Early marriage raises risk of a drink problem later in life

MARRYING young can increase the risk of becoming an irresponsible drinker, a study has found.

Marriage has previously been found to protect people from alcoholism.

But research into people with a genetic disposition to alcoholism, found that those who married young can increase the risk of binge drinking.

The findings, published in an American academic paper, also suggest that while marriage has been found to protect people from alcoholism, this trend only appears among older people.

Rebecca Smith, the study author and a doctoral student at Virginia Commonwealth University, said: “In a sample of young adults, we found that marriage was not uniformly protective against alcohol misuse.

“In fact, we found that early marriage (ie, by age 21) seemed to exacerbate risk for alcohol use among individuals with a higher genetic predisposition.

“Thus, early marriage does not have the same protective benefit in terms of attenuating genetic predispositions that has been observed for marriage later in adulthood.”

Around seven and a half million people in the UK depend on alcohol, meaning drinking is either an important, or the most important part of their day.

The risk of becoming an alcoholic is partly determined by a large number of genes, previous studies have shown.

Researchers analysed nearly 1,000 people’s drinking habits and marital statuses between the ages of 21 and 25.

Ms Smith added: “These findings are important because they demonstrate how risk and protective factors may intersect in different ways at different points across the lifespan.

“Although marriage is typically considered to be protective, when considering the role of development a different picture emerges, such that early marriage may increase the risk of heavy episodic drinking among people who have high genetic predispositions for alcohol use.

“It contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the role of marriage.”

The average age for marriages among opposite-sex couples in the UK has risen to nearly 38 for men and 35 for women.

According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, only 1,673 men and women under the age of 20 got married in 2017. This has dropped by over 97 per cent since 1950, when more than 60,000 tied the knot.

Ms Smith said: “Traditional life events, such as marriage and parenthood, tend to occur during certain periods in life.

“So when those types of events occur either earlier or later in life than is typical, they may not be as protective as we would expect. Individuals who marry young may not be the best influences on one another.”

The findings were published in the journal Development and Psychopathology.