Advantages of Marriage Later in Life

pic is by Leon Brocard at Wikimedia Commons

I'm pre-posting this because I'm heading south again early on Friday to spend a few days with my sister, daughter and granddaughter. I'm so looking forward to it.

Hubby and I had our second wedding anniversary this week. It didn't phase us much because our years together are much longer than that. They span more than a quarter of a century. When we finally decided it was time for a wedding, we did it quietly and, I like to think, with dignity. Afterwards I mulled it over and wrote an article about it.

Here's how it went.

As the years go by, the reasons for getting married, rather than co-habiting, are not the same as for younger couples. When you are young, getting married to the person you love usually seems the obvious way to make a commitment to the relationship. Your life seems bound up in the other person’s. You want to be in each other’s company as much as possible, to be there for each other at the end of the working day. You want to have children and build a family unit that will take forward the heritage of both of your families, and of the life you forge together.

Many older people have already had children in an earlier marriage. Even if they haven’t, they may believe they are now too old, or they may be reluctant to start a family in their later years. Some people think it unfair on the children to land them with elderly parents who won’t have the inclination or energy to join them in play and other activities for youngsters.

So why bother to get married? You can still be together as much as you want without the marriage license. In western countries, it’s no longer frowned on by respectable people as it once was. But many couples still do it. If you ask a number of them for their reasons, they’re likely to come up with quite a variety of advantages for them.

If I've pipped your interest, please click here to read the rest of my article and find out what those reasons are.