Editorial: People in Northern Ireland are living longer than even a few decades ago, and marrying much later than they did

​People in Northern Ireland are now getting married far later in life than they were doing only a few decades ago.

​As we report on page 12, the average age for brides and grooms increased to 34.4 and 36.3 years respectively, compared with 27.7 years for brides and 29.8 years for grooms in 1994.

That is an astonishing increase in average age of marriage, an increase of seven years that has taken place in a mere 30 or so years.

Even the lower average ages of marriage recorded in 1994 in NI were markedly higher than they would have been a few decades prior to that. In fact, the age that people became betrothed was lower still in previous centuries. It was not unusual to get wed in your teens prior to the 20th century.

There are many reasons for the increase in the average ages of both brides and grooms, above all the increase in life expectancy. In medieval times in Britain life expectancy is thought to have been around the early to mid 30s. By a century ago, in the early 20th century, that had roughly doubled so that people had a much greater prospect of reaching their biblical three-score-and-ten.

And since World War Two life expectancy has steadily increased, and now stands at roughly the early 80s. As we reported recently, the number of people living into their 90s has risen sharply in recent decades, as is the number of people who are becoming centenarians.

There is a lot of bad news in the world today, both at home and abroad, so it is easy to miss the wonderful extent to which life has improved in wealthy societies such as Northern Ireland.

Many people are living fulfilled lives far further into old age than their grandparents and great grandparents did. And so their is less of a sense of time pressure to get married life and career decisions finalised than once there was.