Why would a man have to get married before he is 30? His biological clock is not ticking, and it would make more sense for him to spend a decade finishing his education, getting established in a good job or career, and saving up some money to put a down payment on a house for his future wife and family.
There’s good sense to what you are saying. My own father was 30 when he and my mother married. She was 20. I remember him telling me he had saved up $5,000 before marriage, which I suppose would be like $50,000 or more now. His livelihood was well established, and he was a pretty mature fellow. My mother was, of course, at or near the peak of her fertility and capability of bearing and raising a child.
On the other hand, I was 24 when my wife and I married. She was 22. We didn’t have anything and my job wasn’t all that good at the time. But we did have a lot of physical strength and stamina and plowed through the early years by main force. I remember one weekend when we had exactly $10 with which to buy food for ourselves and one child for the next week.
We did it, and were pretty proud of ourselves until we got to the checkout counter. Just ahead of us was a cowboy who had an enormous amount of food and spent less than we did. Of course, his purchase consisted of dried beans, rice, flour, and a chunk of salt pork. I had no idea where he found that salt pork. I had never seen it in the meat counter before. Anyway, that’s all of his purchase that I remember. Maybe the rancher also provided some beef for him, and maybe he had a garden too and maybe even canned vegetables himself or perhaps his wife or mother did. I don’t know. Undoubtedly he had a yeast “starter” at home.
We couldn’t afford a crib for our first child, so we put her in a dresser drawer lined with bath towels (wedding gifts). Later, when she was grown, she asked for that dresser, and we gave it to her. I bought it at an estate sale for maybe $5 and refinished it myself.
So I don’t know. There are probably a couple of ways of looking at such things.
