How long should you know someone before you marry them?

Mr All-I-need-is-a-pet-pig Clooney finally relinquished his treasured bachelor lifestyle when he married Amal Alamuddin.

His choice of wife was (predictably) impeccable – she is elegant, beautiful, intelligent and powerful.

If I had to pick a bride worthy of the world’s sexiest and respected bachelor, she’d be up there.

What was interesting, though, was his timing.

After clinging onto his single status for 53 years and being consistently vocal about the joys of being a bachelor, George ended up meeting and marrying Amal within one year.

He proposed after seven months and they married within twelve.

Am I the only one that thinks this was uncharacteristically speedy?

When I suggest it was all a bit rushed, I get answers like ‘he was ‘swept off his feet’, he knew he’d met ‘The One’, it was ‘love at first sight’ but he forced himself to wait.

Personally, I’d have been far more convinced this was the real deal if George had met and dated the human rights lawyer for a few years, had a few kids and then dropped to one knee and whisked her off to Venice.

I’ve been to marriages of good friends when I haven’t even had time to meet the groom (six weeks in) and marriages of friends who’ve been together for more than a decade.

It’s the latter that I find impressive.

True love is wanting to shout to the world that you love someone when you’ve lived with their faults, seen all their disgusting habits, know their moods and eccentricities and heard the same stories 500 times over and still nod and smile in all the right places.

Whirlwind, rollercoaster-ride marriages of couples who meet and marry within weeks don’t impress me in the slightest.

I’d have been married about 20 times if I’d done it in the first few months of the relationship!

It’s easy to say ‘I do’ when your brain has been hi-jacked by the highly intoxicating love hormones turning anyone half decent into an air-brushed, glamorised version of themselves.

True, Clooney’s courtship is longer than lots of other celebrities.

When stacked against the courtship periods of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries (whose marriage lasted 72 days), Britney Spears and Jason Alexander (55 hours), Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley (107 days), Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock (122 days) and Jennifer Lopez and Cris Judd (218 days), he’s positively dragged his feet.

But Clooney’s got kudos and clout, he’s intelligent and articulate and apart from a bit of indiscriminate snogging in bars when hanging out with mates like Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, appears to be of sound judgement.

Forty to 50 percent of marriages don’t last.

How long you’ve known each other before you marry is a strong predicting factor of whether it will succeed.

The longer the acquaintance, the more likely the marriage will be successful and couples who’ve known each other for longer than a year fair better than those who haven’t.

People who’ve known each other for two, have even more chance of making it.

It’s easy to be swept up into seemingly fairytale scenarios: Russell Brand is about as genuine as the Jimmy Choo handbag on offer on ebay for £20 but I still had Aw-like feelings when I’d read quotes from him and Katy Perry in the first six love-struck months.

One year into their marriage, he dumped her by text and I was brought swiftly back to reality and common sense: to make a good choice, you need time.

The question is: how much time?

How long do you need to spend together before you truly know someone well enough to say ‘Yep. You and only you are the person I know I’m going to want beside me from now until I draw my last breath?’

My instincts and statistics tell me the original model that our parent’s generation followed (and lots still do) - of 18 months courtship and marriage a year or so after that - is probably about right.

In my eye, that’s long enough to see if you have what it takes to last - which isn’t, by the way, love, but other factors that go with it.

Friendship is as important as love.

You both need to be as committed to the commitment you’re making, as you are to each other.

Communication is critical. So is being able to compromise and work as a team as well maintaining a healthy individualism.

Yes, you do just ‘know’ sometimes, when you’re met the right person for you.

But isn’t it wiser and less hurtful all round, to wait a little while to check your instincts were correct ?

After all, if you truly are convinced you’re going to stay together forever, what’s the rush to prove it?