Choosing A Marriage Partner

I had the privilege of visiting with a young man from India this week. He said that he had been married four years this next May. I asked him which day in May and he told me the date. His anniversary date is the day before ours in the same month. That was interesting, but the most interesting part of the conversation was how he found his wife, or should I say, had his wife presented to him.

He said to me that his father chose his wife for him, using the Word of God as his criteria for his choice. The young woman was chosen on the basis of her relationship with Christ. She was required to be a believer and walking with the Lord to be considered for marriage with the father’s son.

So often we as Americans think that something is terribly wrong when a parent “interferes” with the choice a child has made in a mate. Not only are we expected not to interfere, but we are chided and ridiculed if we make suggestions to our children as to the character of the person being considered.

American children choose their own spouses on the basis of “emotional love” not character, or for beauty or money, anything but character. To evaluate ones character is called “judging” an intolerable word these days to most.

Because our culture is brain washed into the mindset of “not judging” we have frightened ourselves into never correcting the youthful thinking that so dominates our society. We allow the youth to think silly things, so as not to harm their confidence or self esteem. They do not learn simple social graces and kindnesses because they are taught that whatever they do is alright as long as they like it.

This thinking has led to parents neglecting to evaluate a potential partner and if a problem is encountered we are expected to withhold our comments. If we do obey God and attempt to instruct we are chastised for it.

Has this worked for us?

I think not!

Fifty years ago it was the wicked fringe element that lived together in sin without the benefit of marriage. No one we knew was doing such a thing. There were those who were living in sin, but not many and never in the church.

Now we have most young people living together before they are married if they ever get married. We have babies being born out of wedlock more often than in marriage and millions of babies have been killed by abortion.

The divorce rate is off the charts, while the children are being brought up in single parent homes.

This is what all this tolerance has done for us. It has caused children to be abandoned, abused and aborted at an alarming rate.

Child abuse has escalated out of control; most of the perpetrators are the non-biological parents or live in lovers.

The young people of today have no concept of commitment to anything or anybody. Their idea of happiness is to eliminate anyone who causes them to have to sacrifice for them. Just “delete” them when we don’t like what they ask of us.

We need to ask ourselves what we have gained by all this selfishness and immorality. In our country the parents have stayed out of the way in the choice of the spouses of their children, did this bring greater stability for marriages and children? The answer is no, our families are a mess and getting worse all the time.

What we have in our culture now is proof that the young people were not mature or capable enough to choose their own spouse without the benefit of counsel.

What we have now if proof that without parental involvement in the choice of a spouse, young people lack the wisdom of life long experience in discerning the character of a person.

Not only have we abandoned the old world ways of preparing for marriage with the help of our parents, we do not consult God for His guidance on choosing a mate for life.

We have a mess but we don’t’ evaluate what we created or change anything. It reminds me of the saying. “The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result.” Albert Einstein.

Did living together first, as the seventies crowd proclaimed, make a better marriage or successful relationship? The divorce rate among those who live together first is higher than those who do not. This is because when we live together first we are displaying a non-committal attitude; it is that attitude that destroys marriage and all relationships. The “bail out when it gets rough” mentality is no way to start any relationship.

The Biblical standard for marriage never leaves out the parental involvement of the children contemplating marriage. We have left the Biblical standard in the dust and are experiencing the consequences today for that foolishness.

The only hope for our country is for our culture to repent of abandoning God’s principles and begin to hold up the standard once again. This is a hard road because we parents will have to stand firm and even be rejected for our dedication to the Word of God. It is God’s approval we seek, if we love Him.