I will tell my son to never marry unless he married a woman from an upper middle class family (similar to my family of origin) who has a college education and is established in her job. I’ll also suggest to him that he marry when he is in his thirties.
I fell for a woman with no degree who does not put her husband in the top three priorities of her life. Not Biblical–husband and wife should place one another at the top of each other’s priorities. When they take care of each other, then they are better suited to care for children and responsibilities that are of much less importance than their immediate family. My wife is from a different background and does not appreciate the finer things that I think are imperative to properly developing children to be strong contributors to society. Further, I have had more “life experience” than she, but any advice I give (based on my experience) is treated as “talking down to her.” She never had a male role model in her life, the child of divorce, and was allowed to walk all over her stepfather. As a result, we have marriage troubles now.
As much as I wish it were not the case, marriage is a financial arrangement as much as it is a match of two people emotionally and spiritually.
Men must be VERY careful whom they marry… and yes, it would be wise for most of us to consider not marrying at all. Courts default child custody to the mother (though this is less trendy nowadays), so if divorce should happen you can expect to lose your children and half of everything you worked hard to provide during the marriage (especially bad for those of us whose wives have not contributed financially to the marriage.)
