I am a single christian man.
I have just recently been on a date with a highly attractive and stunning woman. She has answered a few of my questions quite appropriately, however there is one question which I did not enjoy the answer to.
The question was regarding marriage. When should one get married? Her answer, like many, was a specific age. 25. To many individuals this may seem practical and even wise, however I find this answer mostly devastating. Lets look at the reasoning for this answer.
She says one would have the appropriate amount of experience in life to better understand the commitment and other details involved, that the maturity level would be appropriate, and that marriage can be distracting especially for college students.
My questions are: does one have to experience an event to glean the truth from it? what constitutes maturity? and finally, is not life always distracting?
With the idea of experience, I do not need to experience the affects of pot to understand that it is detrimental to my health. I do not need to experience rape to understand that it is a despicable, horrendous act. Adam and Eve understood that it was wrong to eat of the tree, they did not need to experience sin to understand of its existence.
Many individuals prove before they are legal adults that they understand responsibility and adulthood. We are proven that the young at even the ripe age of 18 understand life altering choices by their commitment to the military. Those individuals show that they do understand and are capable of understanding governing principles. Very similar life altering principles are used in marriage.
For thousands of years younger marriages have occurred successfully. We mostly see an issue in today’s society. What happened? Perhaps we have abandoned the core ideas and principle necessary in understanding these commitments. Who is to blame that the younger generation doesn’t understand or act appropriately? I say it is the parents responsibility to treat their young adults as actual, real, live, adults. The rest is up to them. Life happens. Regardless of where you are or who your with. Why not spend it with your mate?
The other practical issue I find with her answer is biology. If we examine the biology of both the woman and the man, the best time to have children is at the younger ages. Why then does society discourage it? Also her answer would require her God fearing husband to be celibate for over half of his life! A man reaches puberty at around 13. So his biology is constantly reminding him that he needs a wife and everyone else is telling him to wait? Why is everyone so afraid?
A final practical issue is she sees that the search may not even begin until that age. I’ve been searching for years and have not found one yet. She will have squandered valuable time in searching simply for “experience”.
It really is a silly secular idea that a marriage is “life draining”, when really God has intended it to be “life giving”.
I would point anyone to check out Mark Gungor. His series titled “Laugh Your Way To A Better Marriage” is packed with good rational truth in this arena.