How Old Was Jill Biden When She Married Joe?

Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden have made marriage look easy. In 1975 — three years after Joe's first wife Neilia and their daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash — he wasn't looking for love, but love found him. "When I met Jill, I fell in love with her when I saw her," he said in a video for his 2020 presidential campaign. This love didn't waver, with the couple being as lovey-dovey as ever decades later. "Happy birthday, Jilly. I love you," read Joe's June 2025 birthday tribute for his wife. Days later, Jill celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary with a photo from their wedding day in 1977 and the message: "This is the truest thing I know: that love makes a family whole. Happy anniversary @JoeBiden."

Jill, who was a 23-year-old senior college student when she first met then-32-year-old Delaware senator and dad-of-two Joe on a blind date, initially didn't have much confidence in their compatibility. "He came to the door and he had a sport coat and loafers, and I thought, 'God, this is never going to work, not in a million years.' He was nine years older than I am!" Jill told Vogue of their first meeting. Jill was similarly apprehensive when he later asked her to marry him, so much so that she rejected his proposal four times before finally saying yes. It took several months and a heartbreaking ultimatum from Joe, but Jill eventually married him shortly after turning 26 years old.

Unlike the famous saying, the second time was the charm for Dr. Jill Biden when it came to marriage, but her first union also had a lasting impact on her life. She was only 18 when she wed her first husband Bill Stevenson in 1970. The marriage soon broke down, with the pair separating four years later and finalizing their divorce in 1975 — the same year she met Joe Biden. 

Jill's marriage to and divorce from Stevenson taught her one lesson that stuck with her: have your own life and career. "I knew I would never, ever put myself in that position again — where I didn't feel like I had the finances to be on my own, that I had to get the money through a divorce settlement," she told Entertainment Tonight. And Jill did indeed achieve this, working throughout Joe's political career and even becoming the first presidential spouse to maintain a day job as FLOTUS. 

Joe has been Jill's biggest cheerleader throughout her education and career, and this mutual and consistent support has been cited as the secret to their happy marriage. "We've been really supportive of one another. I've read all that data as well about families under pressure, and that's why I'm glad she kept her profession. ... It's important that she has the things that she cares a great deal about, her independence. And yet we share each other's dreams," he told People.