Changing Society’s View on “Hooking Up”

27 02 2019

Since the 1960s, we have witnessed an incredible liberalization of sexual mores. The ubiquitous use of sex in advertising, movies, television, and fashion—sex as entertainment, sex as economic incentive, sex as substitute for thought, for communication, for edification—has given a green light and public blessing to the unashamed use of sex as a crass commodity of self-gratification. Sexual gratification is often valued more than physical and emotional well-being, and the pursuit of the former has generally led to the neglect of the latter. Glamorized by the media and by celebrities, premarital and extra-marital affairs, together with the emergence of the “hookup culture,” no longer carry the stigma of social or moral opprobrium. Such practices tend to insinuate themselves into our public consciousness with little or no effective opposition.

During this time, we in America have seen myriad examples of plays, films, and TV shows evincing (overtly or covertly) envy and admiration for men and women engaging in adultery or promiscuity. Bernard Slade’s famous play (later adapted into a movie), Same Time Next Year, a story about extra-marital love, ran for years on Broadway. The award-winning movie The Bridges of Madison County (1995), a story about the happiness a lonely farmer’s housewife enjoys with a photographer, won the ASCAP Award for the “Top Box-Office Film” of 1996. The ever-rerunning TV serial (adapted from Candace Bushnell’s novel), Sex and the City, spotlights four professional women in their thirties and their big city sexual escapades as they search for the “perfect orgasm” and “Mr. Right”—in that order.

What lessons are learned from such shows? What do they teach us about self-respect, honoring commitments, and personal boundaries? The four sirens of Sex and the City may be sympathetic and amusing, but their affairs—however kooky or disillusioning—are romanticized and prized. Sex is portrayed as a desirable but short-lived commodity typically spoiled by attempts to transform it into a meaningful relationship. It seems that sex uncoupled from relationships has become the norm for many, and several studies bear this out.

Of course, it is true that many plays, movies, and TV shows often express a nostalgic regret for lost innocence and tarnished integrity. Nevertheless, the focus on casual sex in the entertainment industry and in society in general (also sometimes referred to as “hooking up,” “non-relationship sex,” “recreational sex,” “friends with benefits,” “no-strings-attached relationships,” “one-night stands,” and “sex without dating”) has become obsessive. The existence of this phenomenon alone is likely sufficient to promote the acceptance of adultery and sexual promiscuity—not because it is right, but because it is viewed as “natural,” “normal,” and something everybody does.

But what is the effect of this culture? As hookups increase, traditional dates decrease; “post-hookup, a follow-up date is rarely expected.” And as dating has waned, so too has marriage. Many young adults do not seem to have developed the ability to psychologically and socially settle down. Although young adults are becoming sexually mature at earlier ages, people are marrying later. In many cases, they do not marry at all. Family compositions have changed, and children are frequently born to parents at older ages than in previous generations. Divorce rates have skyrocketed, particularly for those who engage in premarital sex. Studies show “the odds of divorce are lowest with zero or one premarital partner” and “marriages preceded by non-marital fertility have disproportionately high divorce rates.”

These facts provide evidence that the well-known sexual prohibitions of the Bible are not as irrelevant as many seem to think. In fact, a growing number of young people—led by thoughtful college professors and mentors—have come to see the value of both sexual abstention prior to marriage and sexual fidelity during marriage.

Changing the Dating Definition

Boston College professor Dr. Kerry Cronin has helped bring about this reawakening. About twelve years ago, in an effort to counter the common practice of “hooking up,” Professor Cronin created an unconventional assignment in her classroom: she required her students to go on a first date and write a report about the experience.

This assignment was intended to counteract the hookup culture in which the connection of the parties involved is “intended to be purely physical in nature” and where the two individuals shut down “any communication or attachment that might lead to emotional attachment.”

Cronin found that many of her students were clueless about the actual process of dating. Because the hookup culture had become so dominant, “going on a date became a weirdly countercultural thing to do.” Professor Cronin thus concluded that “the social script of dating was really long gone.” So, she created a series of guidelines to teach the students how to ask someone out on a date and what to do during that date. These include asking for a date in person (“texting is the devil. Stop it.”), avoiding physical contact (except possibly an A-frame hug at the date’s conclusion), and forbidding the use of alcohol or drugs on the date. According to Cronin’s rules, the person who asked the other out must pay for the date, and the asker should have a plan for the date rather than asking the other person what to do. The first date should be relatively short and inexpensive. The key assignment was to establish real communication between the two individuals and allow them time to get to know each other.

Her program became so noteworthy that this past April a documentary film featuring Professor Cronin, The Dating Project, was released. The ninety-minute film follows five single people, ages eighteen to forty, as they attempt to navigate their way through the “dating deficit” that has been created by hanging out, hooking up, texting, and using social media. The film presents a sobering picture of what the culture of sexual liberation and free love has done to today’s youth. The film’s message is that hookups objectify the participants and leave both parties empty and unfulfilled. Today’s hookup culture makes it much more difficult to build lasting, emotionally connected relationships. True relationships take time and work, but they can be incredibly fulfilling. They enable us to grow our humanity in genuine self-giving love.

The film’s writer and producer, Megan Harrington, observed that “people are so connected and not connected at the same time. So many young adults are lonely. We all want relationships, but the superficial masks we wear on our social media platforms do not present our true selves.”

Even though Dr. Cronin is a practicing Catholic, her college course and the subsequent movie on dating have resonated with secularists who have come to realize that the “sexual liberation” they bought into has created confusion about stable intimate relationships. This intimacy crisis has effectively disconnected intimate sexual behavior from emotional connection.

Is Sex Spiritual?

Although social trends may change, values—such as disciplining and channeling sexual impulses—are timeless and universal. Today’s social practices do not reinforce the development of these unchanging values. To encourage healthy, committed relationships, we must strive to create social conditions designed to strengthen and encourage robust families. This is an essential and basic principle of the Seven Laws of Noah, a common worldview underlying Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Through her assignments, Professor Cronin is encouraging her students to follow the standards of sexual morality that form the basis of these three Abrahamic faiths.

As John Paul II put it, “Self-control is not needed because the body is evil—the truth is just the opposite. The body should be controlled with honor because it is worthy of honor.” Because our bodies are sacred property created by G-d within which resides His Holy Spirit, we effectively defile the Divine within us when we participate in the hookup culture (or in other sexual proclivities such as pornography or prostitution). A person’s body and soul are not possessions to either abuse, harm, or destroy. Lev. 19:1 commands us to “be holy,” a directive that carries strong ethical and moral implications for humanity as we strive to imitate Him.

Unmoored from a committed and loving marital relationship, the unchecked sex drive harms both the individual and the society in which he or she lives. The Noahide Code teaches us that both our bodies and our souls are entrusted to us by G-d and are Divine property. This perspective reinforces the Biblical concept that we are made in the “image of G-d,” thereby giving moral context to the psychological matrix of the human personality that involves a complex interrelationship of body, mind, and soul.

ARTHUR GOLDBERG

Arthur Goldberg is Co-Director of the American based Jewish Institute for Global Awareness (JIFGA), former Co-Director of JONAH, Inc. JIFGA sponsors http://www.fundingmorality.com, a crowd-funding site for those committed to Biblical values. He has authored Light in the Closet: Tora… READ MORE


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  The media should be consistent :Weinstein sex scandal

22 10 2017

The media’s excoriation of Harvey Weinstein, a movie producer, for his taking advantage of women is at best self-contradictory.
Everyone knows the tons of pornographic filth churned out each year; so-called blockbusters, glorified by the media that has gone on to win Oscars.
These movies exult marital infidelities, scandals, defamations, divorce, lying, and cheating… at times, perverse ‘lifestyles’ are ‘aired out’ to attract public curiosity though without any attempt to treat the subject on a moral plane. These films have done grave damage to society’s morals. Consequently today many have lost or are losing their sense of sin and sense of God.
The dismal list of sexual abuse by respected public figures like Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Bill Clinton, is only the first rumble of a volcano in full eruption.

What about college campuses? What goes on in there is unspeakable! The chronic sexual assaults happening on daily basis testify that when unnatural behaviors contrary to divine laws are treated as the norm in films, on television, and in the press, common sense, decency and nobility vanishes in society

As Peter Maurin said, “A good society is one that makes it easy for its citizens to be good. And a bad society is one that makes it easy to be bad.”

The media and Hollywood have made it incredibly tough for citizens to be good. There are over 2000 registered companies in the US alone that produces adult movies and millions of porn websites available on smartphones at the touch of the screen

All I am saying is that the media should be consistent!
It’s unreasonable and unjust to glamorize adultery and fornication on screen and turn around and scowl when men live out these dreams.
Why pretend to be shocked? People are what they watch or in the case of Weinstein, what they do?
Perhaps, the London motion picture Academy did right by stripping Weinstein of his fellowship but, it should also strip itself because it shares a part in the problem.

By Chinwuba Iyizoba

The Editor


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Managing Marriage, love and relationships by Fr. Mike Schmitz 

18 05 2017

He was getting ready to marry a beautiful woman,  but God spoke and Fr Mike Schmitz gave himself to God. He is more than qualified to tell us a thing or two  about marriage, love and relationships 


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9 Things a Man Wants In a Woman by Matt Archbold

10 02 2016

man wants in woman

What does a man want in a woman? It’s been an unanswered question for centuries mostly because men aren’t stupid enough to try to answer it.

But I am.

Recently, Catherine Frank wrote about the traits a woman seeks in a man. It’s a good list that made a lot of readers think (and comment!).

I do believe God has someone out there in mind for everyone, but unfortunately God doesn’t give us an exact roadmap to find “The One.” We all need help sometimes, so here’s some thoughts on very important things a man wants in a woman.

  1. Honesty.This is the most important trait any man is looking for in a woman. I knew a guy in college who was absolutely bonkers about a girl. She really was wonderful in many ways. One night, after they’d been dating a few weeks, they walked into a party together and someone asked her an innocent question. She casually, yet believably, lied. Her response wasn’t even about something particularly important, but it was still a lie. My buddy didn’t think about it much in the moment, but later it bothered him to no end. Certainly the lie was bad enough, but he was concerned by the ease with which she lied. In future conversations he couldn’t forget how easily she’d lied and for no reason. It destroyed their relationship.

If a woman is dishonest with a man, it’ll eat us up and then we’ll become unbearable. Honesty is the basic building block for every other facet of your relationship. If you don’t have honesty, you don’t have a relationship. You’re simply managing the other person.

  1. No Half Anniversaries Please.Men hardly know what to do with our actual anniversary, not that we remember them anyway. The greatest thing that 21st century men have going for them is that we can just put the dates of our anniversary, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s Day into our phones and when we check to see where we’re supposed to be the next morning, we see that we better get to the florist right quick.

But what do we do with half anniversaries? There’s no half anniversary app to remind us and there’s no established protocol for such half-special days. My wife and I have an actual anniversary. I can’t tell you what it is off the top of my head, but we have one.

Then one day she comes and kisses me and tells me that it is the anniversary of our first date. What? Is that a thing? I don’t remember it being a thing before. There’s no card for that. I thought flowers were a little over the top. Chocolate was too holiday-ish. So I settled on rubbing her feet while we watched television. She seemed to like it. Win.

In reality, half anniversaries and actual holidays scare men to no end. We don’t know what to do with them. We would love if women would not think too much about what we do on those days of the year, but focus on what we do the other 364 days of the year. Like all the times we went out to start your car early so that it was warm by the time you came out. Or when we painted the room “Carolina Blue” because you didn’t like “Deep Sky Blue” anymore. We don’t even see the difference, but we do it because we love you.

Real love is not about Valentine’s Day or anniversaries. It’s about a lifetime of random Tuesdays.

  1. A Fair Fighter.This one sounds weird, right? Look, in any relationship you’re going to havedisagreements—sometimes big ones—and passions can run pretty high. Most important in a fight is to have a spouse who isn’t out to win the argument at all costs.

We also have to avoid arguing past each other. Very often, men want to argue logic and women tend to argue with more emotion. So we’re often at an impasse. But if there’s one thing men can’t stand it’s making a woman cry. We often run a quick cost/benefit analysis to decide whether to continue the fight once the tears start. Very often the man will just apologize to end it, but it’s not really over. We think we’re right and sometimes feel as if we were manipulated into surrender. Now, a man will likely not keep that specific argument going, but the resentment will still be there. It will rear its ugly head in an argument over the remote control or about leaving cabinet doors slightly ajar. And we’ll look like crazy people.

  1. Men Want Women Who Get Freaked Out by Bugs.Don’t kill bugs. We like doing it. The more skeeved out by the little critters women are, the happier we are. We get very little opportunity to display our manliness anymore since carrying swords became unfashionable (and probably even illegal in some states.) So killing bugs is something we can do to save you. And we like saving you. Let’s face it, the Empire isn’t going to kidnap you and force us to break into the Death Star to free you from their evil clutches. So right now all we’ve got is saving you from the hairy 30-odd-legged creature on the living room ceiling. We’ll take it. So scream away ladies. Scream away.
  2. Accept That We’re Men.Men are desperate for a woman who accepts that men are different than women. Very, very different. Sometimes silence is just our default setting. Don’t be upset when we don’t talk through our feelings. Don’t be upset when you ask us what we’re thinking about and we say nothing because guess what; we were probably actually thinking about nothing. We’re capable of that. And we’re good at it.

Men desperately want a woman who will accept them and not try to change them. God created us as man and woman. Different. Don’t try to undo God.

  1. A Woman Who Cares About Her Appearance.OK, let’s get this out of the way. Men are often accused of being superficial and visual. That’s because it’s sort of true. Men do appreciate a woman’s looks. But here’s the thing: we find the vast majority of women attractive. I’m not kidding, the vast majority. So yeah, we care about looks but we pretty much think you’re all great. It’s true. We want a woman who cares about how she looks…but not too much. Concern about one’s appearance can sometimes tip over into superficiality, however. It’s a fine line but hey, nobody said it’s easy being a woman.
  2. Please Say What You Mean.Men would love to find a woman who doesn’t ask a question when they’re actually trying to tell us something. My wife and I were driving home one night and she asked me if I was in the mood for ice cream. I wasn’t. And kept on driving.

Here’s the thing, every guy reading this doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with what just happened. Every girl knows exactly what came next. I pulled up to our house and started walking in and could tell she was upset. I asked what was wrong and she wanted to know why I didn’t ask her if she wanted ice cream.

“Do you want ice cream?” I asked, thinking this could be a quick fix. I thought if she wanted ice cream I’d just hop back into the car and go get her some. No problem.

But she tells me it’s not about the ice cream. She tells me it’s that I didn’t ask her if she wanted ice cream. She says it’s about communication, and love, and thinking about the other’s feelings, and wanting to do nice things for each other. She explains this to me for about 10 minutes. When she finally takes a breath I ask, “So do you want me to go get you ice cream?”

She stared at me as if I just won the crazy contest. She sighed and walked sadly back into the house. You know what I did? I went and got her ice cream. She said it didn’t help, but she was too busy munching it down to continue our conversation.

  1. Respect.I always tell my son that when you’re looking for a wife, look to see how she treats her parents because that’s likely how she’ll eventually treat you. Now, my son is nine years old and horrified at the thought of girls so he doesn’t listen very closely but someday, I assume, he’ll come looking for my sage advice. Until then I’ll just write my advice to complete strangers, like you

 


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Losing Virginity: 17 Things to Know When Dating by Kristin Oert

2 02 2016

dating

Dating is a process through which a guy and a girl come to marry.  A couple setting out on a date should know 17 things:

1) As between almost any couple (guy and a girl), there is a natural PHYSICAL SEXUAL attraction.  Those starting out on a date should know: we are such a couple.      – A sexual attraction is not sufficient foundation on which to build a marriage.

2) For a marriage what is needed is a MARITAL ATTRACTION – which can only develop and be discovered gradually

3) Therefore, the important issue is not, are we a couple who are sexually attracted to one another (this may easily happen), but are we a couple capable of developing a relationship that cements into a life-union?

4) Precisely because the sex desire is easily awakened and easily grows in intensity, it must be recognized for what it is and treated firmly, keeping it in its place.  If given rein, it grows; a couple can feel strongly sexually drawn to one another as if they were deeply in love; but if they marry just based on that, it may not last; for they never gave love a chance to grow.

5) Love between a guy and a girl, if deep and genuine, normally develops into a desire for UNION IN BOTH BODY AND SOUL. Ideally these two aspects – LOVE OF BODY and LOVE OF SOUL – should be in harmony; in practice they often are not.

6) If the bodily love is let assert itself too much, the love soul may be arrested or even destroyed.  The natural physical instinct of love is to want to possess the body: its natural spiritual instinct is to want to respect the person.  Thu, LOVE, if it is true, quickly senses the danger latent in a touch or a caress, and refrains; or cuts the physical act short once it realizes that what perhaps began as a simple expression of affection is quickly turning into a powerful desire for egoistic self-satisfaction.

dating 2

7)  If an incipient sexual attraction between a guy and a girl is to lead on to and mature into a marriage with a real promise of happiness to it, the couple need to ensure that the sexual desires – always present and, let us repeat, in itself inclined to quick sex acts- is not let get ahead of the marital decision by which a guy and a girl make a complete surrender of themselves, in body and in person, to one another, so forming a union capable of fulfilling all the human meaning of sexuality.

8)  To give one’s body without giving one’s self is to turn one’s sexuality into a lie; it is to deceive another, and or to be deceived by him or her, in the very truth that human love demands.  To give oneself, temporarily, in and with one’s body, is not really to give but just to lend.  Nothing is actually given, unless it is totally given – for keeps. To “lend” oneself, in the sexual use of one’s body, is to degrade the dignity of self, of body, and of sexuality.

9) So, in passing from friendship to love to engagement, on the way that leads to marriage, it is important to bear in mind that certain gestures have different meanings in themselves, and that even the same sign can be made to express different attitudes or emotions.  A handshake can be cold or warm; an artificially warm handshake tends to introduce an element of insincerity into a relationship.

dating 3

A kiss between lovers is seldom less than warm; all the more reason for those who are not yet married but both love and wish to respect each other, not to permit an expression of affection that in itself signifies (or can lead on to) a greater and more total dedication than their present mutual situation warrants.  If each is fully sincere with himself or herself and equally so with the other, it will be easier to recognize what is adequate – or not – to the situation in which they find themselves; what is a true expression of their love as it presently exists not just in feeling but in actual personal commitment based on mutual respect, and what would be a false expression, because it seeks to take all it can get without being definitively prepared and pledged to give all it can give.

10) Firmness and quickness on the part of either one of the couple in cutting short something that they sense will lead to sex, which is self-seeking, is a deep sign of respect for the other.  Rather than a refusal to express love, it is an expression of love.  The opposite can be an expression of simple selfishness.

11) When two unmarried persons allow the physical attraction between them to find its outlet in sexual intercourse – in other words, in what of its nature is a marital act – then they are either “playing at being married” (play-acting which has a disastrous effect on the real thing if it comes), or else they are simply reducing the sexual act itself – which is humanly meant to be a sign of total, enduring and unconditional self-surrender – to a mere (though perhaps more intense) expression of what is as yet but a temporary and uncommitted affection.  In either case they have already ensured that their physical union with the person whom they may eventually marry can never be experienced as what it is designed to be: a unique act shared only with the spouse for whom one has kept oneself, and with whom now at last one experiences a union never before known.

12)  The spousal love of an engaged person is meant to have a virginal consummation.  Only those who endeavor to come to marriage as virgins can experience the truly singular joy of marital donation.  This is the positive meaning and value of virginity: to keep oneself so as to give, to have something unique to give, in a gift that is given only to a spouse.  Hence derives the whole concept and value of spousal fidelity.

13) If a person wants to give himself, he must first possess that self.  Self-possession is not shown by promptness of feelings or strength of desire, but by self-control.  A feeling towards another person is seldom to be trusted – and the other person should seldom trust its expressions – unless it has been checked and confirmed by both mind and will.

14) Pre-marital chastity is the consequence of realizing that the sexual attraction is a delicate and precious reality that must be treated with the utmost care.  Carelessness, heedlessness, is a sign of immaturity and can lead to the ruin of that is precious in that relationship.

15)  The passage from friendship to attraction, from attraction to engagement, from engagement to wedding, is the gradual transition – which only in its last stage becomes definitive – from “you and I” to “us”.  The “we” of a married couple is something unique – a “we” that can almost be conjugated in the singular.

The marital instinct tends towards an interpersonal donation and acceptance of a quite singular nature: a privileged and committed choice of a “partner” in a common life enterprise where each spouse “belongs” in a unique way to the other.  The donation is mutual, and implies mutual acceptance.  Mutual gift and acceptance are of the essence of the marital covenant” (Guy and Values)

wedding pic

16)  Dating is the time not so much for enjoying sex, as for discovering love: to discover the extent and depth of love; and the capacity of each one to love. If it is the time to discover love, it is also the time to discover defects because marriage always involves loving a defective person; rather it involves two defective persons loving each other. It is the time to discover and know each other’s weak and selfish points.

It is so important to know one’s defects:

– one’s own

– his or hers

17)  The best way of being able to judge a defective person’s capacity for living unitedly and lovingly with another defective person, is to get to know how they behave in their present family: towards parents, brothers and sisters.  If they are bears in their present family, they will equally bears in the one they form in the future.

Defects are inevitable.  The fact of defects is no argument against marriage, as long as a person is prepared to fight to be generous.

“Incompatibility”; a very relative concept.  Two persons each with a quick temper can have a very close and happy married relationship, provided they are prepared to constantly make up.


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10 Benefits of Remaining a Virgin till Marriage by Nancy Hanna

31 01 2016
wedding romance

With so many sex movies and sexual images all around, girls are under pressure from their boyfriends to have sex. They can no longer wait till marriage. Are you pressed to have sex before you marry?  Here are 10 benefits of waiting till you marry to have sex.

1. Sex is a powerful force

It that can destroy you if it is not used properly. Like atomic power, sex is the most powerful creative force given to man. When atomic power is used correctly it can create boundless energy; when it is used in the wrong way it destroys life. Sex is the same kind of powerful force. Sex is a gift from God to give us the greatest pleasure, to help in creating a deep companionship with one’s spouse, and for the procreation of the next generation. But if you play with this powerful force outside the bounds of marriage, it destroys you and those close to you.

2. Sexual activity arrests psychological, social, and academic development.

Studies show that when young people engage in premarital sex, their academic performance declines and their social relationships with family and friends deteriorate. This is because adolescents are too immature to deal with the explosive sex drive and it tends to dominate their life.

3. Feeling of guilt

The majority of women cannot enjoy sex outside of the bonds of marriage. The development of a fulfilling sex life needs the security and peace of the marriage bond. Premarital sex usually takes place sneaking around in hidden places dealing with the fear of being caught, the fear of pregnancy and feelings of guilt. All these (worrisome) factors undermine pleasure in premarital sex, most especially for women.

4. Precious gift

Virginity is to be given to the most important person in your life, the person you committed yourself to stay with forever in marriage. Your virginity is the most precious thing you have to give to your spouse. Once you lose it, nothing in the world can bring it back. Don’t lose something so precious in a thoughtless way.

5. High risk of contracting a disease

Those who engage in premarital sex run a high risk of contracting one of the many venereal diseases rampant today, as well as losing their fertility. Not just AIDS, but other common disfiguring diseases like herpes have no cure.

6. Some venereal diseases have no symptoms and no cure.

So don’t bank on seeing tale-tale signs that might warn you. Many couples discover many years later that they became infertile because of these diseases. Infertility experts estimate that 80% of today’s infertility is due to venereal diseases contracted before they married.

7. Waiting gives 100% gaurantee

The best and only method that guarantees 100% against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases is to wait for marriage to have sex and maintain fidelity in your marriage.

8. Premarital sex breaks the 10 Commandments given by God.

The 10 Commandments are given to man by God to make man happy. They are not outdated and they are not restrictive. If we follow these laws, we can create happy and prosperous lives. If we don’t follow them, we will pay a heavy price in divorce, disease, abortions, illegitimate children and loneliness. Modern men make a big mistake when they think that they can break these eternal laws and not suffer consequences.

9. Premarital sex runs the risk of conceiving illegitimate children.

Numerous scientific studies show that the children of single mothers suffer psychologically and are less successful socially and academically than children from intact families. Above all, children need both their father and their mother. It is wrong to risk having children who will never have their father’s love, protection and care.

10. If you date and you don’t have sex, you can forget about that relationship when you stop dating.

But if you have sex with those you date and then break up, the nature of sexual involvement creates strong, often unpleasant memories for your whole life. Every relationship you break up where you had intimate relations is like a mini-divorce. The psychological difficulties of these mini-divorces damages your character. Later, when you are married and go to bed with your beloved spouse, these unpleasant memories will accompany you.

True love waits. If a boy or girl truly loves you, they will want the best for you. They will not want you to suffer fear of disease, unwanted pregnancy, and the psychological difficulties of premarital sex. They will want to experience love with you only in the very best place of all – the love nest of marriage.


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Still a Virgin? 29yrs old Beauty gives her reasons

17 01 2016

Mandy pics

Twenty-nine-year-old Mandy Dobbelmann is a Minnesota native who lives in Los Angeles, CA. Mandy is a singer/songwriter, music teacher, blogger, and justice-fighter who is passionate about the issues of sex trafficking, prostitution, and abortion.
I stumbled upon an article Mandy wrote,”Keeping Sex Complicated,” for her blog,”Forte e Bello.” The title of her blog post made me curious, and since it was floating around my Facebook feed, I decided to read it. I’m thankful I did.

The Italian “Forte e Bello” means “strong and beautiful.” After reading through Mandy’s blog, I’d say that description fits her perfectly.

Mandy has a striking physical beauty paired with a loving heart that exudes vibrant joy, hope, and faith. In her article, Mandy tells her readers what it’s like to live in a city where sex appeal is everything and sexual addiction prevails, and where your sexual history is directly correlated with your identity.

Mandy writes:

I live in a city that is the porn capital of the world and that teaches the rest of culture through the influence of Hollywood and the media that sex is easy, uncomplicated and nothing more than a human appetite. Since I’ve moved to LA, the most common reaction I get from friends and coworkers when they find out I’m a virgin is a blank stare followed by an abrupt, ‘Why?’ I realize most people assume there must be something wrong with anyone who is still a virgin past the age of twenty. It’s the type of thing they’ll interview you on Oprah for (The Thirty Year Old Virgin) or make a comedy about (The Forty Year Old Virgin). It’s the type of thing people hide in shame over and vehemently deny in the face of peer pressure.
Mandy’s right in her assessment of the times. Being a virgin past adolescence in 2014 is not an easy thing. College campuses offer the morning-after pill in vending machines, sexually provocative dances like “twerking” are all the rage, and people dare to sell their virginity for cash.

In the midst of all of this, Mandy is unashamed to share her views on sex. Mandy wants others to know she’s a virgin not because she’s sheltered or mentally askew. Rather, she believes that sex is valuable. Her Christian faith teaches her she’s made in the image of God, and she refuses to become one with a man who hasn’t made a life commitment to her. In her own words, she says, “I’m a virgin because I am a passionate proponent of keeping the sanctity, beauty and value in sex”.

Mandy makes it clear that her virgin status in no way makes her more valuable than the person who has had many partners. She isn’t saying that those who engage in sex outside marriage don’t value themselves. Mandy is declaring that the reason she chooses to wait is that she views sex as a beautiful, powerful, and binding act. Mandy sees sex as complicated, not just a casual act.

She writes:

Our culture tries to un-complicate sex by advocating to, “do it often and with multiple partners.” We try to un-complicate sex by dumbing it down to a mere appetite. Even if it were a mere appetite then a good majority of our culture could be classified as sexually obese. Let’s face it. Sex is complicated. It is the driving force of many people’s lives. And they will loose all human reason to indulge in it for a fleeting second. Sex is powerful. It has the power to bind together or tear apart. It has the power to heal or destroy. It has the power to build up or tear down. It has the power to give or to take. It has the power to mar or to make beautiful.
I admire Mandy’s stand. As a 32-year-old virgin who’s happily getting married this summer, I know how challenging it can be to save sex for marriage. As a woman who works at a pregnancy resource center, I also see the damaging effects of sex outside marriage. Sex is meant to be a holistic experience that touches our minds, bodies, souls, and emotions. It’s more than just a pleasure; it’s a pleasure that comes with great responsibility.

A 2010 study called “RELATE” interviewed 2,035 married participants who waited until marriage to have sex. The study found that people who delayed sex till marriage

rated sexual quality 15% higher than people who had premarital sex
rated relationship stability as 22% higher
rated satisfaction with their relationships 20% higher
Not to mention that abstinence is the only 100% effective way to avoid STDs and pregnancy. Delaying sex ’til marriage is a healthy, responsible, and affirming life choice. I support Mandy in her decision and applaud others who are following the same example.

LifeNews Note: Christinia Martin writes for Live Action News. Martin has been a pro-life voice for eight years. Her work began after her mother confessed she paid a doctor to abort her, but walked out before he could. Knowing she was saved from death, she wanted to fight for others.


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Marry Late, Divorce Early By Mary Eberstadt

3 01 2014

Late marriageAlas and alack, the end of summer turned out to abound in the sort of personal news one really dreads hearing – especially the more one hears it. Several friends and acquaintances now have the same problem in common: they are all getting divorced. And though every divorce is apparently unhappy in its own way, the similarities among these cases are striking enough to suggest some common denominators. All have occurred among older, married, financially (and apparently otherwise) stable people. All have involved small families – most often, an only child. And each was a shock.
All of these divorcing partners, in other words, had ostensibly followed today’s secular wisdom about marital happiness to a T: don’t rush into marriage, take time to find yourself first, establish your own career before settling down, don’t have more children than you can afford. So what went wrong?
I suggest that at least part of the answer – and by extension, perhaps part of the explanation for the staggering Western divorce rate more generally – might be summarized in two words: late marriage. Of course, we can all conjure examples of blissful marriages made in mid-life or even later, just as we can all think of early ones that have been flaming disasters. But if we step back from individual cases and look instead to the general good, the pluses of early marriage do loom large.
Many a sociologist would quarrel with that point, of course. Teen marriages, they remind us, are in fact the most likely to break up. As the contrary-minded sociologist Mark Regnerus has recently observed, that cautionary note is true – and truly misleading; for who said we were talking about teens here? What about marriage in the slightly higher demographic – say, people in their twenties? Why aren’t our churches and other organizations dedicated to family life encouraging more of that?
Regnerus has written a compelling essay in the August 2009 Christianity Today called “The Case for Early Marriage.” He zeroes in first on one particular (and rarely discussed) problem with discouraging early marriage: it means that men and women generally are expected to stay chaste during the same years that are best for childbearing, and in fact far longer than many of them will. “Over 90 percent of Americans,” he observes, “experience sexual intercourse before marrying,” and “the percentage of evangelicals who do so is not much lower.” (The percentage of Catholics probably isn’t, either.) Yes, abstinence education is all to the good, and yes, religious teaching itself is not at issue here; to the contrary, it is a given. “I’m certainly not suggesting,” the author concludes, “that they cannot abstain. I’m suggesting that in the domain of sex, most of them don’t and won’t.”
Regnerus goes on to detail other drawbacks to waiting till today’s fashionably older ages to tie the knot. It encourages men to have a ridiculously prolonged adolescence, as the popular “culture” of many twenty-something males readily demonstrates; it encourages churches to lean too heavily on sexual ecstasy as the foundation of marriage itself; it forces many women, especially believing Christian women, to look long and hard for a suitable partner in a world where many men their age have become anything but; and very seriously indeed, such waiting risks compromising the fertility of any woman who wants to have a family of size – sometimes even the fertility of any woman who wants a child, period.
To these minuses admirably addressed by Regnerus, I would add one other potential plus for earlier marriage that sociologists have yet to grapple with: treating marriage like the home version of Waiting for Godot also risks perpetuating a kind of human consumerism, a habit that cannot possibly be good for anyone.
After all, once a sufficiently large number of relationships have all failed to lead to marriage for one reason or another, it becomes terribly tempting to view the whole enterprise as more like comparison shopping than spiritual discernment. For example, I once knew a man who had dated a great many women by his late twenties – so many that his friends privately rejoiced when one finally appeared who seemed perfect for him. They shared the same religion, political views, and other interests; she was smart, successful, and what today would be called a real babe, to boot. Yet the consumer’s diffident response upon meeting her rang far more of the Consumer Checkbook than of the swain. “I’m not sure,” he temporized. “Her complexion seems really sallow.” Needless to say, no walk down the aisle.
This is what comes of people shopping, perhaps – the destructive habit of making comparative checklists about human beings. No one does it consciously, of course; but still the pernicious voice of experience assesses the goods. He gained thirty pounds, and my other boyfriends never would have, it tells some people, or she looks great for her age, but not as great as my secretary who’s ten years younger, and if only I had married X, Y, or Z instead, we wouldn’t be having all these financial/medical/romantic problems.
Of course there are good reasons to wait for marriage, chiefly that it is the single most important earthly decision that many of us will make, and that the world we live in does indeed make it easier than ever for things to fall apart. That said, from the point of view of trying to bring more, rather than fewer, thriving families into that same world, Regnerus is right: there’s much to be said for bucking the prevailing cultural aversion and marrying young.

Mary Eberstadt is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution


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Healing A Marriage When There Has Been Infidelity

6 10 2013

Healing a marriage when there has been infidelity takes teamwork. As a marriage therapist for the past thirty years, I’ve met with countless clients who thought that this would be the end of their marriage.

“Ben” and “Kathy” came in to see me after Kathy found out that Ben had been involved with another woman. It was even more difficult since Kathy knew the woman. She learned that they had been meeting when Kathy thought Ben was working. Through their willingness to fight for their marriage they were able to discover, despite this very low point, new possibilities and reason for hope. They were willing to deal with the damage of shattered trust. Then they entered into constructive remediation around issues that were not the cause of the infidelity, but that led to their marriage being vulnerable to the temptation of infidelity.

Both spouses must commit to getting the marriage back, or possibly getting to where it never was. This calls for courage. The infidelity may flag a boundary issue, difficulty with a new stage of family life (such as children or aging), or possibly indicate more chronic factors within the marriage or within one of the spouses. Marital infidelity is often both a problem as well as a symptom for whatever else may be missing or not working within the marriage. This makes it a difficult presenting problem since both need to be adequately addressed.

Many couples do work through this trauma and are able not only to reestablish their marriage as it once was, but bring it to a newer and healthier place. With sincere efforts from each partner, a commitment to look deeper into oneself and the relationship, plus the assistance of a trained professional, healing often is remarkable.

There are some infidelities, however, that are not of a sexual nature. While these may appear to be less severe than sexual infidelity, they can also cause harm to a marriage, especially if left unchecked.

For example, one partner may have a relationship that mimics an affair in that a third party or entity takes an inordinate amount of one’s time, energy and emotional investment to the detriment of the primary marital relationship. This “third party” may be the custom of sharing daily coffee, or a similar get-together, with a co-worker without the marriage partner’s knowledge.

Another “third party” can be seemingly innocent leisure pursuits or good works. There is a big difference between a hobby that allows a spouse to bring more to the marriage versus extracurricular activities that drain or pull the person away from the marriage. This can include such things as one’s golf game, over-involvement with the children, career, or a volunteer commitment in the civic, political, or church arena. Whenever one spouse is heavily engaged with some third party, then this third party can really be seen as a “mistress.”

Similarly, internet chatting can be either sexual or non-sexual and has the potential to be a dangerous form of unfaithfulness within the marriage. This particular problem can also become an addiction and needs to be addressed, often through the use of an intervention.

http://www.foryourmarriage.org/


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Live Together Before Marriage Get Divorced After Marriage: Strange World By Janet Smith

3 10 2013
Live Together Before Marriage Get Divorced After Marriage: Strange World By Janet Smith
Black couple fighting and depressed

We live in a strange world in which people live together before marriage and get divorced after marriage. There is a much higher divorce rate for those who cohabit. The figures just go up and up. About 65 percent of those who cohabit before marriage get divorced. About 50 percent of the rest of the people do, but since more and more couples cohabit, the divorce rate is just going to just keep climbing and climbing.

As a matter of fact I think some people get divorced before they get married; that is, some people have two or three extended cohabitations, get “divorced” from them, and then they get married.

I feel I must apologize to those in this room who are younger than I. I often feel that my generation — I am 55 — owes anybody younger than we are a big apology. They call my father’s generation “the great generation”, they lived through a depression; they worked very hard. My parents are of that generation: they have been married 58 years. It’s just incredible. I think a good name for my generation would be “the stupid generation.” Whereas, my parent’s home is very well ordered, if you looked into my refrigerator, you wouldn’t know when I last did anything in that refrigerator. It’s a kind of scary place. I find it hard to pay my bills on time. I find it hard to get the oil changed in my car. I have a hard time doing what my parents do with great ease. In fact, my whole generation is pretty much always stressed out. We were exceptionally stupid in our youth. We were the generation that started the whole drug and sexual revolution. We went off to college and experimented with drugs. We thought that that’s what college is all about. We’ve got to smoke marijuana, if not take a little bit of cocaine and LSD. Yeah, well, why not? That’s what you do when you got to college. And certainly have sex. Our poor parents, they had to get married to get sex. They had to rush into marriage. We thought they probably married some totally unsuitable person so they could have sex. I remember hearing people say, “You wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive, so surely you wouldn’t get married without having a test drive. And you wouldn’t buy a car without taking several for a test drive. So certainly you would do that in respect to marriage. You’ve got to find what model you like.” We thought that way. That’s my generation.

My generation went down a lot of dead ends and fell into huge potholes and we’re having a hard time climbing out. I want to save other people from going down those same dead ends and falling into those same potholes. If you don’t know exactly what you think would be the right direction, at least look at what we did and do something different. It doesn’t much matter what it is, just do something different.

Divorce Rates

I would like now to make a case that contraception is a factor leading to the increase in divorce. In the 1960s, 1 out of 4 marriages in the United States ended in divorce. Compared to the rest of the world and the US itself for most of its existence, that is a very high rate of divorce. At the turn of the century in the United States well under 10 percent of marriages ended in divorce. The divorce rate had been climbing up all century — contraceptive use had been increasing all that time as well. Again, in 1960 the divorce rate was 1 out of 4 marriages. By the mid 1970s 1 out of 2 marriages ended in divorce. It has stayed right about there.

Why did the divorce rate double between the 1960s and the 1970s? That’s a social revolution of unprecedented proportions. Never in the history of mankind has the divorce rate doubled in a short 10 to 15 year period. Why did it? Robert Michael, an economist from the University of Chicago, studied this phenomenon. As an economist he was interested because divorce, just like unwed pregnancy, is terrible for the economy. For some extended period of time people who are in divorced households often live on about half the income they had prior to the divorce. As an economist Professor Michael finds financial explanations most persuasive for explaining the increase in the incidence of divorce. He says that he has the data to show that couples who have a baby in the first two years of marriage and another one in the next two years — two babies in the first four years of marriage — have marriages that will last a lot longer than those who don’t. He explains that women who have babies early in the marriage become financially dependent upon their husbands. Even if things are going badly in the marriage, they’re going to stick it out and work at the marriage because a woman with babies at home needs the support of her husband. Now women are delaying childbearing until four or five years into the marriage. By that time a woman is established in her own career. She’s financially independent and so if the marriage goes badly and there are no children, she can kick her husband out. Even if they do eventually have children, she’s established herself in a career and she can take care of the children.

I suspect there is great deal of truth in Professor Michael’s explanations but I would like to suggest a few others. I think that when people have babies, they become much better people. In another talk I claim that the purpose of children is to make adults out of their parents. In fact, a person married to a parent is married to a better person. Being a parent nearly forces the parents to acquire certain virtues. Parents must become more disciplined, more charitable, more responsible, more hard-working. It’s hard work to get up in the middle of the night to take care of someone who’s crying and to change diapers and to plan for college and all the rest. That’s hard work. Both spouses take life more seriously. It’s as natural as can be.

One of my favorite people on the face of the earth is the first time father. I have had the great privilege and pleasure of seeing several of my male friends shortly after their first baby was born. Within about three sentences they all say the same thing. They float about 2 or 3 feet off the ground, they’re kind of dazed and they say: “Everything is different now.” And they mean it. Yesterday they didn’t care how good the school system is, who the chief of police is, whether the playgrounds are safe. Now that they have a baby, they do. They want to make this world safe for their children.

Robert Michael also says that adultery has skyrocketed since contraception has come on the scene. Can anybody figure out why that might be the case? If 80 percent of women are using some form of contraception, that makes a lot of women and a lot of men think that there is no problem with having sex with someone who is married to someone else. Many people had multiple sexual partners before they married. They don’t see any particular reason to stop after they get married. Because, you see, sex was no big deal before they got married. There’s no particular reason to think that it’s a big deal after marriage. Before marriage, sex was not an expression of lifetime love. Sex was not exclusive before marriage. It was just a fun thing to do with another person. How, when you get married, do you all of a sudden turn sexual intercourse into something that is profound, something that is a deep, intimate, exclusive expression of love for one person? How to do that 180-degree turn?

That’s why I want to talk about natural sex — which is not what people in our culture are having. The pattern in marriage in our culture is this: people have generally three sexual partners or more before they get married. Most people have sex in high school. If not in high school, certainly before they leave college. Maybe by the time they leave college, they are on their second or third partner. They split up with their current partner because there’s no real relationship there. Now they are out in the real world and it’s hard to find somebody. They start dating, pretty quickly they have sex, if not right away, eventually. Before long they are spending all their time at his place or hers. So they move in with each other. Why pay rent on two places? After a period of time people are saying: “When are the two of you going to get married?” The couple looks at each other and say: “Why don’t we get married? The sex is pretty good; we don’t fight that much; and who wants to start all over again?” That’s what I call “sliding into marriage.”

Currently people have had several sexual partners before marriage: some of those break-ups were accompanied with some degree of heartbreak, probably much confusion, perhaps some regret and guilt. Nearly everyone brings some sexual “baggage” in a marriage. Nearly all of the sexual intercourse they have ever had and will ever have is contracepted sexual intercourse. They contracepted before marriage and after marriage. Within marriage, they stop for a short period of time to conceive a child and then contracept again. Then they stop for a short period of time to conceive child number two. Then they get sterilized and then they get divorced. That’s the pattern in our culture, over and over again. People have had a very short period of time, if any, of what I want to call natural sex. They have never had a prolonged period of sex with someone whom they deeply love, to whom they have made a lifetime commitment, and with whom they are open to having children. Most of their sex life is contracepted, some of it in an uncertain relationship.

After one of my talks a man came up to me and said you missed a step in that little story you told. He said after the vasectomy or tubal ligation, one or other of the spouses often engages in an adulterous affair. He said he saw it at his place of work all the time. Man after man came in after he had a vasectomy and before long he was having an affair and before long he was divorced.

What you need to know is that couples using natural family planning almost never divorce. This is the biggest selling point of natural family planning when I’m talking to college students. The fact is, young people hate divorce. Either they’ve grown up in divorced households and they know the pain of divorce very personally or their friends have. Even if a couple has been married for 25 or 30 years and they think they are never going to get divorced, their kids don’t think that. The kids know someone else at school who went home and dad was packing up or mom was gone and they think it could happen to anybody. And so they’re living in this very fragile world. “Yeah, I don’t think Mom and Dad are going to get divorced, but Kevin didn’t think his mom and dad were going to get divorced either and they did.”

There is also an amazing difference for couples who don’t have sex before marriage. People who don’t have sex before marriage have an immensely lower divorce rate. Abstaining before marriage is one of the surest predictors of not getting a divorce. There is a study that shows that of people who were born between 1933 and 1943, 83 percent of the males were virgins when they got married and 93 percent of the females were virgins when they got married. And every decade thereafter it goes down about 10 to 15 percent of those who were virgins when they got married. Staying a virgin until marriage is one of the surest predictors of a long lasting marriage. Is that bizarre? Why would it be bizarre? You’ve waited for this one person. You probably chose this person fairly carefully. You said I’m saving myself for marriage, so I’m not just going to slide into marriage. I’m going to be very careful about this relationship. I am going to get to know someone slowly, let someone get to know me. The sex isn’t going to be at the beginning of the relationship; the sex is going to be at the beginning of the marriage. We’ve got a lot to know about each other before we can even begin to think about making that commitment.

Contraception’s Bad Consequences

What are the bad consequences of contraception?

It facilitates sex outside of marriage.

It increases the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases.

It leads to unwanted pregnancy and single parenthood.

It causes and leads to abortion.

It contributes to divorce and it contributes to social chaos.

Does anybody think there might be a reason to rethink our enthusiasm for contraception?


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The Selfish Spouse

27 09 2013

selfish spouse2

Extreme selfishness or “narcissism” has been described as one of the major enemies of married love and of love within the family. This description is psychologically correct because selfishness, while falsely appearing to have many benefits, actually turns the person in upon himself/herself, thereby interfering with healthy self-giving which is essence of marital love. Subsequently, this personality weakness creates significant pain and suffering in marriages and families. It is a major cause of marital anger, permissive parenting, addictive behaviors, infidelity, separation and divorce. Unless it is uncovered and addressed, selfishness will lead spouses to treat loved ones as objects and not as gifted persons. Studies show that selfish people are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short lived, are at greater risk of infidelity, lack consistent emotional warmth, exhibit game-playing and dishonesty and manifest overly controlling and violent behaviors. These behaviors in young adults are often fostered by highly permissive parents.

Charles, a 32-year-old married father of three children and a successful professional, manifested periodic explosive anger in his marital relationship particularly when his needs were not met immediately. Charles was overly demanding, insensitive, self-preoccupied and he had difficulty in giving himself to his wife, Kimberly. As the older of two children, he was always his mother’s favorite, and according to his wife, he had always been spoiled. In addition, Kimberly believed that her mother-in-law had never accepted her and she found her to be intrusive in the marriage.

In marital therapy it was pointed out to Charles that he manifested a number of narcissistic personality traits that predisposed him to excessive anger. He was highly resistant to therapy and attempted to blame all the marital problems on his wife. It was suggested to him that when he felt extremely angry he should try to act in a more mature and giving manner and to think about forgiving his wife.

Kimberly was an intelligent, giving wife and mother. She was highly committed to making her marriage work. She came to realize that her major emotional conflict was that of being an enabler to her husband�s narcissistic behavior and by doing that, she was damaging their marriage. She embarked on a course of healthy assertiveness with her husband. For a number of months the tensions intensified in their relationship to the point that Charles threatened to divorce her.

She viewed this threat as highly manipulative and challenged him to proceed. At the same time Kimberly tried to forgive Charles regularly for all the hurts of the past caused by his narcissistic behavior even before he made a commitment to try to change. She also tried to work at forgiving her mother-in-law in order to protect herself from the damaging effects of her own resentment toward her.

The possibility of divorce created enormous stress and anxiety for Charles and motivated him to work on his narcissistic anger. When angry, he began to employ forgiveness exercises. He came to understand that he had developed strong narcissistic tendencies because of his childhood and adolescent relationship with his mother. He worked at trying to forgive his mother for spoiling him and for depending too much upon him as a source of happiness in her life. He apologized to Kimberly and asked for her forgiveness and trust. Charles’ impulsive and explosive behavior diminished slowly through the use of past forgiveness exercises with his mother.

Unfortunately, many narcissistic spouses are reluctant to change and their marriages end. Some individuals would rather give up their spouse and children than give up their self-indulgent behaviors.
How selfishness harms marital/family love:
It can lead to
a. an inability to maintain a healthy loving relationship
1. strong feelings of loneliness and sadness in spouse and children
2. a poor marital friendship
3. failure to seek the happiness and good for one’s spouse
4. poor marital communication
5. a marked weakening in the ability to trust which is the foundation for loving
6. substance abuse or pornography
7. unhappiness at holidays, birthdays or special family events
8. an unwillingness to work on resolving marital difficulties
9. a lack of faith
10. unstable self-esteem
11. permissive parenting
12. lack of respect for one’s spouse
13. mistrust in the family members and leads to anxiety
14. weakness in self-giving to a spouse and children
15. regular overreactions in anger
16. resentment in regard to self-giving to a spouse and children
17. excessive love of self to the disdain of spouse and children
18. immature behaviors and weak leadership in the family
19. infidelity, separation and divorce
20. a materialist mentality
21. the contraceptive mentality

— Richard P. Fitzgibbons

 


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Reasons not to Divorce when Love is gone? By C.S Lewis

4 08 2013

reason not to divorceThe Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ’s words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism—for that is what the words “one flesh” means, like when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument. The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined.

The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union.

The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.

As a consequence, Christianity teaches that marriage is for life. There is, of course, a difference here between different Churches: some do not admit divorce at all; some allow it reluctantly in very special cases. It is a great pity that Christians should disagree about such a question; but for an ordinary layman the thing to notice is that Churches all agree with one another about marriage a great deal more than any of them agrees with the outside world. I mean, they all regard divorce as something like cutting up a living body, as a kind of surgical operation.

Some of them think the operation so violent that it cannot be done at all; others admit it as a desperate remedy in extreme cases. They are all agreed that it is more like having both your legs cut off than it is like dissolving a business partnership or even deserting a regiment What they all disagree with is the modern view that it is a simple readjustment of partners, to be made whenever people feel they are no longer in love with one another, or when either of them falls in love with someone else.

Before we consider this modern view in its relation to chastity, we must not forget to consider it in relation to another virtue, namely justice. Justice, as I said before, includes the keeping of promises.

Now everyone who has been married in a church has made a public, solemn promise to stick to his (or her) partner till death. The duty of keeping that promise has no special connection with sexual morality: it is in the same position as any other promise. If, as modern people are always telling us, the sexual impulse is just like all our other impulses, then it ought to be treated like all our other impulses; and as their indulgence is controlled by our promises, so should its be. If, as I think, it is not like all our other impulses, but is morbidly inflamed, then we should be especially careful not to let it lead us into dishonesty.

To this someone may reply that he regarded the promise made in church as a mere formality and never intended to keep it. Whom, then, was he trying to deceive when he made it? God? That was really very unwise. Himself? That was not very much wiser. The bride, or bridegroom, or the “in-laws”? That was treacherous. Most often, I think, the couple (or one of them) hoped to deceive the public. They wanted the respectability that is attached to marriage without intending to pay the price: that is, they were imposters, they cheated.

If they are still contented cheats, I have nothing to say to them: who would urge the high and hard duty of chastity on people who have not yet wished to be merely honest? If they have now come to their senses and want to be honest, their promise, already made, constrains them. And this, you will see, comes under the heading of justice, not that of chastity. If people do not believe in permanent marriage, it is perhaps better that they should live together unmarried than that they should make vows they do not mean to keep.

It is true that by living together without marriage they will be guilty (in Christian eyes) of fornication. But one fault is not mended by adding another: unchastity is not improved by adding perjury.
The idea that “being in love” is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. The curious thing is that lovers themselves, while they remain really in love, know this better than those who talk about love. As Chesterton pointed out, those who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. Love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal constancy.

The promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits one to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry. But what, it may be asked, is the use of keeping two people together if they are no longer in love? There are several sound, social reasons; to provide a home for their children, to protect the woman (who has probably sacrificed or damaged her own career by getting married) from being dropped whenever the man is tired of her.
C.S Lewis


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