Why Do We Encourage “Early” Marriages?
 |
| “With my body, I thee worship…” |
Dear Young Man,
We live in a world where married life and family with multiple children is scorned. Values have changed so much on the issue over the last one hundred years that what people used to see as normal and noble is conceptualized as harmful, selfish, ignorant and laughable. Marriage first gave way to aspirations of education in a capitalist dream of improved workers and wages. Young men needed to get degrees in order to be successful. This put them four years behind their parents and grandparents, but the remarkable benefits of a Bachelor’s Degree in 1960’s and 70’s was worth it.
Then, in 1974, women entered the workforce with the same standards. This drove the price of work down in the US market substantially, impoverishing the US blue collar worker and making it impossible for women who wanted to stay home to be able to do so with their children. Now both men and women had to delay marriage for education and work in order to be “successful.” This was okay, it was thought, because women’s equality occurred simultaneously with the Sexual Revolution and birth control, where everyone could have sex and not worry about pregnancy. The conservative Christian “Right” in the US abstained from the “free sex” but embraced the educational standards as absolute. This put Christian young people in a bind that you can still feel today, although the proliferation of porn and masturbation amongst Christian young men in the last ten years makes the whole argument for resistance almost completely unnecessary anymore.
With no-fault divorce, birth control, women in the workplace, and the sacrosanct role of education, the sexual core of healthy marriage collapsed. It was no longer needed and painted as an “oppressive institution” for both women and men, leading to the explosion of male “incels” and older, unmarried women that we see today. With everyone free to do what they pleased, children were increasingly raised in single parent, abusive homes. This causes a plethora of disorders and sexual orientations, because young men cannot properly form the male gender role without intimate contact and imitation of their fathers, it also made them despise women and intimate relationships. Once this became “normal,” these new orientations were popularized, legalized and promoted within wider culture. This brought the two thousand year reign of Christian culture to an end in the West. The Church can’t exist without Christian marriage.
The argument for the vast benefits of education have increasingly ceased to be persuasive. A Bachelors is now useless without years of experience and good connections in the business world, and they are hundreds of percent more expensive. If you already have good connections or a good business idea, college is a bad investment that does not pay proportional dividends. Simply starting a business is far more profitable and “honorable.” Without a Masters, most people are not competitive as professionals. This means that the initial four year delay to life has now been extended to seven, and ten if work experience between degrees is pursued. This means that young men have masturbated away their top testosterone levels and desire for bonding and marriage, the top years that marriage would be immensely pleasurable and rewarding, and the years where they are physically the most able to deal with multiple young children. Young women have lost their prime childbearing years when babies are the healthiest, happiest, and easiest to bear. They lose their beauty and discover that they are not attractive to older men wanting to date once they’ve established themselves well enough to be attractive to women with secular values (men in their late 30’s or early 40’s). The number of children a couple has without complete exhaustion dwindles to just a few, and the nuclear family becomes an expression of luxury and largess, instead of the bedrock of an booming economy, a fountain of youth, and the source of Christian strength.
Now those who primarily identify themselves by their Christian Faith are a minority. We exist in a cultural remnant like the Jews did for so long. In order to propagate our faith and ensure the Light of the Gospel is not put out by the demonic darkness of our age, not surrendering to the secular values that seek to destroy the Truth of God’s Word, we have to continue with our tradition of Christian sexuality, marriage, family, and child-rearing, while also being persecuted and scorned. It is not a question if you will suffer for your faith and your lifestyle choice, but when you will face it, and if you will be willing to suffer for it. If you are willing to make Christ the Lord of everything in your life, willing to submit to godly standards and family values, and willing to confine your sexual nature to the God-given confines of a “One Man One Woman” covenantal marriage, then you will suffer for it just like the saints of the Early Church did, sometimes paying with their lives. In Scripture, we are taught to “resist to the end,” and this is what is necessary for us to pick up our Cross and follow Christ. This means that our willingness to engage in covenantal marriage is a point we have to be willing to keep, no matter what the cost.
Reasons for Consideration
There are four arguments that come to mind on my part against secularized Christians who want to embrace the world’s teaching on marriage and family -
1) Biological - God created us to have a biological imperative to start families when humans are in their teens and twenties because of the design of our bodies. This is undeniable. Those who attempt to teach complete abstinence must be very clear that only a small minority will make it to marriage as virgins. Childbearing is easier younger. We have more energy. Women cannot wait until their thirties to have high quality children. Men can barely stand to wait hormonally, too, and in all honesty no one actually waits - leading to the huge amount of illicit activity they experience and addictions that they develop.
2) Cultural - Human culture has always encouraged younger vs. older marriage when it is healthy and happy. East Asian cultures universally encouraged marriage at the age of physical maturity. Christian cultures around the world were the same. It was seen as an important building block to human flourishing, creating happy and healthy families, and keeping the young spiritually pure. You’ve read my book on Confucian Ethics and see how important marriage was in China up until the last 40 years, when the family collapsed and left people without a moral compass. The same can be said of the US. The collapse of young, sexually-vibrant, morally sound monogamy has destroyed more than just the people refusing to partake in it because of secular, materialistic, and ungodly values. It has also destroyed children and has lead to the normalization of “alternative lifestyles” that promote sexual pleasure and even self-destructive masochism, over the joys of relationships and self-sacrifice.
3) Demographic - The world is heading into a depopulation tsunami. It’s not just me saying this. Elon Musk is saying this. The UN is saying this. China’s population will halve by 2050. The US is also falling off a demographic cliff. The global elites think that they can open borders and replace failing populations with immigrants, but immigrants stop having kids in their first generation in the new economy, so it is only a short term solution, as the whole population worldwide collapses. There will be a huge opportunity here for those willing to stand up and continue to have traditional families. It will be hard, but if we stand up and continue to reproduce at a reasonable rate, we can be a huge force for good, serving God and bringing more people to Christ.
4) Calling - God obviously has put this next step on your heart and you are spending a lot of time and energy on it already. It is taking up significant bandwidth. You could use the same amount of time you currently invest into building and maintaining a relationship to actually maintain a marital relationship. How many husbands and wives talk for 6 hours a day? Why is it okay to use this huge amount of time to find companionship, understanding, encouragement, etc, when unmarried, but wrong when married? You would probably use less time and be less distracted if you were just already married! If this is what you are spiritually called to, it makes you a better Christian, and it helps to stabilize and focus you on bigger things and even higher callings, then it cannot be a bad thing.
Practical Next Steps
1) Come up with a plan that includes what you can do for short, middle and long-term financial freedom. It is possible to get married and the first few years rent a place, depending on both spouses to work. This normally can’t last more than a short time, however, if God blesses the marriage with children. Therefore, it is essential to know where you will live, how you will finish your school, and what skills you have to find a job.
2) Develop practical business skills - learn how to sell, make presentations, use social media and other platforms to help yourself find positions and your boss to increase his effectiveness. Make up a resume. Start looking at part time and online tends. Ask for recommendations about start-ups and practical admin, copywriting, editing, and social media management.
3) All business take investment. The question is where you can get the investment? Will you ask a bank or an institution to trust you and pay back exorbitant rates, or will you work with friends, family, or even work with a family business, to invest in forming your family, getting established in practical and sustainable business relationships that will allow you to mature into complete and prosperous independence? While Americans like to believe in a myth of self-made independence, the truth is that you will always be dependent on someone. You need to think about who that could be.
4) Willingness to work, to be inconvenienced, to suffer, to discipline yourself and do what is right over what is easy, is the primary requirement for a young man to establish himself in the world and in a reasonably-aged marriage in his early twenties. As long as this work ethic and desire to push against the world and towards a Christian definition of success is present, everything is possible. It just requires prayer, commitment and community. When you have people to support you and help you make education and financial plans, everything becomes much easier.
Summary
Obviously, no one can make up your mind for you. What I call “Early Marriage” is actually just marriage at a reasonable age historically, what would have been considered “old” a few centuries ago. Being able to work towards marriage in your early twenties, instead of trying to maintain an artificial goal of late twenties or early thirties, is completely logical and natural. It still requires self-discipline, discernment, values, and willingness to suffer for others. It is not an “immature decision” based on passions and carnal desires.
The common accusations that younger marriage lead to higher divorce rates and result in making the mistake of choosing the wrong spouse are all invalid if you do this the Christian way - 1) If you do not live with your girlfriend before marriage, saving yourself sexually, the success rates are higher than secular marriages! Scientific, peer-reviewed, multi-year psychological studies prove that this first bias against young marriage is based on a false assumption. Such traditional marriage fare far better overall. 2) The idea that you “grow out” of a relationship as you mature is also not based on evidence, and it is psychologically untenable. The male prefrontal cortex does harden later than women, settling around 25. Habits of life, personality traits, and opinions become less flexible, but this is exactly why you need to marry when you can effectively “grow together” and “become one” with your wife in personality and opinion. Without this extra psychological flexibility, you will continually be trying to find someone who matches your preferences exactly, who doesn’t exist, and forcing your way on someone in a relationship is unfair. I’ve seen and counseled many such older men, who are perpetually unable to settle and have wildly unrealistic expectations about the kind of women they will eventually marry. After marriage, there is still a long process of learning and growing that you need to be able to do. You will always have stress and many issues to work through over a long period of time. You have to be willing to stick it out and suffer with your wife. If you are, eventually, your Christian marriage will result in more children, better sex, better long-term fidelity and success, and a more traditional family structure that glorifies God and insures that the Church survives for another generation in this corrupt and fallen world.
As you already know, I’m a fan of what you are trying to do. Finding the right girl is key, extremely hard, and once you find one that shares your values and will have you, hold on to her with your life. “Her price is far above rubies!”
I pray God gives you wisdom and help in discerning what you should do next!
Sincerely,
Bp. Joseph
Comments
Post a Comment