In earlier decades, when there was nothing unusual about high school sweethearts getting married, young newlyweds were common. In 1960, half of the people ages 18 to 25 in the Seattle metro area were married.
Today, it’s almost rare.
The latest census data, averaged from 2020 to 2024, shows about 35,000 18- to 25-year-olds in the Seattle metro area were married — roughly 9% of the 390,000 people in that age group.
The Seattle metro area includes King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.
What's going on with marriage?
Be informed, not misled.
The Seattle Times says, "Within Seattle itself, the share is even smaller: just 4,440 married residents ages 18 to 25, less than 5% of the roughly 93,000 people that age in the city."
Married couple Devin and Emily Michaelis, who live in North Seattle, are among that small number — he’s 25, and she’s 23.
In some ways, their story would have been unremarkable a generation or two ago. They met in the band program at Mead High School in Spokane before marrying in June 2024.
But in Seattle today, it stands out.
“There’s a little bit of … greater interest,” Devin said of people’s reactions. “Like, ‘Oh, you’re married? How did that happen? That’s not normal.’”
The Times says, "Emily hears it too."
“People are often shocked,” she said. “A lot of my friends are like, ‘Oh, I can’t even find a date.’”
In Washington, the median age for a first marriage is now about 31 for men and 29 for women.
"Still, their path wasn’t rushed. They had been dating for nearly five years before tying the knot, and they saw no reason to put off marriage just because they were relatively young," the Times explains.
“I found another person who was willing to be as committed as I was willing to be,” Emily said.
Seattle is not the worst place for marriage
Even though young marriage is uncommon here, Seattle didn’t rank at the very bottom. Among the 50 largest metro areas by young adult population, it ranked 15th for the share of married 18- to 25-year-olds.
That’s higher than some peer cities. The Boston metro ranked last at 3%, while San Francisco was at 5%. Portland, Denver, and Austin, Texas, were closer, at roughly 8%.
At the other end of the spectrum, Provo, Utah, stood apart at 27%, followed by Salt Lake City at 13% — both places where cultural and religious norms tend to encourage earlier marriage.
Do you see a trend?
Higher percentages of young married people also show up in more conservative parts of the South, such as Oklahoma City, and in metro areas with large military populations, including Virginia Beach, Va.
In Seattle, though, the Michaelises are the exception. Most of the married couples they know are older — often by five or more years. At his job as a political affairs specialist, Devin said he’s the only person under 35 who is married.
The Michaelises have made local friends through their church on the University of Washington campus, and they’ve met two other married couples of a similar age.
That may not be coincidental
Data shows that in the U.S., religious people are more likely to marry at a younger age and are less likely to live together before marrying.
The Institute for Family Studies found these three things:
- Women who grew up religious are about 20% less likely to begin a cohabiting union in any given year than their non-religious counterparts.
- Our results suggest there may be a “sweet spot” for marriage in the 20s: early 20s for direct-marriers, and late-20s for cohabiters.
- Surprisingly, religious 20-somethings who marry directly without cohabiting appear to have the lowest divorce rates.
Takeaway
Women actually do need a man, and vice versa.
One of the precepts of feminism is that it denies the complementarity of men and women. This has led many women to believe they don’t need a man in their lives or to even be outright hostile towards men.
As the well-known feminist Gloria Steinem once said, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”
This stands in direct opposition to the biblical view that has animated the West for millennia, which says that a husband and wife become one flesh and that it is not good for man to be alone.
Young men today are more likely to want to get married and have children than young women, a phenomenon that has historically been the opposite.
Men and women are different.
Feminism also preaches the lie that there’s no difference between the sexes, and that women should even aspire to be more like men. Many women have been persuaded that the most important thing in the world is their career and that starting a family is an obstacle rather than something to be celebrated.
Jason Meyer, the producer of the Jason Rantz radio show in Seattle, said this:
Lest I be accused of misogyny, I’m not saying that women can’t pursue a career and must be confined to the home. It’s a free country, and people can do as they wish.
However, women do seem to have a natural calling to nurture. Don’t just take my word for it, one of the most renowned feminists ever said as much. Simone de Beauvoir, a founder of modern feminism, once said that women should not even be given the choice to stay in the home if they wish because too many will do it.
This is borne out by the data, which finds that married women with children are generally much happier.
As a society, we should exalt femininity again rather than feminism, which promises women's liberation but only makes everyone more miserable.
God created the institution of marriage.
- Genesis 2:24: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."
- Matthew 19:6: "Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
- Malachi 2:14: "...the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth... she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant."
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.