Posted on 02/22/2022 7:38:04 AM PST by Kaslin
Marriage is a gift from God. But marriage is in a sad state in America today, and we all suffer because of it.
I read recently about the movie star Joan Crawford who was legendary in her promiscuity. As her rival Bette Davis once reportedly sneered about her, “She slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie.”
Apparently, in the miserable and difficult childhood of Lucille LeSouer (who later adopted the name Joan Crawford), there was a wound from the absence of her father, according to Shaun Considine’s book, Bette and Joan, which became the basis for the mini-series, The Feud.
Considine quotes someone else about Crawford’s childhood: “Being abandoned so often traumatized Joan…She spent the rest of her life looking for a father---in husbands, lovers, studio executives, and directors.” To this Considine adds, “When she found the ideal candidate, Joan felt safe, secure, validated. In time she expected them to leave, to reject her. When they didn’t, she grew suspicious, then resentful, and found ways to make them depart.” So sad.
So far from God’s design, which is one man, one woman for life. His prohibitions against sex outside of marriage are for our good.
A fascinating article in a recentWall Street Journal (February 5-6, 2022), highlighted the findings of a study based on the marriages and many divorces among 50,000 women in the National Survey of Family Growth.
One can infer from the article’s headline that it’s best to avoid cohabitating before marriage: “Too Risky to Wed in Your 20s? Not If You Avoid Cohabiting First: Research shows that marrying young without ever having lived together with a partner makes for some of the lowest divorce rates.”
Brad Wilcox and Lyman Stone, the article’s authors, observe, “The idea that cohabitation is risky is surprising, given that a majority of young adults believe that living together is a good way to pretest the quality of your partners and your partnership.” But couples who live together before they wed “are less likely to be happily married and more likely to land in divorce court.”
Through the years, similar studies have found the same results: to prepare best for marriage, save sex for marriage. Even in the archives of UCLA, they cite a 1990s study from the Family Research Center in Washington, D.C., which says: “Other findings indicate that saving sex for marriage reduces the risk of divorce, and monogamous married couples are the most sexually satisfied Americans.” If you’re unfaithful before marriage, why should you be faithful after getting married?
In previous generations, cohabitation was viewed as more of a scandal. Of course, not all marriages were good by any means.
My dad used to tell a story where he and mom were playing bridge one day against another couple. The woman kept yelling and berating her partner at every turn.
Finally, dad asked her, “Are you two married?”
And she snapped, "Of course we are! Do you think I'd live in sin with an idiot like that?"--- pointing to her henpecked husband. When I shared this anecdote with a friend, he thought that that story might discourage someone from considering marriage instead of cohabitation. Well, without proper preparation, bad marriages happen. (Sadly, sometimes even with preparation.)
I thank God that I have 42 years of empirical evidence that I married a saint. After all, my fantastic wife has put up with me for more than four decades. Thankfully, we spent more time preparing for the marriage than we did for the wedding.
I write this on Valentine’s Day 2022---when we celebrate love and romance. Christian author Bill Federer notes that the best historical evidence is that Valentine’s Day customs go back to a third century Christian leader, who fell afoul of the Roman Empire and was martyred on February 14, 269.
The reason for St. Valentine’s martyrdom was not only his rejection of Roman idolatry but also because he defied the emperor, who forbade men in the Roman army to marry. Writes Federer: “Roman Emperor Claudius II needed more soldiers to fight the invading Goths. He believed that men fought better if they were not married, so he banned traditional marriage in the military.”
But some of these soldiers wanted to be married, and Valentine secretly performed weddings for them. When the Roman leaders found out about this, he was arrested and sentenced to death. The jailer, who had a sick daughter, asked his prisoner, the holy man, to pray for his child. She got better, and the saint wrote her a short, encouraging note, signing it from “your Valentine.”
Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” That includes our relationships.
God’s design for marriage is for our good, and it helps spare people a lot of unnecessary unhappiness.
“I thank God that I have 42 years of empirical evidence that I married a saint. After all, my fantastic wife has put up with me for more than four decades.”
Same.
“Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” That includes our relationships.
God’s design for marriage is for our good, and it helps spare people a lot of unnecessary unhappiness.”
A marriage apart from God’s truth and grace would seem impossible.
Yes.
As I see it it puts the option on the table that either or both could always walk away form the relationship, this then lingers into the marriage.
Love is something we can learn and actually should learn, It grows in adversity and without such true love is often not be attained.
IMHO the marriage contract gives a couple the glue needed to hold together when things get rough and after struggling realize what true commitment and dedication to a fellow soul is really worth. To have one you can and will depend on in all things is a gift only surpassed but our Lords sacrifice and offering of salvation.
That is what marriage can offer.
Interesting article but very unscientific. People that wed without cohabiting are likely to have strong religious backgrounds and a mindset that would make divorce much less likely. The difference in divorce rate is due to differences in groups not the effect of cohabitation.
Many of the 20-45 year marriages still going strong, from my acquaintances, cohabited.
Plus when you are married and your spouse is getting testy over something, you can always retort “I just can’t get over the fact that you would actually marry someone like me who would do some heinous thing like x.”, “X” being all the usual suspects.
True, my wife and i lived together for 20+ years and considered ourselves married but never had a “ceremony” until we had children.
Marriage is in bad shape because of gay marriage and being able to marry your cat. They made it a secular ceremony, rather than what God intended. The state has made a complete mockery of marriage.
Personally, I’ve always been against that “living together” custom that emerged with the boomers around Woodstock time. I didn’t do it and have been married 45 years. All four of my kids lived together and all got married. Some are pushing the twenty year mark.
Don’t try to use facts with religious people.
But think of the world our grandparents lived in. The ability to amuse yourself was not nearly what it is now. Pretty much to entertain yourself, you read books, or maybe went to the movies once a week. Basically to entertain meant interacting with others, and that meant there was much more pressure to conform to social norms, which meant, getting married. The thought of being called a “spinster” or an “old maid” was abhorrent to women, just as a “confirmed bachelor” was to men (because we all knew what it was the code word for).
Now with all of this technology and social media, you can scratch that itch without even thinking about marriage.
Well said
Even if you take all the moral aspects out of cohabitating and look at it strictly from a secular point of view, it makes no sense. The statistics are clear: living together before marriage increases your chances of divorce later on.
“Marriage is a gift from God.”
Marriage is a contract created by man for the best interest of the two and others, like businesses and if kids start to arrive. It is business, not religious to be legal and wasn’t recognized until around 1549 and was based upon the Sarum manual. But the “vows” of that time placed the man in charge of the family on a non equal status. While the Bible includes verses on love, marriage, and weddings, there aren’t any specific marriage vows mentioned. In both the Old and New Testaments, the hierarchy in a marriage is to place God first, the husband second as head of the household, and the wife subservient to the husband. Very different from today’s vows.
wy69
I don’t apply jewish rules to non-jews and I don’t apply Christian rules to non-Christians.
The real things that keep people together are compatibility and shared goals and values.
In earlier times many people had multiple marriages because of the shorter life expectancy. My grandfather’s mother died when he was a child and his father remarried—that wasn’t so good for my grandfather (apparently his stepmother fit the stereotype of stepmothers) but I have a lot of second cousins whom I like very much, who would never have been born if not for that second marriage. My Revolutionary War ancestor had three wives. Many more examples in my family tree.
So--cohabiting is just a symptom. The fix the divorce rate, people need to become more religious and have mindsets that make divorce less likely.
One can infer from the article’s headline that it’s best to avoid cohabitating before marriage:
....................................................
Big hoorah to the author for using the word “infer”, correctly.
>>>IMHO the marriage contract gives a couple the glue needed to hold together when things get rough and after struggling realize what true commitment and dedication to a fellow soul is really worth. <<<
The state shredded that contract did it not back in the 70s? Between no fault divorce and the family court ordering the man to pay huge sums of money to the woman, did the govt not incentivize women to leave their man when the going gets rough? Instead of glue it seems to be that that marriage is now nothing more than a temporary agreement to stay together for life. Both spouses can choose to remain married, but either can opt out at a moment’s notice. Because it’s often financially ruinous for a man to leave, he may be in the “cheaper to keep her mindset” if things are not to his liking. That is the only “glue” holding a marriage together I can see.
My grandpa’s father died when grandpa was 2 years old. Grandpa’s mother remarried, then she died when grandpa was 5 years old, then his step father remarried. He then had 2 parents that were not blood related to him and according to grandpa they loved him as their own.
Folks took their responsibilities seriously in those days.
What fact, many of the 20+ marriages I know still going all all in the religious community.
That is all anecdotal.
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