The Creepy Push by Evangelicals for Early Marriage
With news that people are getting married later in life, if at all, some conservative Christians, in the past few years, have been pushing Christians to get married real early, say at age 18 or 19, or some suggesting age 21 or 22.
I don’t know why people are getting married later, though I might be able to come up with a few theories. I don’t know what the solution is, but I know what it is not: pushing kids to marry before age 25.
I found this long, mostly nauseating article at Christianity Today:
(Link): The Case For Early Marriage, by Mark Regnerus, first published in 2009
It’s a four or five page editorial, I’ve only seen the first two pages, and I am already fed up with it. I will address the author’s comments a bit at a time.
After mentioning that most Christians are having sex outside of marriage he (the author, Regnerus), makes these statements:
“What to do? Intensify the abstinence message even more? No. It won’t work. The message must change, because our preoccupation with sex has unwittingly turned our attention away from the damage that Americans—including evangelicals—are doing to the institution of marriage by discouraging it and delaying it.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that Christians have made much ado about sex but are becoming slow and lax about marriage…
Another indicator of our shifting sentiment about the institution is the median age at first marriage, which has risen from 21 for women and 23 for men in 1970 to where it stands today: 26 for women and 28 for men, the highest figures since the Census Bureau started collecting data about it.
— end —
Regnerus’ only concern is with “young” Christians (ages teens to 20s). How ageist. How about Christian women today who are age 35, 45, etc., who want to get married but have been unable to? Why is the spot light only focused on the 20 somethings by pastors, Christian blogs, and Christian magazines?
I suspect the hand wringing over young singles not getting married young may have something to do with fertility, given how often this author laments that women’s “childbearing” years are passing them by. He seems primarily concerned with getting ’em married young so that kids can be produced.
This point leads me to another: the author, Regnerus, makes several unfounded assumptions; here is one:
Aside from being ageist – where is your concern for age 40+ women who want marriage? – Christians need to understand that some Christians are highly ambivalent about having children (they don’t care if they have children or not), while others are so firm in knowing they want none, they consider themselves what is known as “child free.”
A Christian should not push for marriage on the sole or primary basis that marriage is about “baby making.”
The author assumes that churches are hyping celibacy too much, but not touting the greatness of marriage nearly enough.
Oh get a clue, pal!
Maybe the celibacy message was poured on thick among teens back in the 1980s or 1990s and a bit today, but if you are a Christian virgin over the age of 30 today, you hear nothing from pastors or Christian blogs about the topic! It is just assumed that older Christians who have never married are having sex.
This author’s “solution,” which is for churches to preach and hype on marriage EVEN MORE than they already are doing (and have been doing for 40 or more years now) is quite similar to what Candice Watters wrote about this subject, and she was wrong too – I gave her the smack down (Link): here.
The author comments about how the average age of men and women for marriage has risen, and he uses the phrase “our shifting sentiment about the institution” in introducing this issue. The ‘rising age’ might not be an expression of sentiment – do not assume that because women are marrying at age 27 that they prefer this; there may be plenty that wanted marriage by 25 but it did not happen until 27.
I certainly felt I would be married by age 30 to 35. I never expected to still be unmarried by age 40+. Do not assume I, or by extension, any other woman, delayed singleness this long because I am expressing “anti marriage” sentiment. One cannot marry if one received no marriage proposals. (I received one years ago but had to break things off.)
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