The question: 
“The average age at the time of first-marriage has been steadily increasing. Is that a positive or negative trend for marriage as a whole?”
Here is your response:
20 percent Positive
80 percent Negative
This is a question where we at United Families have no clear cut response one way or the other. We believe that couples who marry at an older age can, generally speaking, create more stable marriages. But, there is concern that if marriage is delayed too long, a different set of problems can be created. Below we have included a few studies relevant to this question.
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“Religion and religious freedoms are under assault. Which group do you believe is the most aggressive in their efforts to remove religion from the public square?”
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Academia
“Mainstream” Media
Homosexual Activists
Popular Culture
Legal organizations/courts
Some Statistics Related to Age of Marriage
Individuals who marry at a young age are much more likely to be unfaithful, especially those who marry in their teenage years. D. C. Atkins, N. S. Jacobson, and D. H. Baucom, ”Understanding Infidelity: Correlates in a National Random Sample,” Journal of Family Psychology 15 (2001): 735-749. Cited in: Frequently Asked Questions About: Infidelity (Affairs). National Healthy Marriage Resource Center. Available: http://www.healthymarriageinfo.org/aboutmarriage/?d={ACA1F850-A0D7-454A-A1F6-4CE4B5C89320}
Compared to their peers who finish college, men with lower levels of education face significantly greater odds of divorce (from 30 to 65 percent higher odds, depending on education level) while women with less education (especially those with “year 12 or less,”) face lower odds of divorce. Belinda Hewitt, Janeen Baxter, and Mark Western, “Marriage Breakdown in Australia: The Social Correlates of Separation and Divorce,” Journal of Sociology 41 (2005): 163-183.
Among people with unusually poor average marital success are those who have little education, who have little or no religiosity, who live in the South and West, whose parents divorced before they were age 16 (females only), who lived with their spouses before marrying, and who married before age 20. Norvel D. Glen, “With this Ring: A National Survey on Marriage in America,” 2005 National Fatherhood Initiative. Available: http://www.fatherhood.org/doclibrary/nms.pdf#search=’With%20this%20ring%3A%20A%20National%20Survey’
Wives with more traditional sex-role attitudes were less likely to divorce. Laura Sanchez and Constance T. Gager, “Hard Living, Perceived Entitlement to a Great Marriage, and Marital Dissolution,” X 62(2000): 708-722.
While female employment was generally associated with a higher risk of relationship dissolution–whether couples were married or cohabiting–women who worked in a family business or who work in their homes were no more likely to experience relationship dissolution than women who did not work. Specifically, female employment outside of a family setting weakened marriage. Karen Price Carver, and Jay D. Teachman, “Female Employment and First Union Dissolution in Puerto Rico,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 55 (1993): 686-698.
College-age couples who hold traditional gender roles were much more likely to make enduring marriages than couples who subscribe to egalitarian precepts. “Traditional women were more likely than other women to marry their college sweetheart, and to stay married to him during the 15-year period of study. Fully 43 percent of traditionalist women married their college boyfriend, and not a single one of these marriages ended in divorce! In contrast, only 26 percent of egalitarian women married their boyfriend and half of these marriages ended in divorce. Similar but weaker trends were found for traditional, moderate, and egalitarian men.” Letitia Anne Peplan, CharlesT. Hill, and Zick Rubin, “Sex Role Attitudes in Dating and Marriage: A 15-Year Follow-Up of the Boston Couples Study,” Journal of Social Issues 49, 3 (1993): 31-52.