Wise Choice of a Mate

The Washington Times January 1, 2007 issue printed an article by Cheryl Wetztein, called "Is the U.S. Out of Love With Marriage?" the first of four parts.

In it she takes us back to the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life," which has a horrifying account of what life for a family and a small town would have been like if George Baily had never lived.

"His cozy home is a ghostly ruin," she says, "Wife Mary is a dried-up spinster. There are no rose petals from daughter Zuzu because there is no Zuzu. Even his town has become ugly and crude, with plenty of adult entertainment but no family homes, no loving couples, no playful children."

When we stop seeing that beautiful vision and ideal of a family, we stop having a purpose strong enough to keep marriage holy. It was my dream from my childhood to have a marriage and a family, and to live in a house of my own, and many women my age dreamt the same thing. The popular songs of the 50's were about one love, one wedding, and a cozy home. Years ago this was the simple definition of the American Dream.

Many men and women have had their dreams crushed because of the effects of the world on their marriages. Drugs --whether they be legal or illegal, are still drugs and have a devastating effect on the body and the personality. Drinking takes it toll on a person's behavior, which effects marriage. Women working outside the home create problems for children and for their own marriages. Men who will not be the providers, or who expect the women to work to "pull in their fair share" help create the breakdown of that dream. The outside world pulls at a marriage. There are those who are jealous of happiness and will dig to find problems, elevate those problems, and create strife in a marriage. There are men and women who make a play for other people's husbands and wives, putting even more stress and questions on the status of the marriage.

The best thing for young people to do is to choose carefully. One might think that the fact we are in such an enlightened age would mean guaranteed success in choosing a mate and in a lifetime marriage, but that is not the case. Marriages in our country were actually stronger and families were more loyal when young people were guided more carefully by the families in choice of a mate and when that choice was limited to only qualified people: qualified meant only those who were free to marry (not a 2-3-4 time divorcee or relationship hopper), and not a married person, and not a person who had the potential of harming the family in some way, whether morally or spiritually, and not someone who could not support you. I am speaking of the woman's choice here. I will address the young men later.

The freedom of choosing all by yourself does not necessarily mean we are better off in our country and our families. Many young people could have avoided divorce if they had sought out the counsel of their parents and those who had invested the most in them. I have seen better marriages when the couple had the hearty approval of their parents and when the marriage put them in right standing with their folks instead of causing division. So, just because you are "free to choose" does not mean you will live happily ever after. Our choices based on our own judgement are not always sound. We need the wise counsel of the people God has put in our lives, like parents and grandparents.

Marriage is too important a step to leave the deciding to the young people. It is more than just being in love. It is also an economic and financial investment. If this were not so, then why do so many lawyers eagerly accept the divorce cases of people who have been married 26 years or more? It is because they stand to profit fromt he vast domain of material things, savings accounts and equity the couple has built up. The longer they are married, the more valuable is their marriage both emotionally and materially. The enemies of marriage know this and they are out for what they can get from the break up of the home.

We need to go back to showing young people how to choose, based on certain limitations. In particular, young people should not marry these days if the choice grieves the parents. There is a lot more to the choice than just the personal preferences of the young people. An unwise choice can cause grief for decades.

Young men nowadays need to be especially careful. There are women today who prey on the good hearts of men who want to get married. They will marry them, have children, then sue for divorce and take everything that he has earned, and never let him see his children. They may marry and then divorce, taking the retirement that he has invested in, or the house or other property, leaving the man unable to get back on his feet. Then they may go on to marry another , wipe him out financially, divorce, and move on. One clue that someone will do that is if they have done it before. This is not a good record or good qualification for a 2nd or third marriage. There are other clues to look for, to deduct if a woman is entitled to marry again, but this is one that is easiest to look at. More subtle clues are her monetary habits, the way she treats her parents, her moods, and her values regarding staying home and being a wife and mother.

In my teen years every guy knew not to marry a girl who was rebellious to her parents or who just liked to party, and was not going to settle down to homemaking. The guys all wanted a good homemaker and the gals all wanted a good stable family man who would work to provide for his family. Every girl knew not to marry a guy who had no home for her and no income to support her.

In dealing with divorced women or men, we tread a very fine line these days, because of the so-called no-fault divorce practice. Under this unconstitutional law, a person doesn't have to have a reason for a divorce, and so when asked for a scriptural reason (which is only repeated, unrepented adultery), it leaves a person dependent on the word of the divorced person, rather than on proof. Prior to 1964, proof of broken vows had to be presented in court.Now, this is not the case.

In one case I know of, a man divorced his wife and told the church and his friends that it was scriptural (repeated, unrepented adultery). He passed himself off as the innocent party and even dated some of the girls at church. After quite a bit of investigation, it was discovered that his story was not true.

The problem with allowing such easy divorce, is that 1. It doesn't give them a chance to reconcile, and 2. It gives the people the opportunity to marry again and spread the same problems around. So, in choosing a mate, even if others have worked out a good marriage by marrying divorced people, it is safer not to marry a divorced person.

We could go round and round, wrangling the scriptures about just who can marry and who cannot remarry in the case of divorce, and who can divorce and who cannot, but here is one sure thing you can depend on: things will be a lot less complicated if you teach your children to marry only once to someone else who has not been married before. They cannot be confused or condemned doing this simple thing. Anything beyond that can be complicated. The least we can do is help the next generation by telling them the one sure, safe way to marry is to make a lifelong commitment to one person who has not been committed likewise before, and to stay in the marriage.

As has been stated before, a ship that will only stay together in one piece in calm water, is not worthy of being called a ship. Likewise, marriage was created by God so that two people could withstand hardships together as well as happiness. Often the happiness comes from the very hardships that quick divorce tries to free them from. To withstand the various attacks on their marriage relationships, kids will need their families to be very supportive .If they marry ill-advisedly and bring stress to their parents, they can hardly expect such support.

We know it is probably too late for the older generation to change things in their own lives as far as past divorces and marriage, but we do know it is good and right to teach the next generation to marry only once to someone who has not been married before. In saying this I am condemning no one but saying that there is one sure thing in the delimna of choosing a mate: it is okay to marry someone who has not been previously married and who had not had previous intimate relationships or children. It is better for the couple not to have all those complications of his kids/her kids, visitations, and so forth, in their married life. The only way to avoid it is not to marry someone who has never had previous relationships, committments or marriages. In saying this, I am condmening no one, but just saying we can help the young people do better.

It is true that the Bible says Jesus told the woman at the well (to whom he revealed that he knew of her several husbands) to "go and sin no more," but this does not mean that he gave her permission to keep on marrying and divorcing.A person who divorces several times can be forgiven, just as a thief or an embezzler can be forgiven, but it does not mean they should be allowed in a job of managing money, again. Just becaue a divorced person is forgiven, does not mean she/he should be trusted with the responsibility of marriage again.

Although there are exceptions, a young person needs to be very cautious about marrying someone who has been married before. Many people who have married such a person will tell you that although they are able to maintain a somewhat stable marriage, they will teach their own young people to marry one person one time for a life time, and not take someone who has had a previous marriage. This is because there are a lot of wounds and bitterness that they bring into a second marriage. They may feel distrustful and suspicious. They may never be able to totally abandon themselves to their marriage and make a success of it. Once a person has divorced, it is easier to divorce again. We see evidence of that all around us.

In saying all this, I realize there will be a host of people who will post day and night and even email me telling me there are exceptions and that they feel condemned by this article. In response I must say that we cannot base good standards on what WE personally did. We have to have a good standard of law to live by (the scriptures) rather than our own emotions. Today, even our national laws, particularly the divorce law and other law-suit type laws, are based on emotion rather than good standards. We can sue anyone just because we got hurt feelings, and they have to pay unless they want to contest. If they contest, they still have to pay.

So, in preventing divorce, we have to get away from our feelings and adhere to good principles contained in the Bible. If we become familiar with those, and read the Bible a lot, we will find our emotions will line up with our laws which we follow in the scriptures. We will train our emotions to respond according to our standards, so our standards have to be from the Bible. Thus we will feel teary-eyed and grieved, emotional and upset when someone tries to divorce, or when young people marry someone who is not a qualified candidate for marriage. It means our emotions will be anchored in our beliefs, which will be based on the scriptures, not on what our aunt did or our grandmother did, etc.

I am not condemning anyone but saying "Let's teach our young people a better way." Certainly there are many my age who have learned from the rebellion of the 60's, when people did what was right in their own eyes. We must pass on the wisdom we learned from watching such folly.

There are two types of reasoning, which I have talked about before: inductive reasoning, and deductive reasoning.

Inductive reasoning means that when a problem arises, your mind goes to your aunt or your cousin or your sister and you say something like, "Well, my sister was divorced 4 times. I love my sister. She is a good person. Therefore, it isn't so bad if you divorce multiple times." This kind of reasoning uses an emotion or a person or a personal circumstance as a standard for your opinion.

Deductive reasoning goes like this: The standard of law in the scriptures is that a man or woman should marry once for a life time. My sister divorced 4 times. I love my sister. She is a good person. But her behavior does not match the standard. Therefore, what she did is not a good example for me or my children."

I repeat that this is not about reasons for divorce, or who is divorced and who is not. It is about protecting the future generation from the problems they will face as a result of casual divorce that exists today. It is about showing them the realities of children from a split home, visitations, support, remarrying, and the church problems that accompany it. It is saying that marrying only once the wife or husband of your youth cannot split churches or cause the problems that multiple divorces can.




This ornament was so pretty I could not resist putting it here, although it doesn't really go with the article. I hope in someway the picture can "connect" to the thoughts here that marriage has to be held in highest honor and that we must help our young men and women to choose wisely.


Ornament from ebay seller Cozy-Cottage Decor at http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cozy-cottage.com/thumbnails/MVC-341S.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D6580499271%26ih%3D012%26category%3D148&h=294&w=350&sz=13&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=AD7kqtA9p7eQHM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dshabby%2Bchristmas%2Bornaments%26svnum%3D50%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG