I was thinking about this:
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In every nation of the world there are more boys born than girls.

Absent gender selective abortion, there are around 105 males per 100 females at birth.

It's almost as if Mother Nature is a misandrist troll.

In China, the world's most populous country, the ratio is 115:100.

In India, the second most populous, which also has over a billion, it's 111:100.

In the Middle East, when men take four wives, that leaves others with zero.

My heart breaks for the guys who want to get married, but can't.

https://ourworldindata.org/sex-ratio-at-birth
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I guess none of these things were issues when large swathes of the young male population used to be killed in wars.

Respect the family order; the natural order.

Quite a pathetic attempt at trolling. Come on, you can do
better than that if you put your mind to it.

If we regress five hundred years to pre-industrial feudalism,
then Confucianism would be just the ticket. However, this
disgusting system has no place in a modern, developed
society.

The only proponents left of Confucianism are self-righteous,
soju-swilling dog-eaters. And they are thankfully and rapidly
dying out.

I'll probably never get married or have children. Not against either, but they're not goals for me, and I actively avoid dating now, so I just don't see either happening.

My brother is like me, he's not against having kids, but they're not a goal. Unlike me, he does want to get married, but he probably won't until late in life.

But I have a lot of cousins who have a lot of kids, so there's no end to this family line.

Says a self-righteous beer-swilling pig-eater.

I'm not self righteous and a I'm 80% vegetarian. However, I do swill beer.

The last vestiges of Confucian doctrine were erased from Korean law
when the government struck down the code which stated the family
register must have a male as family head. An obviously absurd and
out of date law which basically negated female single occupant households.

I'll be honest, I don't think marriage/kids should be a goal.  You should be happy and okay with yourself first, otherwise marriage won't work, anyway.  Besides, I think a lot of people who make marriage a hard and fast goal end up settling for people who don't treat them right or for people they don't love.  I never had a goal to marry, but I did because I found a great guy who loves me, with whom I am happy and grateful to be able to spend my life.  I think everyone should do the same.  Everyone is too valuable to give their time and energy to someone who doesn't truly see their worth.

Glad you found the right person, but I think it may be time for another "Explain your user name" thread. 

I think being in a long-term relationship without getting married is just asking for trouble, I've never met an unmarried couple whose relationship lasted more than 15yrs and those are the rare exceptions. Typically, it's a revolving door of 2-5yr relationships repeating over and over as you enter each new relationship with more and more emotional baggage.

It's okay for people to want to get married or to have kids, but I agree that people really need to be happy with themselves first in the sense that they don't place any sense of their self worth on achieving either goal. They need to be okay with taking their time, and in having other unrelated but just as important goals as well. Marriage and kids should add to your life, not come at the cost of it.

We have opposing views and I'm pretty strong with mine (with a topic such as this a person should have a strong opinion either way), but that doesn't mean I'm telling anyone here what to do, that would be inappropriate. I'm simply expressing my views.  ​

Now that that's out the way.

The problem with "taking your time" is that you don't have a lot of it. Your relationship options diminish as you get older, particularly when it comes to women looking for men. If you're gay, that's a different story as having kids isn't really a concern for the person you're choosing to settle down with.

One of my arguments from a different thread is that many of us from the West simply have no clue what marriage is supposed to be, we've got it backwards. We think it's about experiencing life, becoming the best version of yourself, going through relationships until you ultimately find your soul-mate and settle down. No, it's reversed. You get married when you're relatively young, scared and naive to someone in the same boat who then becomes your soul-mate. Marriage is what teaches you both how to be the best version of yourselves. I'm a far better man than I was when I got married and I owe it all to my wife.

All you need for marriage is loyalty and commitment, you'll learn the rest along the way and yes, this includes love.

Again, this isn't directed at you but rather my thoughts on way so many marriages fail, it's based on the "I want to focus on myself" or the "me, me, me" philosophy. When we were 6yrs old, we blew raspberries at the opposite sex, we never imagined we'd find them attractive or get married. Developmental psychologists, such as Piaget and Vygotsky, argue that we develop, cognitively, throughout our life. This means that, unless there's a degree of regression, a young adult is going to think differently to an older adult or senior, this is backed up by 180 000yrs of human evolution. Basically, selfish pursuits no longer become fulfilling as we get older and source of happiness or fulfilment becomes increasingly focused on our children. During the final years of every one of my grandparents lives the only thing they seemed to care about was seeing their children and grandchildren and knowing that they were doing well.

up to or over 50% of the people who get married in their 20s will be divorced in 5-10 years.

do you have a source for that? i just googled to try and find something but the first link i clicked was this one: https://ifstudies.org/blog/want-to-avoid-divorce-wait-to-get-married-but-not-too-long/

the TLDR is basically after 32 the divorce risk goes up again. from the link, "we do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that people who marry in their thirties are now at greater risk of divorce than are people who wed in their late twenties. This is a new development. This finding changes the demographic landscape of divorce, and lends credence to scholars and pundits making the case for earlier marriage."

up to or over 50% of the people who get married in their 20s will be divorced in 5-10 years. That, or they'll be stuck in unhappy marriages that they feel unable to get out of. And it's often because they went into the marriage utterly naive and romanticizing the idea that they can "fix" each other.

This is quite the confirmation bias.

Many of our grandparents, mine included, married at 21 and stayed married till they died of old age. They didn't take a gap year to go backpacking through or take up yoga, they left school, got a job and got married. Two good friends back home married in their early 20s, they couldn't afford a place so their parents built a separate entrance for them. They had a kid, the grandmother lived close by so she helped and they're both still married and incredibly happy.

What's their secret? It's quite simple.
I'm going borrow from Bronfenbrenner's 'Ecological Systems Theory' to explain why divorce rate is so high in the Western world, which I'm assuming is where you got your statistics.

3 key factors influence the success of your marriage and these factors influence one another before you even meet your partner and they are:

Inner Circle - The marriage between your parents (what you grew up with in your household)
2nd layer- Your Religious or cultural values
3rd layer - Your environmental influences (including broader societal influences)

With my grandparents, their parents had a healthy, traditional marriage so my grandmother and grandfather grew up witnessing and understanding what their role and responsibilities would be as a wife and husband. They shared a Religious identity, which also gives very clear teachings on how a marriage is supposed to work. They lived in somewhat of a bubble, so environmental influences were limited to the community. The success rate for such a marriage would be incredibly high as its built on a strong foundation.

I'm not saying we should aim for these exact things, but it's useful to understand why it works.

Like me, my friends grew up in the world of social media and strong, global environmental influences. Regardless, the couples shared a Religious identity and they grew up in a household where both parents shared that identity and are still happily married. This is why their marriage is still going strong.

In the West, or as Dmart called the 'hedonistic/modern West' we have a problem:

- We allow cultural influences from TV, movies, sitcoms, pop culture etc. to exert such a strong influence on us that it becomes
  the main influence on our views on marriage. The reason it has such a strong influence is that we have no Religious or cultural
  values to compare it to.
- Many of these people have no Religious beliefs or strong cultural identity (an identity that gives a definitive guideline on marriage) so they're left being influenced by the broader environment.

Essentially, we're entering marriage and relationships completely clueless or, worst case scenario, with a ridiculous Sex and the City/Friends idea of what it should be like. Basically, Westerners have become nuptially uneducated.

The advice of 'empathy', 'mutual respect', 'understanding' doesn't help, I'm sorry to say. These are incredibly vague. You need something definitive and easy to follow such as:

- Never raise your voice to your wife, rather distance yourself till you've calmed down.
- Don't complain about your husband/wife to anyone.
- Avoid unnecessary interaction with people of the opposite sex

I still argue that marrying young is the best idea for all.

- You'll quickly find out which guy is serious and which isn't when you tell them to get married or stop wasting your time.
- A woman's youth and beauty are incredibly valuable assets, marriage protects you from wasting it.
- It makes you think twice before you breakup over something stupid
- The legitimacy of marriage  grants you legal right for compensation

50% of marriages end in divorce when couples get married in their 20s... ok, how many BF/GF relationships between couples in their 20s end in breakup?