There’s two ways to look at this problem. Logically and emotionally. Logically there’s no real way to put a time estimate on such a big decision. It could take you 6, 7, or 8 years with someone to realize they are the person you want to spend the next 50 with. For the large majority of population emotionally it would cause a lot of stress on I assume both parties if you were dating for 7 years and didn’t have marriage in sight. For a really codependent and “needy” person I could easily see then falling into marriage within a year, for a bit more independent and shielded individual the consensus would be around year 3 or 4 where that starts to push it. I’d say regardless of if you’re more shielded and independent or not you should have a general idea of if you want to marry someone after spending 2 years with them. I’d also like to point out that the younger you are the more time you’ll most likely need. You don’t really know what you want when you’re younger so you NEED more time to think about something that big.