For long-lasting marriage, tie the knot in your twenties: Social scientist says that getting married earlier and growing together makes a stronger partnership



Charles Murray believes young people should be open to 'startup marriage'

He describes type of marriage as those who meet in early years of career

Claims they make couples happier than those who meet later in their life

Advice given in his new book - The Curmudgeon's Guide To Getting Ahead



It was once assumed that a young couple would get married and start a family as soon as they could.



Today they are more likely to live together to see if they’re truly compatible before they consider tying the knot.



However, a social scientist is now saying that getting married earlier actually makes a stronger partnership.



In his new book, The Curmudgeon's Guide To Getting Ahead, Charles Murray says those who get married in their twenties have a stronger partnership than those who marry later in life

Charles Murray believes young people should be more open to what he calls a ‘startup marriage’ in their 20s, rather than waiting for a ‘merger marriage’ in their 30s.



In his new book, The Curmudgeon’s Guide To Getting Ahead, he describes startup marriages as those in which the couple generally meet at university, or at the start of their careers, when they have little money and personal success is not yet assured.



He claims they can make you happier than today’s popular ‘mergers’, where the pair meet and settle down later, when they are already doing well in their jobs and have achieved some level of success on their own.

Dr Murray claims startups are more likely to achieve a ‘certain kind of symbiosis, where two people become more than the sum of the individuals’.



His advice on marrying young echoes that of author Susan Patton, whose latest book, Marry Smart, has provoked uproar by urging women to find a husband while at university.



Dr Murray, an American whose 1994 bestseller, The Bell Curve, sparked controversy for its analysis of IQ and class, compares the benefits of a start-up marriage with the early days of computer giant Microsoft.



‘For one thing, you will both have memories of your life together when it was still up in the air,’ he said.



Charles Murray believes young people should be more open to what he calls a 'startup marriage' in their 20s, rather than waiting for a 'merger marriage' in their 30s

‘I’m willing to bet that Bill Gates’s fondest memories are of the years when Microsoft went from being a couple of college dropouts in makeshift offices to a player in the new world of information technology, not of the year in which he became the richest man in the world.



‘The same applies to startup marriages. You’ll have fun remembering the years when you went from being scared newcomers to the point at which you realised you were going to make it.



‘Even more important, you and your spouse will have made your way together. Whatever happens, you will have shared the experience.’



Merger marriages do have their advantages, said Dr Murray, including fewer financial pressures and a lesser likelihood of spouses outgrowing each other as identities are ‘well formed’ by the time they meet.



But startups can be special because ‘you will each know that you wouldn’t have become the person you are without each other’. Dr Murray said that people who marry later can still acquire the benefits of a startup marriage by making a major change to their lives, such as changing jobs.



He said: ‘I was 40 when my wife and I married, but in practice we had a startup marriage. I had quit my secure job working at a social science research organisation and struck out into the unknown a year before we married. That was in 1983.



‘Everything that has happened in my career since then – including all my major books – has happened together.’



He believes there can be good reasons for delaying marriage, but that some of the reasons are part of the ‘Peter Pan syndrome’.



‘Not wanting to acknowledge that one is now a grown-up and it’s time to leave childish things behind.



This is especially true of guys.





'You’ll have fun remembering the years when you went from being scared newcomers to the point at which you realised you were going to make it'

‘Historically, a significant reason men married was to get regular sexual access to a woman. Now, they say to themselves, why bother? Until they get old enough to realise that they’re missing out on something, which often takes a long time.’



However, his advice is the opposite to what most modern couples do.



According to the latest numbers from the Office for National Statistics, there were 247,890 marriages in England and Wales in 2011, with the average ages of a first-time bride and groom being 30.2 and 32.2.

