Is it a mistake to get married young?

St Paisios says one of the great joys in life is when two people marry young, because they keep a certain youthfulness in their relationship, having been united since their youth. When I got married I was 20 and my wife was 21, and getting married young was one of the best decisions of my entire life. I've spent almost 24 years with my wife. I've been married to her longer than I was single.

She is truly the wife of my youth and the love of my life. Does it take a lot of energy, communication, and effort? Absolutely. But I hate to call it work, because you're putting energy into the relationship, and that energy draws the two of you closer and closer. You're not looking around the world for somebody better. You're learning to love the other person for who God made them to be, and they are striving to see you reach your full potential, so the two of you grow in unity toward Christ.

These roles God created, this normativity of marriage, is not a lessening. It is the fulfillment: a deeply meaningful existence of being united to another person, creating a family, raising children, and serving God together. Marriage is the true sacrament of the church, because God is in the midst of all of it.