It’s interesting that in most
jurisdictions that have introduced same-sex civil
partnerships/marriage it is most men who avail of them at first. I
wonder why that is. More interesting, however, is the average age of
those entering civil partnerships. New CSO data tell us it is in the
mid-forties.

For opposite-sex couples the average
age is early to mid-thirties. Why the big difference in age between
opposite sex couples when they settle down and same-sex couples? I
believe it has to do with children.

Opposite-sex couples themselves now
marry much later than in the fairly recent past. They seem to put off
getting married until they are absolutely ready to have children, and
if you wait until you are past your early to mid-thirties you are
obviously pushing it because fertility is plummeting at this age.

Same-sex couples sometimes raise
children of course, but their sexual relations cannot produce
children and therefore there is no race against the biological clock.
That means they can wait until they are older before settling down. I
daresay if heterosexual couples were still able to have children in
their forties as easily as in their thirties (and that’s not as
easy as when you are in your twenties), they would wait even longer
before getting married.

Nonetheless, the relative ages at
marriage/civil partnership does show the strong connection between
settling down and having children. If you can’t have children,
there is less reason to settle down early. If you can, then you will
marry before you become infertile.

The bottom line is that in the West
today we value personal freedom extremely highly and therefore put
off making major commitments until we feel absolutely good and ready.
For gays and straights that moment evidently comes at different ages
for the reason explained above.

The reason I offer could be wrong of
course. Other suggested reasons are welcome.