This Sunday, my wife & I celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary! We wed when I was 21, & she was 19. While marrying young has been the norm throughout history, today it’s not only unusual, it’s discouraged & even scorned. The age for a first marriage in the U.S. has been steadily increasing to now 30 for men & 28 1/2 for women. Many no longer see marriage as a good thing or needed, deriding it as an outdated social construct. But I contend that a return to marrying younger would be a good thing.
Previously, the sexual drive was a major incentive to get married. But since the stigma of sex outside of marriage has largely evaporated, the incentive of marriage to legitimize sexual relations has gone with it. Modern birth control methods & abortion ushered in this sexual revolution where young people are no longer expected to wait to mate. Play the field & enjoy as much recreational romance as you can before settling down. Most now live together without or before getting married.
The prevailing view is that young adults are still forming their identities & “finding themselves.” It’s a time for exploration, freedom, & fun as well as pursuing academic goals & preparing for career success. Women especially used to marry younger back when having a husband was more important to economic survival. But now feminists urge women to downplay marriage & family by entering the workforce instead of the wedding chapel to fully “actualize” themselves.
Having a spouse brings extra financial responsibilities & stresses, especially once kids come along. Since young adults don’t have much money, they’re urged to make significant income first & pay off school debt before incurring the expenses of a home & family.
But let me make the case for marrying younger, at least for Christians. Marriage isn’t a human invention. God made it & proclaimed it a good thing (Gen. 2:18-24, Prov. 31:10, Heb. 13:4). He made sexual relations exclusively for a husband & wife. Sex outside of marriage has always been wrong (1 Thess. 4:3-5). So that rules out cohabitation for Christians. The irony is that people think that living together first will make for a better marriage, but it actually increases the odds for divorce.
Our bodies are at their peak vitality in our younger years, which is why it’s so difficult to control sexual urges then (1 Cor. 7:2, 9). It’s when men are at the height of sexual energy & women are most fertile. God made us that way for a reason. That’s why it’s unrealistic to purposely delay marriage till later. Doing so more likely will lead to a high body count, emotional brokenness, & spiritual damage (1 Cor. 6:18-20).
For a Christian, dating should never be a selfish pursuit of recreational gratification. A Christian dates or courts in order to pursue marriage (Prov. 18:22). This is also why I strongly recommend dating for a longer time & being engaged for a shorter time because a couple isn’t likely to withstand the sexual temptations of a long engagement.
While there’s truth in saying that young people are still figuring out who they are, it can also become an excuse & justification for immaturity. The nebulous period of adolescence can be unreasonably extended well into a person’s 20s. The concept of adolescence wasn’t really much of a consideration in times past since children often shifted right into adulthood as they took on grown-up responsibilities somewhere in their teens. When Jesus’ mother, Mary, was betrothed to Joseph, she was a young virgin, likely in her early to mid-teens, which was considered young adulthood in that era.
The arguments about college & finances can be overplayed too. When Penny & I got married, we were both still in college. She worked part-time at a bank, while I served in a weekend youth ministry. It was challenging, but we rented a cheap apartment, lived frugally, brought our childhood furniture & used wedding gifts. The lack of material goods in comparison to being married was totally worth it!
When couples say they don’t have enough money to get married, what they often mean these days is they don’t have multiple thousands for a wedding reception. Penny & I had a nice but very inexpensive wedding, with only a cake for the reception in the church basement. And if young couples wait until they can afford a house these days, they may be waiting for decades!
True, getting married as teens especially increases the risk of divorce. But overall, it still has less to do with age than worldview. Penny & I have made it this far because we set our jaws & determined nothing short of death will separate us because we were making a covenant promise to God & each other. Giving marriage sacred significance through sharing the same faith, morals, & values maximizes the odds for greater fidelity & fulfillment. Christians who seriously participate in spiritual practices (church gatherings & groups, prayer, & Bible reading) have lower divorce rates.
Proverbs says to “rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love” (Prov. 5:18-19). The entire Song of Solomon is all about this. Marriage isn’t an obstacle to stability, success, & fun. It can actually increase them. Married love is a gift of God worth celebrating! Not everyone can or should marry young, but I’m glad Penny & I did.