question is not based on age, but on experience… more of a mental maturity level than a measurement of the amount of time you’ve been on this planet.  There are certain times in life that tend to push this maturity level higher, though some people react in the opposite manner.

There are many of this type of event, and some of them can happen at wildly different ages.  There are two that tend to happen at a relatively young age, though, that I think are good to go through before getting married: graduating from school and living on your own.

Graduating includes both high school and college.  Graduating from high school certainly brings changes, even if you are going to college, but the real changes are felt when you are done with school entirely, when you are pushed to enter real life.  This is also often the time when you first move out and live on your own.

At that point, you have the freedom, and responsibility, of choosing your own job and your own path through life.  You have the choice of where to work, what to do, and what work ethic you are going to have.

With this freedom, of course, come the consequences of acting upon it.  These consequences may be good or bad, but either way, they fall on you directly as a consequence of your own actions, rather than it filtering through your parents or teachers, forcing you to mature as you learn to deal with the impact of your actions directly.

Both of these events can, and often do, happen at about the same time, and both of them make you more aware of the world and yourself.  That makes you better able to judge whether someone is right for you, your soul mate with whom you will spend the rest of your life.

So there is no “magic age” at which it is okay to get married, and you don’t even need to wait for after you graduate and move out on your own.  The real secret is the maturity level, and if your maturity is high enough without those experiences (and only someone who really knows you could tell you), that’s great.  If your maturity is low enough, even being well into middle-age is not really enough.

Have we been together long enough?

This is the other side of the question, which also seems to come up more often for young people.  There is no universal answer for this one, either, but I have a couple of suggestions to make.

The first one, which I suggest VERY strongly, is that you wait for at least six months before you even get engaged.  The reason for this is simple:  the first few months of a new relationship are filled with euphoria, happiness, and a general tendency to not just overlook but actually blind yourself and deny that the relationship, and the other person, is anything less than perfect.  This can make you think you want to get married to someone, and spend the rest of your life with them, when a few months later you would see more clearly and know that you’re just not right, long term.

It’s also relatively easy to pretend to be someone other than who you are for a few months, but as time goes by your real self tends to come out, at least occasionally.  Seeing that in your significant other can really make you want to back off quick… which is considerably more difficult if you are engaged, and even more so if you are married.

My other suggestion is that you be engaged for six months or more before you actually tie the knot.  This gives you time to adjust to the idea of being together forever, which can alter the relationship and the way you interact with each other.   Taking the time while engaged lets you see if the idea of being together forever holds up when it is a lot more real.

So, is it too early?

No one can really make that call but you.  That being said, the advice above, if followed, can help you to be more ready for marriage, and more able to determine whether or not the person that you’re with is the one for you.

Marriage is the biggest thing in your life, once you enter into it… please take the time to make sure you get it right.