Early Marriage: Help or Hindrance?

Dr. Mohler's blog post could not be more timely for me. Soon, I will be married. Before I turn twenty-one, I will have a gorgeous wife by my side. In the past year, I have seen one of my closest friends from high-school get married. All around me, people from my church, ex-classmates, and old friends are getting hitched - and at seemingly younger and younger ages. Is this a good thing? Is it right for all these young people to be jumping into a relationship meant to mirror Christ's relationship with the church before they have even fully reached adulthood?

After all, just because a person can get married does not necessarily mean that they should.

There are right and wrong reasons to get married; but increasingly, I am hearing a common argument for marriage: to avoid sexual temptation.

This immediately brings both positive and negative thoughts into my mind. On the one hand, I salute the couple for recognizing that they have a problem and making strong steps to correct it. On the other hand, marriage is a very important decision in a person's life - it is not to be rushed. Should marriage really be chosen as the best avenue from which to flee from sin?

I want to go ahead and examine my first thought some more. Pre-marital sex is extremely common these days. I don't know a single non-Christian who is now married that didn't have sex before saying their vows. What stunned me was the figure that Dr. Mohler included in his article: eight out of ten young, evangelical people admit to having intercourse before marriage.

There's only one valid option for an unmarried Christian: abstinence. This is a lofty and incredibly difficult standard for anyone to keep, and most especially for us twenty-somethings whose hormones seem to scream in unison for one thing and one thing alone. The temptations and pressures exerted on all of us are extreme, to the point that 80 percent of our fellow, young brothers and sisters have given in. Personally, I can attest to the seemingly insurmountable difficulty of staying abstinent. Christine and I are committed to remaining virgins until our wedding night; but that commitment is under nearly constant attack from all sides and has required us to fight for it tooth-and-nail on plenty of occasions.

Clearly, abstaining from intercourse before marriage is important. The enemy certainly has made it a priority to assail the purity of unmarried couples. After all, if you place sex in a context outside of marriage, marriage suddenly has a lot less meaning. Certainly sex is not the only or most important part of being husband and wife, but it is nonetheless a crucial and integral part of what God intended marriage to be. God's vision of unity, physical and otherwise, can only exist within the context of a committed marital relationship.

So, what have many turned to rather than face the hardships of abstinence? Marriage. I don't say this in such a way as to mean that these people are cowardly, or quitters - indeed, this is an action supported by Scripture. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7 writes:

"...if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion." - 1 Cor. 7:9

But Paul himself acknowledges that this is a concession, and not a command. So the question still remains: is this the best way for a couple to deal with sexual temptation? I am not speaking about couples who have just started dating, and don't really know what God's plan is for them yet. I am talking about those couples who are intent on getting married eventually, but are considering whether to wait a few years for life conditions to change or simply go ahead with it.

Here is where I am going to deliver a big heaping dose of my opinion. What are the alternatives to getting married? Really, there is only abstinence. A couple can strengthen their relationship with God and each other, taking precautions to ensure that their purity makes it intact to the wedding. No matter how extensive the precautions, there is always the chance of sin. The single most effective thing that a couple can do to ensure that pre-marital intercourse does not take place is to remove themselves from a "pre-marital" setting.

I say, if a couple is willing to get married - let them be married. Of course, a couple's readiness to be married should be evaluated by a pre-marital counselor, and they should seek said counselor's help whilst preparing for their wedding. But ultimately, what is the real harm in getting married young? I hear often, that a husband should be able to totally provide for he and his wife and should be completely independent. I think that in this day and age where people don't complete their education until their twenties, that this sentiment is a load of crap. As Christians, we are supposed to live in a community with one another - sharing and supporting each other as best as we can. No man is an island.

Yes, it is important for a couple to be able to support themselves - but why postpone marriage if this ability to provide for oneself won't come for years, at least? A strong, Christian couple will make strides to remove themselves from the welfare of their family and peers so that they can contribute and help support others who are in need.

What do you think? Should Christian couples seek marriage as a refuge from sin? Or should they batten down the hatches and ride through the storm?