"Figure 2: The average age of marriage increased in 2016 for both opposite-sex and same-sex couples, continuing the long-term increase since the early 1970s","" "Average age at marriage, England and Wales, 1950 to 2016","" "","" "Notes","1. The first marriages of same-sex couples took place in England and Wales on 29 March 2014. 2. The average age has been calculated by excluding a very small number of records where the age of the party was not stated; our datasets report the number of records where the age has not been stated. " "Unit","Age (years)" "","" "Year","Males marrying females","Females marrying males","Males marrying males","Females marrying females" "1950","29.5","26.4","","" "1951","29.3","26.3","","" "1952","29.4","26.4","","" "1953","29.2","26.2","","" "1954","29.1","26.1","","" "1955","28.9","25.9","","" "1956","28.7","25.7","","" "1957","28.6","25.6","","" "1958","28.4","25.4","","" "1959","28.4","25.4","","" "1960","28.3","25.3","","" "1961","28.2","25.2","","" "1962","28.1","25.2","","" "1963","28.0","25.1","","" "1964","27.9","25.0","","" "1965","27.6","24.8","","" "1966","27.5","24.7","","" "1967","27.4","24.8","","" "1968","27.2","24.7","","" "1969","27.2","24.8","","" "1970","27.2","24.7","","" "1971","27.8","25.2","","" "1972","28.8","26.2","","" "1973","28.8","26.1","","" "1974","28.8","26.2","","" "1975","29.0","26.3","","" "1976","29.2","26.5","","" "1977","29.3","26.6","","" "1978","29.4","26.7","","" "1979","29.4","26.6","","" "1980","29.4","26.7","","" "1981","29.6","26.9","","" "1982","29.8","27.0","","" "1983","30.0","27.2","","" "1984","30.1","27.3","","" "1985","30.2","27.5","","" "1986","30.5","27.8","","" "1987","30.4","27.8","","" "1988","30.9","28.3","","" "1989","31.1","28.5","","" "1990","31.3","28.8","","" "1991","31.6","29.1","","" "1992","32.0","29.5","","" "1993","32.4","29.9","","" "1994","32.7","30.3","","" "1995","33.1","30.7","","" "1996","33.6","31.1","","" "1997","33.9","31.4","","" "1998","34.1","31.6","","" "1999","34.4","31.8","","" "2000","34.8","32.1","","" "2001","34.8","32.2","","" "2002","35.3","32.6","","" "2003","35.6","32.9","","" "2004","35.8","33.1","","" "2005","36.2","33.5","","" "2006","36.4","33.7","","" "2007","36.4","33.8","","" "2008","36.5","33.8","","" "2009","36.3","33.7","","" "2010","36.2","33.6","","" "2011","36.3","33.8","","" "2012","36.5","34.0","","" "2013","36.7","34.3","","" "2014","37.0","34.6","39.5","36.9" "2015","37.5","35.1","40.6","37.0" "2016","37.9","35.5","40.8","37.4"