The following is excerpted from the National Review. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
The traditional model of marriage — not always honored in practice, but as the societal ideal — was to marry young without living together first, and with the aim of a lifetime commitment. The supposedly sophisticated critique of this model has argued that young people should do other things besides form families, that one should try on multiple relationships first, that 21-25-year-olds aren’t mature enough for lifetime commitments, and that living together first is a good test run of whether the relationship will endure. As sociology professor and National Marriage Project director W. Bradford Wilcox explains, however, his latest empirical study along with demographer Lyman Stone supports the traditional view, not that of its critics — at least among religious Americans, who may start off with the advantage of taking marriage more seriously in the first place:
Our analyses indicate that religious men and women who married in their twenties without cohabiting first . . . have the lowest odds of divorce in America today. We suspect one advantage that religious singles in their twenties have over their secular peers is that they are more likely to have access to a pool of men and women who are ready to tie the knot and share their vision of a family-focused life. Today, young singles like this are often difficult to find in the population at large . . . Shared faith is linked to more sexual fidelity, greater commitment and higher relationship quality. One Harvard study found that women who regularly attended church were about 40% less likely to divorce. The family-friendly norms and networks found in America’s churches, mosques and synagogues make religion one of the few pillars of strong and stable marriages in America today.
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
MaryannJuly 19, 2022
My husband and I will be celebrating our 52nd wedding anniversary next week. As we look forward to this special day, we are so grateful that we found each other early, that we were both committed to the gospel when we married, and still are, and that we were taught about temple marriage and the sacred nature of marriage while we were young. The joy and peace that comes to a married couple who are committed to the Lord, as well as to one another, is the greatest of all joys. Buying into Satan's distorted version of "love," including living together outside of marriage, or sexual promiscuity will NEVER bring the precious joy found in a marriage that is sacred.