4 Benefits of Marrying Young
A recent article on Yahoo extolled “The Benefits of Marrying Later in Life.” The writer, who waited until age 46 to marry, listed the benefits of delaying marriage:
– Learning to love herself and accept her self-worth
– Time to become her own person
– Benefit of knowing who she is
– Experiencing life as her own complete person
With all due respect to the author, her list looks like a recipe for perpetual singleness. A decade or more of doing what’s best for “me” and learning to love and complete “myself” is not the best way to prepare for the sacrifices and selflessness required to be one half of a couple. Be honest: Would you want to marry someone who has spent two entire decades of her life “learning to love herself”? She’s going to be a tough act to follow.
According to the Pew Research Center, the median age for marriage in the United States has risen to a record 28.7 for men and 26.5 for women, which means that half are older than the median when they marry. Marriage overall has declined as well; barely half of Americans are currently married, a record low, compared to 72% in 1960.
But those averages don’t tell the whole story. More and more in our society, success is defined as progressing along a pathway that includes high school, college, graduate or professional school, a career with a 6-figure salary, and, after a long succession of “practice” relationships, perhaps marriage and children (if the woman’s AARP-eligible eggs hold out that long).
Of course, it hasn’t always been that way. Until the early 1900s, no one had ever heard the words “teenager” and “adolescence.” Upon reaching the age of maturity (usually in the late teens), young people were expected to court and marry in short order. If a 20-something lived in his parents’ basement, he usually had a good excuse — such as missing hands and feet, or being in a permanent comatose state. In the book From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth Century America, Beth Bailey describes the societal changes that led to our current dating and marriage culture and the new phase of life we now know as extended adolescence:
Because young people were released, to a great extent, from adult responsibilities and decisions, the act of choosing a lifelong mate did not seem so immediately important. Within youth culture, the emphasis in courtship shifted to the social and recreational process of dating…
In a span of about 50 years, we went from supervised courtship with the expectation that marriage would be the end result to casual, recreational dating and, eventually, cohabitation as an accepted precursor or replacement for marriage. As a result of these cultural changes, not only has the marriage age crept steadily upward, but so has the divorce rate. Currently around 50% of new marriages end in divorce, compared to 8% in 1900 and 25% in the early 70s, when no-fault divorce laws appeared.
In light of these statistics, I’d like to suggest four compelling reasons why marrying earlier in life (perhaps by the mid-20s) might be beneficial.
4. Fewer relationships are better.
In his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Joshua Harris recounts a young woman’s dream about her wedding day. As she meets her groom at the altar, other young women begin to line up behind her future husband. They are both devastated as they realize that he will be bringing his (rather large) entourage of ex-girlfriends into their marriage. Harris goes on to explain that the dream was a metaphor for his dating experience.
He realized that he had given each girl a piece of his heart and had taken pieces of theirs. Each successive relationship left him with a little less to give to his future wife. It’s like when you stick two pieces of masking tape together and pull them apart. If you continue to repeat the process over and over again, eventually no stickiness remains. There would always be memories, thoughts, and images that were shared in previous relationships that would influence, and to some extent shape, the future marriage. Memories from past relationships can linger for dozens of years and threaten the foundations of even the most stable marriages. According to a survey at Your Tango, thinking about exes is a serious problem:
- 74% of women and 64% of men think about their ex too much
- 76% of women and 70% of men have looked up an ex on the internet
- 50% of women and 40% of men say they look at their ex’s Facebook or other online profile too often
In simple risk-assessment terms, the less baggage and the fewer corpses of past relationships you drag into your marriage, the stronger the foundation will be.
3. You can enjoy the journey of growing together.
Regardless of your age at the time of your marriage, you can count on both partners changing over the course of the relationship. Those who marry younger grow together rather than independently. My husband and I are approaching the 25-mile marker in our marriage and we are not the same people we married those many years ago. I was working at a job I hated and my husband was going to school and working at an oil change shop while serving in the National Guard. We lived frugally in a 3-room rental in a sketchy neighborhood in W. Akron. A few years later we bought our first house in a neighborhood on the outskirts of inner-city Akron for $38,000. Gary spent his weekends keeping our cars running and I learned how to make 101 recipes using ground chuck, which was $0.89/lb back then. If we had waited until our 30s or 40s to marry, we’d have missed those precious years of working together toward our goals and watching the lovely, slow progress that emerges over the years of living life as a team and arriving at the destination together. I wouldn’t trade those years of joy and struggles for anything. King Solomon, a man of extraordinary wisdom, had this to say: ”
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 ESV)
I suppose there are benefits to waiting until you have everything figured out and you have achieved success in your career before you “settle down,” but what a grand adventure you are missing along the way with the love of your life!
2. Sex and babies are for the young.
Our sexual desires and ability to procreate are innate, God-given characteristics. Those are precious, beautiful things and, as a Christian, I believe the Bible teaches they are reserved for the confines of marriages (read Steven Crowder’s excellent account of the rewards of abstinence before marriage). This is the best plan for a healthy, happy marriage. Expecting men and women with this sexual ethic to suppress those feelings until they are 30 or even 40 is frustrating, difficult, and, probably for many, cruel and unusual punishment. Marrying earlier rather than later avoids the frustration of denying and repressing one’s natural sexual urges and allows them to be expressed appropriately in the context of marriage. In addition, the 20s are the peak fertility years, especially for women. Marrying earlier can help avoid the heartache of infertility that so many couples face when they postpone childbearing until they complete their education and then spend a dozen years establishing their careers. It’s counterintuitive to delay having children until after the woman’s best chances for conception have passed. There is also the added benefit of not being the dad who asks for the senior discount at the ice cream stand after his kid’s t-ball game. And think about the weirdness of picking up both Children’s Tylenol and your Low-T medicine at the pharmacy.
1. Marrying early avoids the shacking-up trap.
For many couples, living together before marriage is a cover for their unwillingness to make a mature, adult commitment. I’ll first refer back to my previous point about God’s plan for sexual abstinence before marriage and monogamy within as the best route to a happy and healthy marriage. But in addition to that, I believe that cohabitation sets a very unhealthy pattern that leads to a culture of divorce. Living together before marriage to “see if we’re compatible” is practicing failure. The unspoken (or sometimes spoken) agreement is that if it doesn’t work out or if my partner doesn’t fulfill my desires, we can both walk away. It’s built on a foundation of selfishness and flies in the face of “For better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, forsaking all others, until death parts us.” Marriage is fun, fulfilling, and amazing, but it’s also really, really hard sometimes. There can be long periods of time when couples must wade through difficult periods of medical issues, family crises, financial problems, and routine boredom. Cohabitation gives couples license to walk away in the face of those difficulties, with the excuse that “they must not be compatible” or it “ wasn’t meant to be.” In contrast, marriage (technically) requires a commitment to permanence. Couples that survive and endure through dozens of years of marriage do so not because their marriages aren’t touched by trials, tragedies, and heartache, but because they manage to navigate these difficulties and persevere, fiercely resolute in the commitment they have made to one another and, for many, to God.
In his counter-cultural book Dating with Integrity, John Holzmann describes the solemnity of the vows, beginning at the moment of engagement:
To be betrothed means to be promised. People used to speak of “plighting” (pledging, promising) one’s “troth.” Troth means faithfulness, loyalty, promise. But whether we call it engagement or betrothal, the main thing people need to attend to is that their promises are true and they will do whatever they must in order to fulfill them. At the point of engagement or betrothal the great transition should occur. It is here that one should make one’s vows and plan to keep them. Before one makes a vow, all one’s questions should be answered concerning whether or not he or she intends to fulfill it. It is at the point of engagement that the big shift should occur between being “mere” friends to being committed to one another as husband and wife for the rest of our lives.
Couples in trial marriages via cohabitation arrangements refuse to make such commitments and instead enter into agreements that are, at their root, open-ended and even selfish. Experiencing one or more of these relationships/arrangements teaches couples to take the easy way out when the going gets rough. Rather than making semi-sincere vows (which, by the way, can also be made or implied in non-cohabitating serious relationships), perhaps we need a return to what our grandparents practiced: Avoiding the “practice marriage” trap by marrying young, embracing the gravity and solemnity of the marriage commitment, waiting until the wedding day to move in together, and staying together for life.
There are many factors to consider when deciding when and whom to marry: the maturity of the individuals, their financial independence, whether they have a realistic view of marriage, and, of course, whether they’ve found the right person to marry. The bottom line is that what we’ve been doing for the last fifty years isn’t really working. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the way we do marriage is failing miserably, evidenced by the colossal divorce rate. It’s time to examine our modern marriage paradigms and ask if we can learn a thing or two from generations past. While I’m not suggesting that early marriage is right for everyone, I am saying that we shouldn’t automatically dismiss it out of hand just because current conventional wisdom says it’s a bad idea and the “experts” tell us that we need to spend a decade or more of our adulthood “finding ourselves” and learning to love ourselves more.
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Related at PJ Lifestyle on marriage:
We married young and had all of our children before we were 25. The last kid went out on his own when my wife and I were still our early 40s. I’m now in my mid-50s and have several friends my age who have married younger women and are having kids. I say nothing ala Sgt. Schultz but I think they’re nuts. They’ll never be able to keep up with, never mind a step ahead of, their kids. Who wants a teenager in the house when they’re 70 years old?
Speak for yourself, pal.
My dad (his birthday was today…..it would have been his 93rd) had no trouble keeping up with his teenagers when he was in his late sixties, and only slowed down when cancer caught up with him in his early 70′s.
It must be genetic, because as an older mommy (my youngest was born when I was 42), I haven’t had trouble keeping up with my little ones, either.
I have a teenage daughter at 72 and she is a great blessing.
marry young and get the divorce out of the way early.
avoid the Divorce Barbie trap. the one where she comes with all of Ken’s stuff.
That’s the other thing about Christian marriage: the part a great multitude of Protestants refuse to proclaim- divorce between Christians does not exist. They may say they are divorced, and they may pretend to take new spouses, but that is adultery, not divorce.
Me? Youth. how about a piece on the benefits of young women marrying old farts.
Hear, hear, Charlie.
How about some insight into marrying when you are already in your mid-30s, but still want kids? Do I find myself a cute 20 year old bride?
‘Marriage is a young man’s disaster and an older man’s comfort.’
I did. Works great. Well, actually she was 19.
When I hit that famous “mid-life crisis” age, I was already set up with a twenty-something hottie.
At home.
Works for me!
(Never did get the red sports car, though.)
What’s stopping you from considering a woman your own age as a fit mother for your children? I could see your objection if “your own age” means that women your own age are post-menopausal, but why else…?
I just asked my girlfriend to marry me last weekend. I’m 51, she’s 42 and we have been living together for 13 years, so I think we qualify as not having rushed into things.
Delaying marriage so long does come with disadvantages. Having kids the old fashioned way can be problematic in middle age. Even with medical assistance or adoption, it will be a race against time to get them raised and self sufficient. As a rule of thumb, between parents and children only one should be in diapers at a time.
Even so, marrying later in life can be the right decision for some people. I know that I will be a much better husband than I would have been a decade ago. A “right age” for marriage does exist, but it should not be measured in years. Marriage should wait until you are mostly done growing up. For me, that was the half century mark. Your mileage may vary.
As a unmarried–and now perhaps unmarriageable–middle aged man, I have also thought I would “wait until I grew up” before doing the whole wife and family gig. With all due respect it isn’t very good advice, as it takes forever to grow up as an unattached male. Especially for those who grew up over the past 40 years or so when no true personal sacrifice has ever been asked of us. I “followed my bliss” and am the worse for it. Yes, maybe it’s just me but it seems to go far deeper than my own bad choices.
Or, more simply put: Adults don’t make babies, babies make adults.
Adults don’t make babies, babies make adults.
That is very true. I’ve never heard that before, but it’s an excellent saying.
You must be a wise single to have the understanding that you now possess.
I waited until I was 43 to marry another never-married 43 year old woman. The marriage lasted 8 years, but the entire time the fact that each of us had successful lives as singles presented additional tension and diminished the sense of need for each other to survive together through trials. I think that your comments have insight and reflect what my personal experience is: marrying later in life is harder as there is less flexibility in thought/habits (you don’t know any better when you are younger). And since most available potential partners are also divorced, each person brings the hurts into the relationship/marriage that often don’t surface for some time. Once you learn that you can survive divorce, you are more likely to file papers before trying to work things out or engage in honest self-reflection.
Married at 20; still married to the same man at 37. Of course, we waited a long time to have our first child. He’s 2. Between my medical issues and our financial situation, we just didn’t feel secure about the children until just recently.
Marriage is far and away the riskiest decision most men will make in their lives. It’s one of the few things a man can do that can ruin the rest of his life if it backfires. You also don’t have you best judgment abilities in your youth. That’s a dangerous combination.
Yes, that’s why the fairly modern (and Western) idea of like ages marrying in generally not the best approach.
For the man to be older and already established used to be the norm. Now, for some very strange reason, that very healthy and sensible arrangement is considered strange, if now downright creepy.
Young men should get their education (college, vocational, whatever) out of the way and be solidly established financially. THEN start considering marriage.
To younger women!
Tell that to my 15-years-younger husband, without which HE says he never would have matured at all!
Marital age gaps –in EITHER direction — make great societal good sense because the older spouse “re-parents” the younger one emotionally, often mentors the younger one professionally, while also keeping domestic capital in vigorous circulation. Of course, this requires a Two Marriage Per Lifetime paradigm: when you’re young, marry someone older and get all the benefits; then when your older spouse passes on you turn around and marry someone younger, thus “paying forward” the psychological and financial benefits. This also provides a great deal of continuity with children and grandchildren, who will always have both young parental figures AND older ones, each of which offers separate but equal advantages (again, both emotionally and financially).
Exceptions do not disprove a general truth.
Reasoning from the particular is particularly bad reasoning.
In today’s culture men would be very foolish to marry today’s young harpies. Even co-habitating can cost a man everything he’s ever worked for.
How long should you wait to find the right partner?
Long enough to find the right partner.
Sorry, there can be no one right answer.
But Good Luck, it’s worth the wait.
This may be heresy to some of you, but there is also no one “right partner”.
msk1, true! i admire those young people who have the maturity to figure that out and move forward. Kind of sad for the others with romantic stars in their eyes who lose out on having a stable and satisfying family life.
MZK: THANK YOU!!!!!!
One of the greatest gifts I ever received from my late parents (still very much in love until they both passed away in their mid-80s) is that there is NO SUCH THING as a “soulmate.” Their belief — and now mine — is that there are thousands if not millions of Human individuals with whom any reasonably sane adult can “fall in love” and/or forge a workable domestic corporation. Many of these individuals are extant within our own timeframe and geographical proximity, although of course many were born and live/d on the other side of the world, and many died before we were born or will not be born until after we die. So what good does it do to insist that “only one!” will EVER be right for you?! That sounds to me like a sure recipe either for staying single forever…or to have one’s heart broken over and over and over by expecting something which simply doesn’t exist.
I married at 25, had my first child at 26. However I think the point needs to be emphaiszed that, in our present society, it is hard to find a woman who still vlaues traditional ways, who is not a slutty, selfish American girl. If you can’t find someone who represents your values, then I would say marraige is a pretty bad idea.
I am raising three lovely daughters and one son with solid, traditional values and strong faith. I do believe that the most important thing they will likely ever do is marry well and have a family, and I am encouraging them to do so earlier rather than later. I worry sometimes about the girls finding quality husbands when it seems that most young men these days are presented with few strong role models of principled manhood, and are steeped in video games and pornography–but then I remember how many of my friends’ sons here in Texas are being raised to be strong, outdoorsy, faithful, and respectful, and when the time is right someday young men like that will recognize my daughters as women whose price is above rubies : )
It is not true that the words teenager and adolescent were never heard until the 2oth century; adolescent, which is in my 1877 dictionary, is from the Latin, when it meant what it does now, and teenage was certainly around in the 19th century. The idea that people went straight from childhood to adulthood in the past and not borne out by the facts, any more than is the idea that some people have that in the past children were seen as miniature adults. At no time in history have people been that stupid. Of course, in the past children began work much earlier than they do now in Western countries, but they were not seen as adults.Nor did most people marry in their teens; what a generalisation. Responsible men were expected then, as now, to wait until they were established financially. Certainly there were teenage marriages-but they were not the norm, especially not for men.
As
From the Jewish tradition: The Talmud determines adult responsibility to begin at 12 (girls) or 13 (boys). It is at those ages that fluid intelligence reaches its peak, though other aspects of intelligence continue to rise with increased life experience. However, legal responsibility for which punishments could be meted out did not begin until age 20. Thus, you have an ancient gauge of adolescence that matches hormonal lability. It should also be noted that lifespan varied between 30 and 40 years for thousands of years. Starting a family at 30 would make orphans of your young children almost certainly.
A roman youth had to accept adult responsibilities at age 15,
but was not given adult authority (to make contracts, say) until 25.
Interesting that the number 25 comes up time and time again.
When do a young man’s car insurance rates drop like a rock? 25.
Why? Well, actuarial data shows a precipitous drop in accidents starting around that age.
It’s only recently that neuroscience has learned that the area of the brain that assesses RISK is not fully developed (on average) until age 25.
So those who advocate 18 year old boys getting married are arguing against reason.
I support INCREASING the legal age of adulthood (including contracts, voting, drinking, etc.) to age 25.
I’ve heard many emotional arguments against that, but the fact support it.
Why the hell would a man want to get married? This essay, http://www.singularity2050.com/the-misandry-bubble/ opened my eyes to the not inconsequential risks of getting married. I know those who read this may disagree with the premise but, young men, having seen Dad get raked over the coals by Mommy have decided to not buy the cow since the milk may be had for free. Imho, that is why marriage rates are down.
MEN value marriage, but boy just want to play.
It takes more than facial hair to make a MAN.
from the perspective of “what I’m getting out of the deal”, this is valid. BUT.. marriage is not about “getting” but about giving, sacrifice, commitment. Not for little boys with any number of tours round the solar system under their belts. THIS thinking is the real root of divorce, the “risk factor” seen today in “marriage”. Until a boy has grown to understand he is not here for his own pleasure and entertainment, he’d best NOT marry. When an eighteen year old who understands hard work, giving, self-sacrifice, looking more upon HER cares than his own, finds a likeminded woman, he SHOULD marry her. I’ve known a number who have done just that, and have little doubt their marriages will not only last for decades, ended only by death, but will produce a generation of similarly minded offspring. I’ve also known males, and females for that matter, well into their forties, fifties, who remain children.. selfish, isolated, unable to commit. Better they are not married.
A man should ask what’s in it for him. If a relationship isn’t mutually beneficial then it’s not a very good relationship. Of course, the problem that many social conservatives don’t want to face is that there isn’t anything in for a man with modern marriage. Hence, all the focus on sacrifice.
“Marriage overall has declined as well; barely half of Americans are currently married, a record low..”
There are reaasons for that and you did not touch on them. Considering how the institution of marriage has become a rigged game for a man in the US, and everyone knows at least one vicitm of it, those numbers won’t improve until some laws are reviewed and nullified.
Buckeye,
I had an interesting discussion about this with my son, who is home from Hillsdale College this weekend. In one of his classes they’ve been discussing the changing marriage/divorce laws and the changing nature of the family in the U.S. It used to be that the woman (who most often did not have individual financial security) pledged her sexual fidelity to her husband and guaranteed that the children were indeed his offspring. In return, the man pledged to provide financially for his and wife and children. Though it wasn’t a perfect system, it at least recognized the importance of the family in cilvil society.
With the advent of no-fault divorce laws, this system was turned on its head. As you said, the game is often rigged against the men, who are too often left paying the bill but without a family.
Uh, a man also pledged sexual fidelity to his wife, and still does. There seems to be this unspoken idea among some men that if a married man fulfills one part of the bargain – providing for his wife and children financially – then he shouldn’t be bound to the other part. It’s the monogamy thing that puts many men off marriage these days.
– Learning to love herself and accept her self-worth
– Time to become her own person
– Benefit of knowing who she is
– Experiencing life as her own complete person
Why would anyone need to wait until 46 for any of this? What the hell is wrong with these stunted human beings that they need to live over half a typical, natural lifespan before they “learn to love themselves”, or “become their own person”, or “know who they are”, or “experience life”?
Get off your ass and out of the “education” cocoon, and go do something real early in life.
Maturity is function of mileage and not passage of time, so they ain’t gonna “find” diddley unless the get up off their butts and experience some life (which they won’t do putting off marriage, kids, etc. until they’re old).
I think this is very bad advice. There is much to experience in life. Getting married young limits your options. For example, I completed graduate school and ended up living internationally (in Asia) starting at age 28. My international experience was quite rewarding for me, both personally and professionally. I seriously doubt I would have had this opportunity had I been married (most likely, I probably would not have even gone to graduate business school had this been the case). There is much to experience in life. Why limit one’s options?
Also, people who get married in their 30′s and even 40′s tend to have more stable relationships than those who get married young. Lastly, its best to have one’s financial ducks in a row before considering marriage (and kids). It is common for many young people to underestimate the financial costs of a relationship, not to mention kids.
Just because it is not “Universal” advice does not make it “bad” advice.
It is very bad advise because financial stability and well-being must come first. Indeed, after health, I consider financial well-being to be the second most important thing in life. Health and wealth. Everything else is a very distant third place.
Kids are the only reason we are here. Without them “health and wealth” are dust blowing in the wind.
You’ll start to see what I mean when you’ve done enough to start seeing your old triumphs decay.
I pursue radical life extension. I have cryonics as back-up plan B option. The purpose of having lots of money is not only for financial security and to have a good time. Its to enable one to make it to 2030 or 2040 in reasonable health such as to partake of SENS and stem cell regeneration anti-aging therapies.
As you can see, transhumanism does change one’s perspective in life. So does living internationally for 10 years at a time.
“Indeed, after health, I consider financial well-being to be the second most important thing in life. Health and wealth. Everything else is a very distant third place.”
That was my favorite part of “Christmas Carol”! That was in his speech to Bob Cratchit right before he went to bed, right?
What good is money without an heir?
I married young and we got to travel and we go to experience life.
I was 22 and she was 21. We have lived in Norfolk, Washington DC, and San Diego in the almost 11 years we have been married. We have driven all over our country alone and with children to experience things. We now have 4 boys, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. When we had 3 boys we went to see the Redwoods. There is something different about taking young children to see those types of things.
We plan to have 1 more child in the next year or so. We will be in our very early 50s by the time they are all starting out on their own. We will have time and more money to travel at that point hopefully.
The idea of cohabiting as a trial marriage is a sham. It is a quantum leap to put your names on a marriage license- until then, you’re just playing house. As a Catholic, marriage is such a serious deal to me that I lost fifteen pounds before the ceremony and had to have my dress taken in. Because if I was wrong, there would be no easy “do over”. I was 26 and I was definitely old enough. But I’d already been asked twice before, which means that at 20 and 23 when I turned the others down, I was old enough to make the right choice then, too. Even if the choice was “no”.
While I’ve definitely matured over the years, I was pretty much the same at 20 as I am now. I’m wiser, sure. But my personality, goals and values- the things that help you pick a spouse- were set long ago. I would have just been wasting time all these years had I waited.
Ya know…I gotta wonder about how many people have seen the marry young principle work today.
I had the marriage issue get brought up in a relationship I had (the first one fyi) and I thought about it.
I came to the conclusion that I was not done figuring out who I was and until then I would refrain from forging that sort of permanent connection. It would be like forming a support structure from ice or some other malleable substance. It is not done changing yet and until it is basing permanent things on it would be a problem.
It is bad advice to advise someone to marry young or old. Marry when you think you are fit to make a good spouse. Not a second before. Stats,figures, and factoids mean jack if you the person feel you are not ready.
My dad advised me to never let the idea of divorce enter my marriage. That if I’m not ready to go all in that I should avoid from going at all.
I agree. Whole-heartedly. The life may be lonely ut better to be lonely than immersed in a constant battle.
Been married 43 years this month. Married at 18 & 20. Growing up together, raising children while young, now enjoying grandchildren at a fairly young age, and maybe will see great-grands someday. It’s been a glorious journey, not always easy, but rewarding and satisfying.
Marrying at 40 something sounds ridiculous and extremely difficult.
The advantages to marrying young is that you get the first divorce and kids out of the way early enough that you have the emotional and phyisical strength to deal with them.
Not quite the point, but if it works…
But it doesn’t.
Children. Not everyone is able to have kids at an older age, or has the money for the alternatives. As someone who got married at 44 – for reasons that don’t apply to most people – this is quite serious for me. One advantage – knowing the difference between love and infutuation.
P.S. I actually belong to a culture that still uses “supervised courtship with the expectation that marriage would be the end”. Although in my case it also involved a website.
Oh, did anyone mention the high probability of birth defects? And miscarriage? Unless you believe in murdering the ones that don’t look right, as too many do today.
The sacrament was santified by Jesus and establish by the Church over the centuries. Of course, marriage, in many forms, existed for millennia prior to Jesus, but not in a form we would recognize. It was more of an agreement to share resources for the purpose of raising children. The husband provided, the wife nurtured. However, men enjoyed considerably more rights then. For example, in Rome, if a man did not pick up the child after birth, it meant he did not accept the chid as his own, an ancient form of paternity test. Thus, he was under no financial obligation to support the child, and the child was entitled to no inheritance.
The marriage contract, as we know it, as does our concept of romance, descends from English common law during the mid-1300s. This was during the Cult of Mary and the Age of Chivalry. Presumptive paternity became law over 600 years ago, because the wife was assumed to be a virgin in the image of Mary. Divorce was forbidden, athough annulments were not, and the penalty for adultery was severe, castration for the man and banishment for the woman.
What is important to consider is that all during this time, the average life expectancy was maybe 35. Infant mortality rates were high, thus a woman needed to bear 10 children, in the hope that 4 or 5 would survive. So, assuming you survived childhood, when you reached 14 or 15, you married and started having children, because there was a highly likely that you wouldn’t survive to see them reach adulthood. This means that the typical marriage lasted maybe 20 years.
So it was for several centuries, until the advent of modern medicine began to extend lifetimes. In the 20th century, several developments took place, the women’s movement, followed later by the passage into law of abortion on demand and no fault divorce. Thus, we arrive at the contract as it exists today: community property, community funds, sweat equity, presumptive paternity, abortion on demand, and no fault divorce.
Of course, she wants to get married. She wants financial security, guarranteed child support (regardless of who the father is), and the right to change her mind at any time, for any reason or no reason, and leave with half of everything. But even with all those benefits to her, still most marriages rarely last 20 years. There’s a 50% divorce rate in the first 4 years.
Given the culture and the times we live in, people who advocate marriage need to start having a serious discussion about changing the terms and conditions of the contract, because they are no longer acceptable in this day and age, not to men.
Here are 4 liabilities to men for marrying young or old:
1. Being legally required to pay child support for another man’s bastard.
2. Not having any say in whether or not your wife will bring your child to term.
3. Not having any rights in divorce court. Over 70% of divorces are filed by women.
4. Being exposed to financial ruin and bankruptcy. Child support is 20% of every pay check for 18 years, and in the states that do have alimony, the percentage is considerably higher.
The liabilities far outway the benefits for a man. And unless that changes the marriage rate will continue to decline.
We can talk about the sacrament, which is beautiful and pure. But until we start talking about changing the contract so that it is mutally benefical to both parties, we’re not saying anything.
I completely agree with you on all that. The prevalent pro-woman, anti-man,SEXIST bias of our legal system nauseates me. Perhaps if “no fault divorce” was eliminated,making divorces harder to get,and marriage more secure, with slutty women unable to bail and take the kids on a whim and get paid for it, the picture would improve. The kids are the ones getting BADLY hurt by the current permissive divorce climate. And it ain’t so good for the couple,either.
Presumptive paternity should be changed to determinitive paternity. The biological father then would be required to pay child support regardless of whether the woman is married or not. There are literally millions of men paying child support for childen they did not conceive, because the court will not allow evidence of any kind to question paternity in a marriage situation.
Abortion on demand should be changed to abortion upon consent. As adamantly opposed to abortion as I am, it is legal. However, the law is warped. In a marriage situation, both parties should be required to consent. If a man wants an abortion, but the woman does not, there’s nothing he can do about it and he will be forced to pay child support. But if the man wants the pregancy to proceed, the woman does not, there is nothing he can do about it. And his baby will die. There’s something sickenly anti-human about that.
No fault divorce should be changed to just cause divorce. There are legimate reasons for divorce–infidelty, emotional or physical abuse, etc–being bored is not one of them. Work it out or demonstrate just cause.
If these changes are not made, marriage will remain a loser’s propsition for a man. Think about it. Under the current terms and conditions of the contract, a woman is perfectly free to marry a man, abort his child, have an affair with some boy in a bar, get pregnant by him and slap her soon to be ex-husband with legally required child support, then divorce him, take half the money and the house, move her boyfriend in so they can raise their love child together, all while living off the stupid-enough-to-marry her man’s dime. She has broken no law. That is so far removed from the sacrament it’s pathetic.
A marriage is a union between a male and a female. Their child is the union. The sacrament requires husband and wife to lift up their child. Perhaps that’s what feminists find so offensive about it.
The contract is anti-sacrament. Presumptive paternity, abortion on demand, and no fault divorce render the marriage null and void from the very beginning. It is merely a license for betrayal, abandonment and bankruptcy. It is anti-Christ, anti-male, and anti-female in fact, anti-child, and anti-life. Until marriage advocates start have a serious discussion about that and start implementing changes to the law, more and more men will refuse to marry. More and more women will become single mothers. And more and more children will suffer for it.
But why should ANY man be forced to pay child support in a divorce that, statistically speaking, the woman initiated? Why does her lack of self-fulfillment (which is also more often the case than anything else) equate to him being punished with a decades-long monetary commitment?
Because presumptive paternity survives divorce. If she’s your wife, for as long as she is your wife, they’re your children, you will pay child support. Period. No court is going to rule that just because she left you that you are no longer responsible for paying child support. They’re your children.
Why should any man be required to pay child support another man’s bastard? He did not conceive the child. His wife committed adultery and got pregnant. How is that his fault and not hers? Why is the biological father not required to pay child support? Because that’s the law. If she’s your wife, they’re your children. The court does not allow evidence of any kind to question paternity in a marriage situation.
There was a case in the early 90s involving this guy in Dallas. It made national news. He married a woman. 4 kids and 10 years later, they divorced. Turned out that one of the kids had cystic fibrosis, which is a genetic disease caused by two recessive alleles. Both parents must be carriers of one recessive allele, and if they combine at conception, the unfortunate child is born with a debilitating disease.
So, this guy goes down to the doctor to be tested, because he was thinking of marrying again and might want to have another child. The doctor said, no, you don’t have the allele. He said, that’s impossible, my son has cystic fibrosis. The doctor said, have you ever considered that he’s not your son?
The man had all 4 of the cildren tested, and lo and behold, 3 of them were not his. This woman, his wife, had conceived 4 children with 4 different men over the course of their marriage. He freaked, because he was paying child support for 3 other men’s children. He sued and took his case to court. He had conclusive evidence, DNA, proving that these were not his children. Denied.
He appealed. Denied. He took his case to the state supreme court. Denied. He took his case to the federal appeals court. Denied. He took his case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Denied. The court, no court, will allow evidence of any kind to question paternity in a marriage situation. That’s the law.
Now this betrayed, abandoned and divorced man is being forced to pay a substantial portion of his income for children that are not his, and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. And why? Because he married a woman. Now he’s destitute. You like apples? How do you like them apples?
I understood this when I was 15, because the same thing happened to a friend of mine’s father. His wife had an affair, got pregnant, then divorced him and slapped him with the child support. In fact, that happens to millions of men. I knew right then and there that I would never get married. There is no way I am going to allow that to happen to me. For as long as I remain single, I am only responsible for the children that I conceive. But I absolutely refuse to be held responsible for every child she conceives. I refuse, mainly because every girl I have ever dated or been to bed with, going back 40 years to junior high, ALREADY HAD A BOYFRIEND. She didn’t care, and frankly neither did I. What is there to lead me to believe that it’s going to be any different when she has a husband? Oh, that’s right, her husband is required to pay child support for every child she conceives.
Most of the commenters on this thread talk about how wonderful their marriage is, how important it is to find the right partner, or how terrible their divorce was. That’s all good and well, or sad. But it misses the point.
The problem here is with the law. I believe in the sacrament, but I refuse to agree to the terms and conditions of the contract. And no one will ever shame or force me into doing so.
Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. It’s so naive. It’s so blind to the facts. It’s so ignorant of the law.
When the marriage advocates are serious about disscussing the issue, promoting marriage, they will begin advocating changing the law so that it preserves the sanctity of marriage. Because the contract violates the sacrament. Begin with presumptive paternity, then proceed to no fault divorce and end with abortion on demand.
If you can’t wrap your mind around that, Mr. Married, go home and play with your children. Are you sure they’re even yours? Your wife knows. She also knows that if they’re not, you’re on the hook for child support. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
That is completely unacceptable to me, and should be to every man. If women have a problem with that, then they can stop talking about the wonders of love and marriage, and start talking about changing the terms and conditions of the contract. To the extent they are unwilling to do that is the extent to which marriage is not an option for a man.
And why should ANY man have to pay child support if he has
1) REPEATEDLY told the woman he is not interested in children
2) HIMSELF used contraception 100% of the time
3) Had a contraceptive malfunction (hey, it happens; I got pregnant that way twice: both my contraception AND his, used concurrently, failed!)
4) Has offered to pay 100% of abortion cost or 50% of adoption cost?
Too many women today make me ashamed of my sex: They allow themselves to be impregnated indiscriminately by several different men, refuse to abort or adopt out, then beat up the poor male in court for 18+ years of financial “support” (read: PUNISHMENT) for a child which in most cases the man is not even allowed to SEE.
How this supposedly empowers women I haven’t a clue. Anything which allows adults indefinitely to keep behaving like spoiled children cannot POSSIBLY be good for either the body politic or the larger culture!
“People used to speak of “plighting” (pledging, promising) one’s “troth.” Troth means faithfulness, loyalty, promise.”
True, and I do not know what the vows are like today, (because we are no longer Mthodists), but when I got married at age 19 to my 19 yr. old finance, in a Methodist church, 52 years ago, “and to this I pledge thee my troth” was the conclusion to our marriage vows. There was even a time, as I recall, that a person could sue a financee who called off the marriage “for breach of promise.” However, I disagree that a marriage requires “selflessness.” It requires love, which is as far removed from selflessness as a human being can get. To love is to be so interested in and dedicated to the loved one’s needs that one finds it nigh unto impossible to separate one’s own needs from the other’s.
Love is a modern concept in marriage. People married for ages with no love, yet stayed married for life. If you are dedicated to you marriage you will grow together. It takes selflessness to allow that to happen. Even today with our love marriages, it takes selflessness to stay together when you are not feeling the love.
It appears that most of the arguments are based on the “me” factor.”Learn how to feel comfortable in my own skin.” This is a very interesting concept. From the moment we are born we are constantly evolving. Married or not. Each decade has it’s own issues. Married or not. I believe this keeps us from getting bored. At least for those of us that are paying attention. Do we ever truly feel 100% comfortable in our own skin year in and year out? In my opinion, the “me” factor will not determine the success of a marriage. It’s not about “me”, it’s about “us”. Without a doubt marriage has been demonized because the “me” factor is so prevalent. As the saying goes, ” It takes two to tango” . But in today’s world “two” requires much effort and we have become way too selfish. Children. What a blessing. At any age. I do however feel that having them young has one advantage. Grandchildren. They are a lot of fun. Clocks click way too fast. One day we are young, idealistic, we actually think we are immortal. Almost, unexpectedly, the alarm goes off and we realize it was all a mirage. We are not immortal. Idealism was replaced by reality. We have grown old. And, it’s that time in our lives when “feeling comfortable in our own skins” is not such s big deal. The deal is having a family.
Agreed with the basic premise of this article. I do have a point of contention with the recommendation of the book, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”. My point is personal because when I was involved with the middle school youth at my church, our youth pastor made this his zealous cause. This should have opened my eyes to his propensity to be a legalistic control freak and pulled out along with my kids. Anyway, this put a great deal of condemnation on families. I do believe in supervised courtship first, group dating, healthy venues for dating. One dear friend who homeschooled her two sons taught them courtship. The two boys courted the first girl they were ever attracted to and married them. Much of my friend’s relationship with her daughters in law could best be described as walking on eggshells. My friend is loving and generous toward the girls and her grandchildren. I only wish these daughters in law would come close to reciprocating, but instead often come across as bossy, ungrateful, and downright snippy. The sons are most committed to their marriages and families, but I cannot help but wonder if bringing over other possibilities to meet the family might have made for happier and easier relationship.
I’ve had this same conversation with a friend who forbid her son dating until he was in college and he’s now committed to the first girl who would have him, and my friend is miserable because the girl is so wrong for her son. My son is allowed to date girls and is learning quickly how different it can be depending on so many factors. A good lesson to learn young, I think.
As Ray Davies sang …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7lhMDrxEZU
A significant number of young men are making the calculation that if she tires of me after five years or seven years and finds a more “exciting” man and leaves and takes the children and the divorce court sides with her and leaves me living alone in a studio apartment with crushing support payments for the next fifteen or twenty years — what’s the point of entering such a stacked against me minefield in the first place? Not saying those young men are right but wouldn’t you be wary to the point of going on strike against marriage if you were in their shoes?
Yes, absolutely.
If you want a fun ride, go to an amusement park; Marriage is hard work,
and not more than 30% of the population can do it well.
The rest should stay single, and childless.
Then accept the fact that our culture and civilization will die.
You must have been asleep, the culture has been long dead. Marriage is toast because the woman holds all the legal power and has no motivation to be responsible, men just “give up” and sadly are driven to look for the benefits of marriage without the unreasonable penalties. The children are the victims who repeat the cycle with increasing numbers.
I met my husband when I was 19. We lived together for a year, because I just wasn’t sure about marrying that young. We were married for 37 years, until his death in 2008. You can spin it any way that you want, but marriage gives a depth and commitment to your relationship. I now think that it’s easier to “find yourself” in a committed relationship. People always grow and change. Your marriage gives you a supported relationship to make those changes.
Both women and men before the mid nineteen sixties were generally satisfied with having achieved a high school education. Given few options to see the world or “experience life,” they married young. Once the percentage of the population that could attend college swelled because of rising familial affluence, marriage could be delayed until schooling was over and solid employment was established.
Besides, how probable is it that true love, in the romantic vernacular, is found at age eighteen? No amount of dating years, whether few or lengthy, can guarantee that any marriage will have the ingredients to insure longevity.
This article is a lot of nonsense. Better to wait until you find “that person” than marry anyone just because your fertility quotient is high. I should know. I married “anyone” at twenty-one and was divorced three years later with baby in tow. Happily married now.
bible says if you need a woman get married but don’t choose hastily. you also stick with her something about wife of your youth. the marriage vows are the commitment you make before G-d and everyone else. there are duties to your wife and the wife towards the husband, but since g-d has been removed, it now becomes situational ethics. if it feels good do it, if it don’t, let it go. now days the woman doesn’t need the financial support of the man, she can do it without a man. they now think the man is unimportant, other than to subsidize their libertine lifestyles. what man is going to make a commitment to that. why buy the cow when the milk is free. we are unaware of hidden costs.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to get married just for the sake of marriage, albeit I do believe that a society made up of largely married couples stands a better chance of stability & the ability to withstand & fight off the forces of socialism. JMO.
It’s better to stay single all of ones life than to settle for less than what one aspires to achieve with a spouse & family. Marriage is a serious & weighty decision that should never be entered into lightly. That was the approach I took & after 25+ years of marriage to one who, like me, came to the table with no baggage (i.e. any ex-spouses), I have no regrets & neither does he. People say marriage is a lot of “hard work.” It has not been so for us as we were apparently prepared for all the challenges that have come our way & have dealt with them with never any doubts that we are “as one.” Maybe I am just blessed……..
It’d be nice to be married, or even have a stable relationship. The trick is finding someone first, and that hasn’t exactly been going so well.
I’ll be twenty-five in January. My parents would love to see me find someone to spend my life with. But they also told me not to get married for the sake of being married, and my mother specifically advised me that it’s better to be single than settle for someone you don’t really love.
That’s excellent advice but what to do in the meantime? Find some group activities out there according to your interests & depending on where you live. Examples: Bowling leagues, ski clubs, volunteer organizations. Note that I left out bars & discos.
The single reason marriage is delayed now days, is the willingness of women to be promiscuous before marriage! If men can readily get sex with women, they will not make the changes in their life, that would make them decent husbands and fathers. Too many young men today, are slovenly ,unmotivated disappointments, because they can,access ” low hanging fruit”, anytime they so wish!
The single most problematic aspect of marrying young is that many young people still make choices to please their parents.
And the notion that fewer relationships are better is nonsense. No one is limited to a certain number of loves. Someone who is a serial monogamist can have as much if not more intimacy in his or her relationships than a couple that’s been together for decades.
I would take issue with this, jmarie. Love, and intimacy, grow. You do not have the same level of relationship at five years that you do at thirty-five.
Of course you can. Not all long term relationships are filled with intimacy! Many are not because walls have been built over the years. Conversely, many people who have been on a path of self exploration and knowledge are capable of greater intimacy in newer relationships with people who are open to the same. Intimacy isn’t the same as familiarity.
I got married young. 3 times. It was an almost perpetual nightmare: got divorced 3 times in 2 years and that before reaching 25. This almost pushed me into depression and alcoholism. Lost a load of money since I was financially successful.
When you’re young you don’t have enough experience in choosing a long term partner and most of the time is just pretty looks and not much else. Got married the 4th time in my early 30′s and we’re very happy together. I wouldn’t advice anyone to marry young.
I married my wife of 36 years when I was nineteen (we met two years earlier)in 1976. Two years later we had a beautiful baby girl, who is now married with an adorable two and half year old boy. We literally grew up together, all our friends at the time thought we were crazy and the marriage would never last, but we were and still are head over heels in love. Back in the day, we’d listen to Paul Harvey on the radio during road trips and when he got to the part where he’d celebrate a couple who’d been married for 70 years or so, I’d always turn to her and say we’d get on his show someday. Of course, I always thought Paul Harvery would live forever. Shameless plug: You can follow our story here: http://jimandcarla.chebellafiori.com/ “A Memoir of Two Souls Not Necessarily in Chronological Order”. Love to see you there.
Glad to see this article!
There are some very practical reasons for marrying, and having children early. 1.There are more of certain birth defects in children of older parents. 2. It is more difficult to get pregnant in the 40s. 3. Pregnancy is easier on a women who is at the right age (20s). 4. Raising children takes lots of energy, and is easier for young people than oldsters; and young people actually do a better job at it that do older parents, who simply cannot hold up, and are likely to pay less attention to their children, or to shift the responsibility to others. 5. Grandparents can help, but not if they have become already feeble, or have passed on.
As for waiting until one is mature and fully self-aware, that is a joke. I am a retired grandfather, and I am still learning about life and my part in it: it’s not that I am a slow learner, either! It is just that I am aware that even now, I don’t know everything yet.
My oldest grandchild is in college, and yet I can reasonably hope to see even a great-grandchild get that far. It is wonderful to know some of your own descendants, and they get to know me and my wife as adults.
A minor benefit is shown by the case of our daughter, who married right after college. She found that most of her friends now are parents of children in school with her own children. They wonder at her youthful appearance. She was once asked, “What is your secret? You looks at least ten years younger than the rest of us.” Her reply was the simple truth: “It’s because I AM ten years younger.”
It is sometimes argued that people have a better marriage if they are more mature. This is a good point, but it also a good argument for getting on with one’s maturation. Become an adult and learn responsibility, and things will be all right. You will be surprised how quickly you mature when you have real responsibility. It is especially true that men mature with responsibility. The playboy lifestyle simply does not inculcate maturity: on the contrary, it makes for bad habits, which may stick even should one eventually settle down.
I know couples married in their teens. They’re still married at age 40+ with kids. We were married in our early 30s. I know other couples married early who didn’t stay together; and I know couples married later in life who were too set in their ways to bend as needed for a marriage to work.
Some need time to figure themselves out. Some need to scratch a mental itch of one sort or another before they can settle down. Others are ready right away to have kids and build a family.
One reason more do not get married sooner is because the children that inevitably result are seen by too many as a very significant liability rather than an asset. They’re often viewed as emotional pets rather than as a future of society. We don’t encourage children, and being a parent, even a married parent, is frankly quite difficult.
What a stupid article! Times have changed! There is no right or wrong age to marry. Yes, 46 is too old (for a woman biologically,) but 21 may be too young.
The emphasis should be on shared values and lifelong goals not age!
you know if you’re going to offer redress for comments not added, then you might use an email address that is legitimate. Got a bounce notification from story@pjmedia.com.
I feel I had something to add to the conversation while following the rules of the road.
Say what you like about “times have changed”, human biology has NOT. The plain fact is that if a woman has reached age 30 without getting pregnant,her chances of EVER getting pregnant go down sharply. Also, if she does get pregnant for the first time at or after age 30,the tendons and ligaments of her pelvic girdle have stiffened,and the pregnancy hormones won’t be able to soften them enough to give her an easier childbirth, she will have a harder, more painful delivery than a younger woman would. Also, after age 30, the likelihood of birth defects arising from faulty ova is higher,too. And of course,we all get set in our ways with age,and it would get harder and harder to do the necessary compromising and adapting that any healthy marriage requires of BOTH partners the older you are at your first marriage. (I was 21 at my first marriage, 49 at the second, and if not for the tremendous compatibility I had with the 2nd husband, it would have been REALLY hard.)
And maybe I am crazy, or something, but I pity couples who decide against having children, or can’t, and don’t adopt any. Who will be there to love them and care about them when they are too old to continue their “careers” and retire out of physical or mental necessity? What children will there be to climb on their laps and make them laugh? Who will advocate for them if and when the time comes that they need someone to help them 24/7? How will they feel loved and connected with other people? They won’t be 30 and attractive forever, but some carry on as if they think that’s the case.
Married at 22. 30 years, 10 kids later, so far so good. Took 25 years to start to really understand marriage as a Sacrament, not just a relationship. Still learning about love, generosity, holiness. Very grateful.
I want you and Mom to know what an amazing example you’ve set for the ten of us. You’ve taught us that it’s not about having a fireproof marriage that is unchanged by adversity, but a marriage that can be tested in fire and come out the stronger for it. The world is a better place for having witnessed a love story such as yours – and it ain’t even over yet
Love you, Dad.
At 34 years old I’m still single.
It’s not for lack of trying. I just can’t seem to find a woman that finds me attractive. Or interesting.
Having not even been on a date since high school, I’m pretty much resigned to being single for life.
Okay, so Rosa E, how do you correspond with Jim? Souls are beautiful and can sing even in typed words.
Belladonna Rogers, a former columnist, she has her own website now, has articles with responses on how to go about meeting ones’ true love.
What irks me is all the people who tell young people who married young that their marriage is doomed because they were too young to get married.
My older daughter got married at 20, and has been married five years now. Wild horses couldn’t have kept her from it, so I wisely didn’t try. I had friends, though, telling me I should have tried to prevent it!
I am the biggest cheerleader for their marriage. Everyone forecasting doom for young marriages needs to shut up. Besides, it is only recently in history that twenty was considered “too young” for marriage . . . as well as 21 through 25, or even 29.
Marriage is, to me, a holy estate, and that fact can tide you over many a rough time, because God is with you in it.
Was better in the old days as a fellar could just wup the tar out of his gal if she got out of line.
Save your life … don’t ever get married.
On the radio today people were talking about the race car driver Danica Patrick and, that now getting divorced, she should have had a pre-nup agreement. My wife and I have a good one. “Everything I have is yours, too”. Trust is sufficient.
What point 4 made me think of was Kipling’s “The Ladies.”
I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it,
An’ now I must pay for my fun,
For the more you ‘ave known o’ the others
The less will you settle to one;
An’ the end of it’s sittin’ and thinkin’,
An’ dreamin’ Hell-fires to see;
So be warned by my lot (which I know you will not),
An’ learn about women from me!
There is a strong inference in the text the putative narrator of the poem was single.
For there’s a million surplus Maggies, willing to bear the yoke
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke
That’s Kipling.
Marriage is not about FINDING “the right person,” it’s about BEING the right person — and in this culture that’s damn near impossible until you have at least three decades under your belt.
The chief benefit of marrying too young (= under 30) is that by the time you’ve figured out all the mistakes you made and get out of it, you’ve probably gained enough maturity to examine the relationship in terms of YOUR ownership of what went wrong, and hopefully to work on correcting those flaws in yourself with or without the help of a good therapist…so when you ARE 30-something and TRULY ready to marry, you won’t make the same mistakes all over again!
Hip, hip, hooray for “starter marriages”!
In response to Spikeygrrl above, there is no such thing as safe sex, because there is no such thing as sex without responsibility.
I have a cousin, Rhonda, who after 4 children had a tubal ligation–that’s when they cut and tie the falopian tubes to prevent pregancy–because she and her husband couldn’t afford to have another child.
Well, she got pregnant. The doctor’s said that was impossible. She said, tell it to God. The University of Houston did a medical case study on her.
Condoms fail. They have a 30% failure rate at preventing pregnancy and a 50% failure rate at preventing disease transmission.
Birth control pills fail. IUDs fail. There is no 100% guaranteed method of birth control.
Sperm can survive for up to four days in a falopian tube–they can even work themselves through a knot and through another one. So a woman can have sex on Firday night, and wake up Monday morning pregnant. It wasn’t her intention, but it is biological reality.
The bottom line is this. Men and women know what they’re doing. But if they don’t understand that every time, any time, they enter into a sexual relationship a child could be the result, then they’re just stupid. Accept your responsibility without question.
I believe that the biological father should be required to pay child support, regardless of whether the woman is married or not. This is why presumptive paternity is completely unacceptable to me, and there’s no way I’m ever going to agree to it. You always know who the mother is. You never know who the father is.
Commenters keep bringing up these egregious examples and asking why? Well, because of the law as it is written. Change the law, or stop complaining about it.