Scarlett Johansson has been relatively tight-lipped about her two-year marriage and subsequent divorce from actor Ryan Reynolds, but the actress responded truthfully in a recent interview with the French edition of Elle magazine.
"Weddings are hard work. I married way too young, I wasn't ready," she told the publication, as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald. "You open your arms to someone you love and promise to share everything with him, it's frightening."
Johansson, who was 23 at the time of the marriage (the actress is now 27), is not alone in those sentiments. The most recent statistics from North America found that Canadian women were marrying at 28.5, while their male counterparts were 30.6; in the U.S., the numbers were 26.7 for women, and 28.7 for men.
Many experts point to the various advantages of marrying older, like completing your education, becoming financially secure and 'finding' yourself before getting married. Less focus is put on the advantages of marrying at a younger age, which include fewer problems having children, not wanting to wait, and having support as you start your career. In fact, there only seems to be one definitive statement on the topic.
"It's better not to get married as a teenager," sociologist Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University told USA Today. "Beyond that, I don't think there's an ideal age."