Early Marriage

McArdle recommends early marriage.

It's hard enough to find the right person. Demanding that you find the right person in the exact five year window that has been socially prescribed for marrying is putting too much pressure on yourself. It risks pushing you into a window where you won't be able to have kids (if you want them) or where you'll be too tired to cope. Which is fine if you've accumulated full-time-nanny money by the age of 40, but I regret to inform you youngsters that most of you won't.

The older you get, the more your dating pool shrinks. You also run into the Problem of Grandma's Lamp: the more settled you get, the harder it is to adjust to a potentially excellent mate who doesn't quite fit into the life you've made. Obviously, these barriers are not insurmountable, since lots of people get married in their late thirties. But it's easier if you've got an open mind: if you're ready to get married whenever the right person presents themself.

There are cities - New York and LA - certainly - where the dating pool doesn't really start to shrink until the mid-30s.  But lets also not forget - someone benefits from a shrinking dating pool.  I know of an older guy who proudly boasts he could only snag his wife because she was getting desperate to settle.  Had they been younger, she would have seen other options available and probably not have gone for him.  They seem happy.