I thought you weren't going to get started?

You are asking the wrong question.

The real question you should be asking is whether people feel that they missed out by not trying alcohol, drugs, or casual sex.

If you are an active LDS person, delaying marriage until you are 35 gives you no extra benefit in any of those areas because you are still not supposed to do them, no matter what your age.

For an LDS male, getting married early may affect some early career choices, but not by much, as the LDS male is the primary wage earner within our culture, so he has to work no matter what.

I think the biggest complaint I have heard seems to revolve around travel...."I wish I had traveled more before I got married."

I was married at 30 and I think that was just about right. I agree with what Dan said above, there is a window there where you're mature enough to get married but not too set in your ways to mess it up. On average that would probably be from your late twenties to early thirties.

Please don't take this as criticism as I know what's right for me isn't right for all people. It's an interesting question for me because you all are a unique subset in this country in that you encourage your young people to get married asap whereas most everyone else is telling them to go and have fun and get married later.

older paternal age is associated with many diseases in offspring. For example schizophrenia. More well-known are the chromosomal defects among children born to older women.

it's not a trivial thing for an entire society to shift its birthing years to the 30s and 40s.

It's arguably a very bad thing.

35? What are you talking about Tonto? 25 is late for LDS culture. What's wrong with waiting until you're 28? Nothing! 28 is better than 23.

I agree. I also hear, pretty subtly, a lot of people say "at 19, 20, 21 I hadn't yet begun to be who I ultimately became and was very immature." IOW, I might have made a better or more compatible choice.

No, but I was married at 24 and had my first kid at 30 so I probably don't count.

My perspective on the issue is that folks should marry when they are ready and have kids when they are prepared to take care of them.

I should mention that I have no regrets (married at 23, SIRS was 24). She is brilliant, gorgeous, and fun, and I couldn't have done any better than I did.

We didn't have any children for seven years.

I married young and have had kids young. Don't really feel like I have missed out on anything. We might have spent a little more time in england this spring if we didn't have to get back to the kids.

It will be cool when my youngest goes to college and I am only 50 and then I take the summer off from work and hike the Pacific Crest Trail.

Your point is taken and I suppose that's in the back of my mind. Even so, there are other advantages to staying single outside of the fun aspects you all are denied: putting the time into building your career without worrying about the strain long hours puts on a family, building a nest egg, you mentioned travel and there's most often a maturity that comes with age. Not just emotional, but in judgment. These are the things I wonder about.