April 12, 2005
Marrying Too Late
by Joe Martin in marriage at 06:10pmYes, that’s right, over a period of 40 years, we have managed to cut the so-called “teen birth rate” nearly in half.
Unfortunately, the rate of marriage among these people has fallen even faster, and the out-of-wedlock birth rate has risen substantially. Which suggests that the problem isn’t that our kids are having sex “too early” (at least by any reasonable historical standard), but that they’re getting married too late.
Amen, amen, and amen! I have been arguing privately, for a while now, that the problem with premarital sex is that young people hit the peak of their sexual drive during their late teens, but are often prevented from marrying until their mid-20′s. I strongly agree with the Christian principle of controlling bodily urges, but at some point it becomes lunacy to pretend that one can ignore them entirely for prolonged periods of time.
The rest of Ken’s post discusses the problems posed by the antiquated American educational system, the long process of education leading to a nearly worthless high-school diploma and delayed marriage. But I would also like to point the finger at the attitudes of our parents’ generation. The overwhelming perception that I hear on a regular basis is that teenagers are not — and cannot — be mature enough to marry. That one must finish college before even considering marriage and a family. That the stresses of college life and family life are far too great for any person to endure. Or, at the very least, the pressures are great enough to make success nearly impossible instead of completely impossible.
The argument that I hear most regularly is that young adults grow and mature an incredible amount between the ages of 18 and 21. Therefore (the argument goes) it is most unwise to pick a life partner before 21 because they will be a completely different person four years later. I have a question however. What causes that vast change in maturity? Is it caused by the mere passage of time? I think not. I think the change in perception (and maturity) is caused by taking on increased responsibility, living away from home, and making one’s own decisions.
While it is only anecdotal, I can offer personal evidence of this opinion. I will graduate from college in three weeks. I have seen great personal growth over the last four years. I consider more factors when making decisions, I think more strategically about finances, I know more about cooking and buying groceries, and I can better plan for future events than I ever did in high school. I experienced this increase in maturity not because four calendar years passed, but because I was forced to take responsibility for these areas in my own life. I strongly believe that I would have made these adjustments earlier in life had I been forced to bear responsibility for myself earlier in life. If I had taken responsibility for monthly bills, food, and other recurring costs while I was in high school, I would have been more prepared for college and perhaps even ready for marriage during college.
I will be marrying a wonderful woman in less than three months. I have already started to consider what life as a father might be like. I think parents all too often try to keep their children cocooned and protected from life as long as possible. I keep coming back to one central question: do I want to treat my children as children as long as I can? I do not think so. I want to push knowledge, wisdom, and responsibility on my children as quickly as possible. I want to move them from children, to young men and women, to mature adults as quickly as I can.
The world can be an ugly place full of hard decisions and morally ambiguous situations. I will feel far more comfortable about their ability to make those decisions if I know that they are mature and strong. If I have watched them making their own decisions from an early age, I will have no fears about their ability to make decisions when I am not around and their friends are pressuring them into unwise choices.
If my children assume responsibility for their own decisions early in life, I will have no doubts about their ability to find a mate and start a family at a young age. It is possible to manage both college and a family simultaneously. I have seen several of my friends do so. Isn’t it past time that the older generation quit pushing unrealistic expectations of decades long celibacy and started helping to prepare the younger generation for the responsibility that comes with a fully functional sexual system?
As Ken concluded: In short, why should our teenagers be children rather than adults, and why do we think that children can ever safely be left in possession of working reproductive organs?
April 12th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
This post reminds me of a few common sayings. First: “The older I get, the smarter my parents become.” Second: “Young people these days are in such a hurry to grow up.” Third: “Aging is mandatory but maturing is optional.”
Some things only become clear with the perspective of time and experience. How to raise children is one subject everyone knows lots about when they’re young. As they get older and actually have children, parents find they know less and less. …and maybe their parents weren’t so dense after all.
I know people of all ages and I don’t think that sexual purity comes from great self-control so much as through wisdom and obedience. Those who are wise are humble and obedient toward their parents when they are young. The wise will listen to and obey God when they are “independent.” Some people never learn humility and obedience and they continue to have children out-of-wedlock, at any age.
Finally, life is long and you have already indicated that you benefitted from your “single” time. In thirty years you will feel that you were never single at all and wonder why young people are in such a hurry to get through that stage of their lives. Then you’ll probably say, as the elderly have throughout the ages, that “young people these days are in such a hurry to grow up!”
April 13th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
Amen and amen and amen. But what do we “older people” do about it? Almost no one is saying what you are saying here, and the guys sure aren’t itching to take the responsibility of marriage at age 18 or 19. Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, and may you be an example to others.
April 14th, 2005 at 7:20 am
boo-daddy: I’ve been steadily discovering for the last four years (ever since I left my parent’s direct control in fact) that my parents knew a lot more than I ever gave them credit for. What I wrote about isn’t a subject that I know a lot about. The closer I get to marriage, the more I realize that I don’t know. But I wanted to share some personal observations (and frustrations!) that I have noticed during the last four years as I began to mature.
A large portion of sexual purity does come through wisdom. We discussed the topic a little in a recent meeting of Christian Student Fellowship on campus. Part of wisdom is knowing what situations to avoid as potentially dangerous. It’s hard to fall into sexual sin if I don’t give sin an opportunity. At the same time, Paul does admonish us (as my father reminded me) in 1 Corinthians 7:9 “If they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn”. Part of wisdom is a willingness to marry if sexual temptation is great. For this post, I wanted to write specifically about the modern roadblocks to marriage.
April 14th, 2005 at 7:26 am
Sherry: Maybe one thing the “older people” can do is to say what I’m saying here. If it’s better to marry than to burn, I should be emphasizing that to my peers at every available opportunity. But my peers also need to hear that message from “authority figures” as well. Marriage is a huge responsibility — the closer I get the more I realize that. But I think my generation fully realizes what a huge responsibility it is and are scared of the entire idea.
I would guess that perhaps we should put more of an emphasis on preparing teenagers (of both genders) for marriage, rather than just preparing them for college and working on giving them a resistance to drunken frat parties. If Christian and secular society works towards that goal perhaps more men would be ready to take the responsibility of marriage at an earlier age.
April 15th, 2005 at 9:30 am
All I can say is that I’m so thankful that I didn’t marry any of the guys I dated in my teens and twenties, and that I waited until 35 to marry.
Marrying young meant something different in an age when only a tiny percentage of the population lived to the ripe old age of 40 and thus reproduction became an evolutionary imperative.
April 15th, 2005 at 9:38 am
beloml: Can I assume that most of the guys you dated in your teens and twenties were simply too immature? Would the situation have been different if the men were more mature?
Marrying young may have been different when life spans were shorter, but the fact remains that many men and women are producing children that they’re not taking responsibility for. Just because the lifespan is longer doesn’t mean that the child-bearing stage has simply been moved backwards by 10 or 20 years.
April 16th, 2005 at 2:49 am
[...] ertarian blog, is about to graduate from college, and he’s getting married—and he thinks young people are waiting too late to grow up and get married! Yes, I talked about t [...]
April 18th, 2005 at 11:26 am
Amen and amen!
My fiance and I (also gettimg married in 3 months), are very confident we could have done just as well to get married about 2 years ago. We postponed on her parents stipulation that we wait until she had graduated. The reason: putting off marriage until after you graduate is a good way to make sure you graduate on time. The irony: both of us are moving on to work toward a doctorate after the wedding. No extra motivation required.
I’ve got plans to do a post on the same subject… eventually. KB