The Waiting Game

Listening to Issues, Etc., this question came up as a “teaser” for an open-line discussion. I pondered emailing my comment to the show, but it has grown beyond a comment into a blog.
It is true that the “marriage age” has been pushed back farther and farther. Consider Laura Ingalls Wilder who got married at 18, and that was about 125 years ago; in Shakespeare’s day it was even younger. In his play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet was only 13 when she married Romeo, although her father argues this point with Paris.
Capulet: But saying o’er what I have said before:
My child is yet a stranger in the world,
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
Paris: Younger than she are happy mothers made.
Capulet: And too soon marr’d are those so early made.
So let’s cut to the chase: Above all, Christian parents should encourage their children to marry responsibly and for life.
Why after college, like my mother encouraged me? Maybe the parents believe that their children can be better providers for their family with a college degree. The bachelor’s degree of today is nearly equivalent to the high school diploma of 50 or 60 years ago in terms of employment.
On the other hand, it could be that in our society today people view the job as the most important thing in a person’s life, not the family, and so a college degree is the status symbol, not a marriage. Consider again Laura Ingalls Wilder who had a job—she was a teacher, but hated teaching and hoped to marry so that she would not have to teach any more.
It does put teens and twenty-somethings in a situation of temptation. Waiting longer for marriage is harder when they are bombarded by sexual temptations every day. Is that the fault of the length of the educational system? No, it is the fault of the content of the educational system. The same system which encourages education at the highest level possible (get your bachelors’, master’s, doctorate) also encourages sex—see the posting at Opus—and discourages the nuclear family. Have sex, do what you want, but remember: pregnancy bad, abortion good; marriage bad if it holds you back, marriage good if you’re ready for that step (you can always divorce if he/she holds you back later). No wonder it’s a plethora of confusion.How does waiting to marry after college carry any more temptation for the person who has a significant other than a person who does not? You wait for marriage regardless of when that marriage happens, pure and simple. Christian parents will always encourage their children of that, reminding them that a spouse is a gift, not a right, whenever they are gifted.