Why Don’t Christians Support Young Marriage?
“Why does the evangelical church support abstinence pledges and purity rings but not young marriage? Why have we vilified ‘young marriage’ but push a secular four-year college on a 17-year old with such tenacity? Does it have something to do with our lackluster attitude towards premarital sex and our idolatry of formal education and lucrative careers? I can name at least twenty couples in our church of 400 people who were married in their late teens/early twenties and are still living healthy in the eyes of the Lord.
“I would love to see: 1) Parents take more of an active role in their children’s courtships; 2) No more long engagements; 3) Teens/Young Adults chasing Christ under teaching parents, pastors, and family worship and a full dismissal of the statement ‘don’t get married till after college.’ If it be the will of the Lord for your lives: Chase Christ. Get married. Have kids. Grow. Grow. Grow. Grow. #make18adultagain” (@AdamPage85 on Twitter)
I agree with him wholeheartedly! God created us to marry young yet the Christian world has gone right along with the secular world in advocating college and careers for their children where fornication and pornography is rampant and celebrated. Many parents mourn the loss of the children’s faith after attending college yet they helped fund this loss by sending them off to college.
Yes, some professions require college but not that many. “You don’t need college to learn stuff. Everything is available basically for free. Learn anything you want for free. It’s not a question of learning” (Elon Musk). In fact, Dennis Prager states frequently that college makes people stupid! You can see that he’s right by the way our culture is heading.
Raising your children in godliness is the most important thing that you can do for them. This will benefit them throughout their lives.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Genesis 2:24
***Joseph Spurgeon is a preacher of the God’s Word and he has written two books: It’s Good to Be a Girl and It’s Good to Be a Boy. You can purchase them on Amazon too. He is unafraid to speak Truth in this wicked day and age. I follow him on Facebook and he’s an excellent teacher/preacher. He loves being married and having many children.
“We live in a time when feminism is celebrated but femininity is not. Women are taught that if they are to have value, they must set aside the things God designed them for, and instead compete with men. But God made woman to complement man. Our world doesn’t need any more little warrior princesses screaming about their ‘rights.’ Rather we need daughters who love and embrace the way God designed them. God made girls to be helpers, life-givers, nurturers, adorners, worshippers, and His daughters. Femininity is beautiful. In this book, your daughter will discover the purpose they have been created for and why it is good to be a girl.”
“We live in a time when manhood and masculinity are under attack. Boys are seen as defective because they are so active and need to stay busy with their hands, and they often don’t do well in a public school setting where they are expected to sit still all day. But masculinity is good and the world needs it now more than ever. God made boys to build, provide, protect, fight, lead, worship, and proclaim. In this book, your sons will discover these seven reasons that make it good to be a boy.”
72 thoughts on “Why Don’t Christians Support Young Marriage?”
Oh – the memories that get activated!
‘don’t get married till after college.’ This takes me back decades to (another) missed red flag – when the evil MIL addressed the joyous news of eX and I deciding to marry with “but you haven’t been to Europe yet”.
So important to have your priorities (sic) in order… Oh, I should have run and kept running. If I only had one person in my life who expressed a fraction of the wisdom on this site…
Thanks for a good morning laugh. Even though it’s a bit bitter.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on many people’s concern that a 17 year old girl it’s not mature enough to make such a commitment.
Something to think about. Thank you! My husband and I were just talking about this.
It depends upon how she was raised. If she was raised to be entitled and not to control her actions or emotions, then, no, she’s not ready for marriage but if she was raised in a godly home by a godly mother and father who trained her in the ways of the Lord, then she will be ready for marriage.
Amen. I was raised in the “college is God” atmosphere, and it’s very destructive. Thanks for drawing attention to this.
Fantastic post.
How many tens of millions of young men and women have fallen into sexual sin, tempted by the devil, because the simple maxim of marrying young was ignored by tens of millions of parents and elders?
The sin is on the heads of the leaders too.
Love this Lori! My mother met my father when she was 17. They married when she was 18 and had their first child at 18 years old. By the time mom was 26 she had 4 busy little ones, was a housewife, and happy, engaging, funny, energetic, orderly, an excellent cook, and absolutely in love with my dad and he with her. She knew how to keep a home, and love her husband and children at a very young age. In those days, the 1960s and prior, it was taught in many ways: Home economics was actually a major in college, families were in tact in greater number and the general idea was that all children would grow up, marry and have children, magazines had numerous articles on keeping a home and femininity, success was measured by a person’s ability to be dependable, honest, God-fearing, loving, along side education and a stable job or career. Family was a culture! Today lust, greed and selfishness is the culture. My parents were married 43 years when mom passed away. Never ever did my parents long for singleness or act is if they missed some debauchery in youth that would fulfill some crazy yearning.
Oh how far we have fallen from a healthy culture!
I became a Christian at age 25. By that time I was a mother to a 3 year old daughter. Her father and I never married. Later on, my daughter’s father became a Christian. We tried to raise her in two separate homes and her father tried his best to bring her up to love God. When my daughter was 15 years old, there was a young man, 22 years old, that came asking to court my daughter. I agreed to a courtship but her father did not, and ran the young man off. Her dad ran off all the suitable Christian men while my daughter was under his roof….and when she turned 18 my daughter went wild. She is now in her late twenties, had a child out of wedlock, multiple sexual partners, married more than twice, and hates God. My heart grieves to think how all of that could have been avoided if her father would have agreed to a courtship and marriage to a Christian man while my daughter was still a young girl. My two other adult children are in relationships and refuse to marry. My husband and I are expecting another grandchild next year. We have begged for our children to marry but they have no desire. It is so sad to see.
The point of the post is not to push for marriage at 17, but rather that this is the age that parents need to be wisely directing their children, and most Christian parents are are doing everything they can to get their daughters into the best colleges and universities instead of focusing them on Biblical ideals. Just such a hard push for higher education tells our children that what what God’s Word says is best, marriage and and having a wonderful family life filled with children, needs to take a back seat so that our daughters can go out and live life and experience new things.
If the new things is a trip to Europe, gaining new friends at college and learning to transition to being on their own, these things are not necessarily bad things to help a young adult both grow up and begin to make their faith their own. But just look at the wasted time, huge debts and debauchery of most college experiences, including the loss of ones virginity to men they never will marry, and one can quickly see what parents must direct their children first to evaluate God’s purposes prior to being pushed towards college.
Unfortunately, Higher Education is no longer higher at all, but for far too many just a roll in the sack of pleasure and feeding fleshly appetites. Perhaps all the while attending on campus and off campus Christian activities without living as Christians. The saddest parts of this story are when your child comes home and tells you they are in a same sex relationship or no longer believe that much of God’s Word is relevant to today. And this is the reward for good Christian parents who themselves have been flowing along with the cultural tide and encouraging their kids to just go with the flow of a society bent on hedonism and destruction. Oh ya, and the $100,000 student debt that is the icing on the cake.
All this so their child can learn to decide for themselves, even after God has already decided what is best. And that takes us full circle to where it all begins with parents who are afraid that God’s ways of getting married and having a family early in life may damage their daughters, or stunt their careers and aspirations. All because they started with the wrong aspirations to begin with.
“Did God really say, ‘Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil?'” it all begins when we stop listening to the Word of God:
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” (Ephesians 2:1-3).
The point of the post is not to push for marriage at 17, but rather that this is the age that parents need to be wisely directing their children, and most Christian parents are are doing everything they can to get their daughters into the best colleges and universities instead of focusing them on Biblical ideals. Just such a hard push for higher education tells our children that what what God’s Word says is best, marriage and and having a wonderful family life filled with children, needs to take a back seat so that our daughters can go out and live life and experience new things.
If the new things is a trip to Europe, gaining new friends at college and learning to transition to being on their own, these things are not necessarily bad things to help a young adult both grow up and begin to make their faith their own. But just look at the wasted time, huge debts and debauchery of most college experiences, including the loss of ones virginity to men they never will marry, and one can quickly see what parents must direct their children first to evaluate God’s purposes prior to being pushed towards college.
Unfortunately, Higher Education is no longer higher at all, but for far too many just a roll in the sack of pleasure and feeding fleshly appetites. Perhaps all the while attending on campus and off campus Christian activities without living as Christians. The saddest parts of this story are when your child comes home and tells you they are in a same sex relationship or no longer believe that much of God’s Word is relevant to today.
And this is the reward for good Christian parents who themselves have been flowing along with the cultural tide and encouraging their kids to just go with the flow of a society bent on hedonism and destruction. Oh ya, and the $100,000 student debt that is the icing on the cake. All this so their child can learn to decide for themselves, even after God has already decided what is best.
And this takes us full circle to where it all begins with parents who are afraid that God’s ways of getting married and having a family early in life may damage their daughters, or stunt their careers and aspirations. All because they started with the wrong aspirations to begin with. “Did God really say, ‘Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil?’” it all begins when we stop listening to the Word of God:
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” (Ephesians 2:1-3).
So sorry for you. I understand that mentality and knew for my marriage to survive we would have to flee relatives that would seek to persecute us with the lusts of our flesh. From the bishop who told me to forbear having children because I was a promising OB/GYN to the MIL who posted us written curses. Gods kingdom is incomparable and may you taste its eternal joys that can never be taken from you. Study the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and keep His commandments!
I was married at 20 and to be honest, I don’t want that for my daughters. Nor do I want it for my sons. Part of that is because my marriage has been so difficult, and I know for certain that if I had been older with more life experience, I would not have married my husband because I would have recognised the warning signs.
But I also know plenty of couples who got married really young and are very happy. One young couple in our church got married at 18 (her) and 22 (him) and she moved across the world to NZ to start a new life with her husband. They have 2 little boys and seem very content.
So it can be done! My own experience makes me wary, though.
I got married at 17 and ten years and 4 kids later I could not be happier. I definitely still had a little growing up to do, but it was nice to be able to grow together with my husband, instead of just growing set in my own ways. We waited 5 years to have kids (I worked as a nanny to help make ends meet while my husband was in electrical school) and that helped too.
Wow that’s so frightening to hear that your daughter’s father didn’t want her properly married. Those men approached her with honor.
I wholeheartedly agree with this post. I wish my fertility and youth were taken more seriously by my family. I was always telling my mom I wanted to be a wife and mother. All she cared about was money and careers. She wanted me to be a career woman even though I was so verbal about what I wanted! I remember when I was 18, I begged her to find a man for me to marry. My father died when I was young, so what would have been his responsibility wasn’t being fulfilled. Unfortunately I rebelled and lived a pretty depraved lifestyle. Somehow I got married at 22. I’m 23 now, pregnant and in a Kingdom marriage. My husband literally saved my soul. I respect him so much.
I pray that your daughter can find calm and peace somehow in her life, in the name is Jesus.
She was 15. Thankfully your husband was wise enough to know this was a PREDATOR
Hello Ms.Lisa.
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful life story.I am happy to read something so wholesome today.
Really put a smile on my face after reading “absolutely in love with my dad”…what a lovely couple they would have been.❤?
Now,the last sentence was really heart touching.They never longed for singleness and act as if they missed some debauchery…this is the ideal type of marriage I want to have honestly.What pure Godly love it would have been honestly!!
Have a great day ahead!!?
They should made a law where it’s illegal for a woman to get married if she had past the age of 25 and is not a virgin. More women would take marriage seriously and marry in their late teens early 20’s instead of jumping on the carousel until their late 20’s just to make people believe that they were focusing on their education to build a career but truly had wasted their fertility in their prime years.
I think it is good for young people to get married after college. Brains and personalities are still developing well into the 20s, so people should take all the time they need to find a good spouse. This doesn’t mean they have to commit fornication. It’s wise to take the amount of time you and your partner need before rushing into a marriage. There is absolutely nothing wrong with marrying later on in my opinion.
For every year over 21 that a girl waits to marry , she will possibly have a harder adjustment to marriage. However it isn’t always possible to marry very young. Don’t just marry anyone cuz you want to marry (young). It is also worth the wait to wait on the right man and be a little older if that’s God’s best for you. A young lady living on her own does well to still seek counsel and direction from her Dad or her brother. This may make the adjustment for her easier when and if she does marry and needs to take direction from her husband. Ideally a lady should come to the marriage with not only Godly virtues and practical life skills but also a nice sum of money of her own to furnish the home and buy their first groceries?
Sciencet has proven that the human brain is not fully formed until the age of 25. So it seems unwise to choose a life partner when your brain is underdeveloped, does it not?
I don’t think it’s a great idea to glorify any era perfect and condemn the other totally rotten. Each age has its own evils. In the 1960s, domestic violence was treated as a “private” issue and many women didn’t even realize that the way their husbands were mistreating them was abuse. Abuse was often treated as a humorous issue and people didn’t think it warranted any real concern, so women in abusive relationships silently suffered without social support. Women were mistreated in the past, nowadays we have an ungodly sexual culture. There is always evil in the world, and there is no need to pretend that one age is better than the other because it doesn’t help us improve by judging the newer generations. Rather, I believe we can teach them how to walk in the right ways no matter what evil society is promoting.
Isn’t it illegal to marry before 18 in the U.S. and even older ages in some states… People don’t need to rush into marriage. If you raise children right, they won’t be so possessed by sexual desires that they feel the need to rush into a relationship to satisfy themselves. Rather, they can practice self control and mature fully into an adult and take their time finding a healthy relationship without having the need to commit fornication. That is the practice we have in my Christian culture (I come from South India.)
I was not raised christian. My mother brainwashed my sisters and tried to me. Nobody is ever old enough to have kids its soo soo much work. Chase traveling. Like traveling and coming back to brag to your friends is a quality person? Children sometimes ruin peoples relationships. Its soo soo hard! Endless garbage like this. Lucky for me i dont do what she tells me.
I had my kid at 26. Of course i didnt have a home half paid for and hundreds of thousands in a 401k yet. I was never going to make it me and my wife made plenty of money. And before my kid was born my mom said repeatedly were not going to help you. Were not rich. Nobody ever helped me. Endless. So we never asked ever.
And 6 months later someone randomly asked if we wanted to go out on a saturday night and it was afternoon already. So we asked my mom. Her and her husband said yes. We dropped the kid off texted a few times had a few beers that night and got her in the morning. We were surprised by their reaction.
This is the nicest baby i have ever been around. You didnt have to b here this early. We fed her and she just ate everything and never even made a mess or didn’t want to eat something. We went shopping and not a sound just looking around. We gave her a bath and she just smiled and giggled. Can we have her next saturday? We will take her every saturday any time you have something to do any day.
At that point it was obvious my mom knew she was wrong teaching my sisters. And glad i didnt listen to her. For sometime she justified at least i have this 1 grand child and not none. But as time has gone on its passing and looks like my sisters will not have children and shes not happy about it. I may in the future with another wife but as for right now its not looking good. They take my daughter any time they can and buy her junk i cant afford. Every now and then i have to put my foot down on this is not your child she follows me but its not bad.
They have hundreds of videos saved on computer of rasing her. I have told her if i get another wife shes going to b young not work, cook and have kids. She doesnt disagree. I have never had any regrets becoming a parent she was nice to b around as a baby and nice to b around now. Not a devasting life choice.
I don’t think that agreeing to a serious courtship at 15 would have solved this problem. I am sensing a lot of inconsistencies and “too lax then too firm” style of parenting.
I think a lot of it could be that when a couple is young there does seem to be a presumption that some sort of coercion or even force was involved, especially regarding the bride. Not saying that never happens, but it’s far from being the norm.
I am not a Christian but share many moral values with what you teach. I married my husband when we were both 23 and today we’ve been married almost 10 years. We have two beautiful girls and we love each other and spending time together. I was still a medical student when we married and we were poor. But why wait? Marriage is a commitment. As you wrote yesterday about premarital sex, what’s the point of “shopping around” if you have found a good man; marry him and create a good marriage and have children. I think people wait because they worry they’ll “fall out” of love and don’t realise that love is a commitment and goes beyond fickle emotions.
I read your blog for peace and wisdom Lori and thank you so much for what you do. I wish you all the best in your treatment and I hope it’s been easier to tolerate this time around.
I feel so sorry for your situation, however, I think your husband knew what he was doing when he refused a courtship between a 15-year-old and a 22-year-old. I don’t know your specific situation, of course every situation is different, but I do think most 15-year-olds are not ready for a courtship. Parents’ guidance is very important, however, your child still has the right to have the final say in a matter of their marriage. Most 15-year-olds are too gullible to do anything other than what their parents tell them; they’re really impressionable and possibly do not understand the weight of the decisions they make. A couple of years make a world of difference at that age. Seems to me like your husband knew that.
I think many Christians don’t realize, you can’t force someone to be saved. It’s a true gift to be saved, to believe and to let Jesus in your heart. But it’s something that happens within you and if you don’t have that, well, no outside influence is going to change that. Your children can marry so you’ll leave them alone but what good would that do if they don’t really believe in Jesus and are not really saved at all? At the end of the day, your children make their own decisions in their lives once they grow up. You can pray they find their way back to the Lord (I’ll keep them in my prayers, too <3 ) and I urge you to be a Godly influence on your grandchildren but that is all you can really do.
It’s not dependent upon the age but upon whom one marries. God tells us that it is better to marry than to burn. MANY are burning and should be married as soon as they find a good person to marry, according to God’s will.
Congrats Amanda! God is good.
Yeah 15 sounds a little too soon, maybe 17 if she is matured enough and her foundation in Christ is strong.
Thank you, Alexandra! Today is my last treatment of radiation! It has definitely been easier this time around and I haven’t suffered from any side effects, thankfully.
Science is always changing. Let’s stick to God’s Word instead. He tells us that it is better to marry than to burn.
This would be exceedingly hard on women who are widowed and wish to remarry.
If the brain isn’t fully developed until 25, then it’ll make it easier for a young wife to mold herself, her thoughts, her ways, her desires, to that of her older husband instead of learning to be “independent.”
So good to hear that Lori! God is good! Continued prayers for your full recovery!!!
Truth Seeker, a wife and a husband would probably not marry if their values and thoughts were not already rooted in goodness and God’s words. The Bible never commands women to change for their ways for their husbands— you change your ways for God. Women should be raised in godly values and have those strong values before they get into marriage. And there is nothing wrong with seeking to be independent before marriage. It makes sense for people to learn how to live and take care of themselves before entering into a family life with more responsibilities. Women who marry later and take their time to find a good husband tend to have more successful marriages, and this is supported by a plethora of data.
Amen Truth Seeker! I married my husband 3 days after my 19th birthday (he was 24 at the time), and he brought me home pregnant from our honeymoon! I completely opened myself to my husband’s care and submitted to him fully in everything right from the beginning. Still do to this day and we have been married nearly 25 years. I’ve never worked, never finished high school much less college and wouldn’t change a thing. I am 100% dependent on my husband to take care of me, and we are a wonderful team! I don’t have an independent bone in my body and am proud of that!!!
You misunderstand me. I meant that it is easier to submit to your husband and change your habits (how you clean, your morning routine, etc.) when you are younger instead of forming your own life and your own goals only to have to surrender them to your husband’s life and goals.
Or they would just live with their “partners” without marrying them, as so many people do anyway.
Seriously, what a ridiculous law!
I was thinking this myself.
We have a daughter who will be 16 next week and if a 22 year old man came sniffing around her, “Christian” or not, he would be lucky to escape with his manhood intact.
At 18, it would be different. But 15?? No way!!
What a wonderful testimony! I will be married a few months before turning twenty and I hope God will give us a honeymoon baby. I dropped out of highschool early and don’t plan on going to college either. YouTube and my father’s genetics are my close friends wren it comes to cleaning and cooking, etc. (My father is very sensitive to synthetic cleaners and mold growth, so he taught us how to thoroughly clean things)
Hi Aleena, your culture is your privilege. Because overall Indian culture remains conservative and values virginity. Your context means young Christian’s learn self control. In the West we are living through a ‘treat your self/self care/self love’ phenomenon that of itself isn’t bad but its extreme consequence is a lack of self control and indulging extreme emotions. Lori is speaking most specifically to the young people of America.
JC. 15 years is young especially if the man in question is 22. Your baby daddy did the right thing in scaring him away, that man was not the one that got away. He was entirely out of line as a ‘Christian’ and very obviously lacked good Christian counsel who would have firmly told him NO! This sounds like a generational curse that needs to be broken. Your children don’t seem to have seen their parents married, why would they want to be married? Two parents who claim to be saved were trying to instruct baby Christian’s from a position that God could not Bless. Your children needed their parents married to take marriage seriously. As a child of parents who made a mockery of marriage I personally had to really work on wanting to genuinely be MARRIED.
This is prudent KAK. Having lived through my first relationship which descended into abuse and addiction I consider myself VERY blessed to have not married at 22. Since then I studied, worked and most importantly found my faith. I hope your children find great partners that will make your heart full and happy as a mother. Because today it’s my mother that is most relieved that her daughter is not being abused. At the time it was my mother pushing marriage.
Had I been older and wiser, I would have recognised the warning signs in my husband, and not married him. Looking back, it’s obvious now, but at just 19 (the age I was when we started dating) I was completely oblivious. I was head-over-heels in love with this “bad boy” who was thrillingly dangerous. And we married quickly, so as to avoid falling into temptation and sin.
Both of my parents tell me now that they predicted our difficulties would happen, that it was obvious, and that I should never have married him. Neither of them mentioned that when we were dating, though.
All I ever wanted to do, from a young age, was get married and raise a family. Age and wisdom would have guided me to find a more suitable life partner to do that with instead of the man I met at a church convention who knocked me off my feet with his motorbike, bad-boy swagger and charm.
Wow..so happy to learn that it was your last treatment of radiation Mrs.Lori Alexander.
Just yesterday I thought about the discomfort you must be going through.
Thank God that everything went well.
Have A Great Day ahead!!?
My mother descended into abuse and addiction 16 years ago. That’s why I fear so much girls getting married so young. Obviously some find great men – I know several who have – but at that age, it’s so easy just to be focused on the “right now” and the feelings at the time and be totally oblivious to the warning signs that would be obvious to a more mature, experienced woman.
My mother also wants me to be free of abuse, but she is no longer a believer so she’s seeing things through the lens of happiness, rather than the lens of what will become of our 4 children if I was to leave him.
*marriage not mother – typo in the very first line!
I think every person is different but I don’t feel a man or woman of 17, 18 or even 19 are old enough to really comprehend what marriage is. I didn’t, I’ll admit I married my 1st husband right out of high school, it didn’t last very long, we loved each other but we weren’t “in love” with each other. It was a heartbreaking and confusing time. My daughter is 23 and will be married within the next few months. I know in my heart, she’s ready.
There’s nothing wrong with a teenager getting married, 16 is age of consent for marriage in half the states in the us.
If children are taught and modeled what marriage was by their parents, then they would be ready for it in their late teens since this is when the hormones are in high gear. It is better to marry than to burn.
In love? Love is an action, love is something you work on daily its not a feeling. You grow in marriage, the fairy tale marriage is not biblical.
I was not a Christian when I met my husband and he was but struggling to be leave the world behind (his upbringing and I did not make it easier). We burned and burned and ended up pregnant before we were married. I was saved during this time and my husband received counsel that it is better to marry than burn so we were married. I was 21 and five months pregnant and my husband was 23. That was a year and a half ago and I’m so grateful to have married young. My husband is helping me develop skills I didn’t learn as a kid and he is loving me and setting a wonderful example of a godly man. Marriage is hard and we are young so at times, foolish but God is the guide and we are just doing our best to follow him. I’m so grateful we are a young family and will get to raise our children with vibrant, God-fearing energy. I’m also glad to read I do get to have a part in my sons courtship!! I was fearful this desire made me a controlling mother.
I’m 15 and honestly really frustrated over the fact I have to wait another 10 years or so until I can date/express interest in young men…granted, I don’t think that marrying girls off as soon as they get periods is a good idea, but if they can cook, clean, and have a good deal of mental maturity (some of which comes with age), then why hold them back? The apostle Paul said better to get married than burn with desire…I think part of the reason kids my age and a bit older engage in premarital sex is because their parents are holding them back from marriage, but they still have desires.
When divorce was illegal back then women had the right to divorce their husband because it was only allowed for an extreme cause and they had to prove it not like today with no-fault divorce that allow them to divorce for whatever reason. Which is why i don’t believe that abusive marriage was a common thing knowing that most people at that time valued the sacred institution of marriage and were more religious and traditional than people today.
This post confirms my experience. I was a rebellious young lady . At 15 I got sober and found Christ. At nearly 17 I met my soon to be husband. Hard working honest man but much older. We had a three month unofficial none sexual courtship ,as I worked for him in the summer when I wasn’t in class. When I was due to go back to school in the fall it was discussed that a future could be seen yet marriage was a must if we were to proceed. He suggested I wait a couple years date guys my own age , to see if I was still interested . I knew if I did that I would be lost in a sea of sexual confusion. And felt strongly that god had put this man in my life. We immediately went to my parents and asked permission to get married . The same week accompanied by my mother we drove to the next state over to get legally married . I’m 31now and while not always easy we have been happily married for 15 years and after 10 years of infertility have been blessed with twin girls. My heart goes out to women in their 20swho neeed to “free” I’m not impressed with where there kind goes and and where their priorities are. They don’t appear more fulfilled , which was a good reminder to me when I started to believe I had missed out on something by not roaming about. While I was very immature when I got married, not getting married would only have extended my immaturity and selfishness. God had used my marriage to help me be more of service to my husband my family and my community. There is no “age” in the Bible when someone is said to get married. It’s all a social construct . While I am protective of my girls I pray that I will be supportive of my girls courting someone one who is safe and honest that will take good care of my girls as they form their own family, regardless of how “ young” or how socially acceptable our culture thinks they are. Since when is trysting in god have anything to do with what spritually sick ppl think. Amen
Age of consent simply means statutory rape no longer applies. It’s not a suggestion that children are ready for marriage.
Here in NZ the age of consent is 16, but to get married is 18. Voting, buying alcohol and tobacco are all the same: 18.
My daughter turns 16 next week and she’s still at school, where she should be, safe under her parents roof. She isn’t even allowed to date yet, let alone consider marriage!
Abuse in marriages was absolutely a common thing, all throughout history. Treating someone badly is a sin, and sin has always been around. There is no new sin under the sun. Why on earth would you think that although every other sin has been raging forever, abuse in marriages is new? That doesn’t make any sense.
you are right on that. I got married when my daughter was 3 and became a Christian shortly thereafter. My daughter’s father was very lax in his parenting until he became a Christian when my daughter was 13 or so. The young man in question had been a part of Bible study and dinners at their house for over a year. I thought a courtship was appropriate, carefully supervised and chaperoned. I didn’t expect for my daughter to marry at 15 but courtship with a goal for marriage once she was 17 or 18 years old. My grandmother married at 17 to my grandfather, who was 25 and they were seeing each other for 2 years. My mom married my dad when she was 15 and he was 19.
Even in the 1960s, 25% of marriages ended in divorce, and since they needed fault, claims of “abuse” by women were rampant. I doubt that 10% of them were true. There was a person recently who looked into the cases of 67 women who recently claimed domestic violence by their husbands, and found only one case out of 67 that fit what most people would consider a serious case of domestic violence. Women have been claiming fake DV for a long, long time. It is even mentioned in the novel A History of Tom Jones (1749).
This is stupid. 15 was a common age to begin courtship (which does not involve sex), leading to marriage perhaps some years later. In Latin America, the quincenaera celebration is for girls who turn 15 and are ready for courtship. In the US, it was Sweet Sixteen, the common age of “debut into society.”
Most husbands are busy working hard and providing for their families in the harsh world outside their home. They rarely care how you cook or organize your morning routine!
I’m so glad to hear you have finished treatment and that it was easier this time around. How wonderful! My very best wishes Lori
Violet, I know many women don’t share a morning routine with their husbands, but many do. My point isn’t about cooking or morning routines specifically. This concept applies to everything and anything a man might want his wife to do a certain way. I wish more people could see the general principal instead of getting so hung up on the details.
You’re wrong, it said in the bible woman can get married when they had pass the flower of their age and God’s will for women is for them to marry young which means in the fullness of their youth which is in their late teens early 20’s.
I was watching a House Hunters episode where these parents were buying their daughter a home so she could have a nice place to live while going through 4 years of pharmacy school.
They told their daughter, who already went thru undergrad and was now going further with the aforementioned pharmacy school: “With a kitchen, now you’ll have to learn how to cook!”
It was a great reminder to me that age and degrees don’t magically make someone prepared, not only for marriage, but for life in general. I must make sure I teach my children how to do basic things like cook! I couldn’t believe their daughter was as old as she was and didn’t know how to cook.
I was married at age 19, and my husband was 23. I haven’t regretted it ever! It was the best choice for me. We have been married 5 years now. I have used Created to be his Helpmeet like a text book, and it has helped us to have a glorious marriage!
I think it really just depends. I know girls who were as young as 13 having sex and no they were not being abused. They were burning with passion like the Bible talks about. I am 23, and I know four young women who have had abortions. It all seems so distressing and unnecessary! I would rather my daughter be married young and face the hardships of marriage than face the hardships and consequences of living a confused, tumultuous life of sin!
I am so frustrated with the general Christian view of young marriage – grandparents are constantly asking my daughters, “What are you going to do when you graduate?” and telling them, they should not get married, but go to university (!) and become doctors or lawyers and travel, travel, travel. My husband and I have had to re-advise our older girls that the grandparents, although Christian, are not giving the most sound advice and it is not lining up with the Bible.
The Savior didn’t have a master’s degree, nor any degree at all. Just a skill in carpentry. He didn’t even have a place to sleep, nor a savings fund, or retirement.
Yet Christian women and their parents want them to have degrees, find them a man with a good paying job (Christ didn’t have even a good paying job) a house, and a nice car. Ironically this week we had 800k plus new unemployed people.
In the US, relationships are treated as a financial transaction. A believer woman will not consider a godly man if he doesn’t check this or that checkbox (99% of Christian women are like this).
This leaves the majority of broke young kids unsuitable for marriage according to our highly hypergamist society.
The most conservative of them are still somewhat feminist in their approach to life. I’m not the only one saying this. This is why there’s such a raise in red pill knowledge around male Christians.
It’s’s politically incorrect to say 99 percent of Christian women are like this. But just like the Cretans sometimes we can, and should generalize.
Women pusged Christian men away. We wanted a godly woman but you wanted far more than this. Live with the consequences of Christian men avoiding marriage or finding marriage abroad.
Thanks for sharing this. I think there is a lot to learn from your story. I am seeing a lot of sad people who wish they were grandparents or are trying to pretend to be “grandparents” to dogs. It’s really changing our society because people try to justify their and their childrens’ choices, but you can see the desire for grandchildren is often still there.