From the dalrock blog:

"Put yourself in the shoes of an 18 year old young woman in the 1950s. As you can see, half of her peers are married by the time they are a few months past their 20th birthdays. Since marriage isn’t something which typically occurs overnight, these women have likely been in the courtship and engagement process for several years. A woman who marries at age 20 was very likely strongly considering marriage at age 18 if not younger. Many of the women around her have in fact married at younger ages than 20. Young women in this kind of situation will approach the dating market very differently than young women do today. They may not plan on marrying their first boyfriend, but they are generally looking for a boyfriend who they feel is husband material. This focus on dads over cads is reinforced by the fact that other women are looking for the same dad traits. This creates what is called in game parlance preselection, and can be very powerful."

It IS traditional for women to marry young.

Is ISN'T traditional for women to prepare for careers and to "hold out" for some man who's out of their league until they're desperate.

The difference between 1950s customs on this and today's customs has not been caused by a "lack of maturity" - but rather with the advance of feminist values.

For those who see their traditional church as an upper middle class nostalgia club: your attitudes aren't traditional.  You aren't traditionalists.

Let me correct that:

Of those getting married at the time, one half were younger than her.

But today it's considered a "freak" for women to marry that age - often by so-called Trads!

A comment from the blogger:

"I agree with you that right now the incentives aren’t there for women in general to change course, and I also agree that a woman remaining chaste until 25-26 is unlikely enough that we shouldn’t expect the current popular path to result primarily in brides who haven’t experienced men other than their husband sɛҳuąƖly. My only disagreement is I think the putative reasons for delaying marriage are more of a smokescreen than a reality. College and even career don’t need to be put on hold if a woman is married. The issue is fundamentally one of most people having accepted core feminist values. They are uncomfortable with the idea of women marrying young because they see this as dis-empowering psychologically. They want her to fully solidify in her girl-power before marrying, lest she somehow be tricked into submitting to her husband. All other arguments are merely smokescreens, and can easily be proven as such."

But you are quoting statistics for the entire United States, which was overwhelmingly Protestant in the 1950's.

Do you have evidence that marriage ages among Catholics and in Catholic countries were higher?

 

This is the ultimate in trying to conform your religion to the dictates of the world:  take a survey of what Protestants were doing,

No, it was a survey of what Americans were doing.  The customs of societies that have laws that are more in harmony with the natural law (for example, abortion being criminalized) are certainly valid to examine, and it's certainly to valid to see how society as a whole has turned away from the natural law, whether it's Catholic or not.  In fact, the changes in society coincide with the collapse of Catholicism in western countries as a whole.  That's not a coincidence.  

and claim that that should be perpetuated forever because "society still had traditional religion."

What is traditional, and will always be traditional, for Catholics, is the belief that Catholic man shouldn't have to be the second, third, or twentieth man to sleep with his never married wife.  What is totally non-traditional, and is feminist, is the idea that a man shouldn't care about the chastity of his prospective bride.  And it's also a fact of human nature, that unnatural delay of marriage is a temptation to fornication

 

What, a traditionally Protestant society?  What could we as traditional Catholics possibly stand to learn from a culture toeing the line of a bunch of heretical sects most of which were Freemasonically created?
 :heretic:

I've got news for you: Protestants who know nothing about Catholicism but who believe and practice traditional morality, eschew drunkenness, fornication, sins St. Paul mentioned, are more Catholic than nominal Catholics who think drunkenness and fornication are no big deal.

Look what comes up when one searches the terms "unwed mother"

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Unwed+mother

Eastern Europe, although they were overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox had a similar age of marriage for a young woman.

In eastern Europe it was even younger.  For example in Hungary, Romania, Russia (which included Poland).

I've mentioned before, there's a Bosnian Croat poster and forum owner I've been familiar with for several years - he's in his late 30s - his father started courting his mother when he was 21 and she was 14.  That would have been around 1970.  I doubt it was very exceptional, and that was under a Communist regime.

The 1950s were a low point in median ages in the US, but they were always much lower than now:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005061.html

I haven't verified they were always lower in the US, but it stands to reason.  Since 1890, definitely yes.