I’m on hiatus until August 29. I’m posting reprints of old favorites in the interim. This post first appeared in September 2005, written about a week after I got married.
In the discussion section below this post, we’ve somehow gotten sidetracked on to the topic of men, feminism, marriage, and changing sexual mores.
If there’s a cultural myth I find loathsome, it’s the notion that men are losing interest in marriage because sex with women has become widely available outside of marriage. This showed up in some of the comments, and I wanted to take some time to respond.
As the saying puts it, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" I’ve heard many of my more conservative friends offer one variation or another on that old story, explaining why it is that one male friend or another is proving reluctant to marry his girlfriend. I know that a great many of the young women I’ve taught in my gender studies classes got one version or another of that message from their parents; I’ve read countless journal entries about cows and men and milk and sex. So I can’t say I’m surprised to see someone resurrect the old line in a discussion of sexual mores.
First off, for those folks who are convinced that earlier generations of Americans always punished pre-marital sex, do please take a good course on the Puritans. Failing that, let me recommend a great book by a man who is a dear friend: Sexual Revolution in Early America, by Richard Godbeer of the University of Miami (FL). It’s an indispensable corrective to many of our myths. And as any student of family history knows, depending on whose study you read, anywhere from 10-40% of brides in eighteenth-century New England were pregnant on their wedding days — judging by the records of healthy first-born children delivered eight months or less afterwards. (Perhaps there was an epidemic of hardy preemies in Boston three centuries ago?)
But I correct student misconceptions for a living in the classroom. It’s not what I want to do here on the blog. Rather, I have to say that as a Christian, a married person, and as a man, I find the notion that women ought to withhold sex in order to convince men to marry them to be profoundly objectionable. It certainly reflects a very limited view of men, women, and the nature of marriage! It also ignores what I think is the real reason for falling marriage rates: not sex, but economics. As more and more middle-class women become financially independent, more and more of us of both sexes can choose to be "picky" about whom we marry. We can make it on our own in a way that earlier generations could not; that means that marriages are more likely to be reflect our romantic and spiritual choices than our need and our dependence. On the whole, I tend to think that’s a good thing for both men and women.
Obviously, I believe in marriage, and I’m thrilled to be married to this beautiful and amazing woman. But I didn’t marry my wife so I could finally have sex with her. She didn’t marry me so that she could have a roof over her head. Rather, we chose to embrace marriage as an expression of our devotion to each other and our mutual eagerness for the unique "crucible" experience that marriage brings. As I’ve said before, I believe in marriage because I believe it to be a uniquely powerful vehicle for personal growth. I also believe it can provide a safe, nurturing environment for children.
For the most part, these are modern reasons. I didn’t get married to have licit sex. I didn’t get married because I’d starve without a wife. I didn’t get married to meet other’s expectations; heck, when it’s your fourth wedding, some people think you shouldn’t get married ever again! I got married because I am in love with the woman who is my wife, because we challenge each other in all the best ways, and because I truly believe that she and I will be better equipped for love, service, and transformation together rather than apart.
I’ll be honest. Despite my evangelicalism, I’ve always worried that the "no sex before marriage" rule has the (possibly) unintended consequence of encouraging folks to marry before they are emotionally and spiritually mature enough to handle such a relationship. No, I don’t think experience is the best teacher; yes, I know many successful marriages where both parties were virgins on the wedding night. But I’d hate to think that someone was marrying me just so that they could finally have sex with me! Indeed, I’d go so far as to suggest that for those of us raised in a more sexually tolerant and affluent culture, when we go to the altar with our college degrees and our IRAs and our own set of past physical experiences, we can offer our new spouse the radical assurance that we are truly marrying them for who they are, not for what we will finally be allowed to do!
The divorce rate among evangelical Christians (who presumably "waited") is equal to that of secular folks. That may say something about the culture’s influence on the church, of course, but it also makes clear that abstinence before marriage is hardly a reliable vaccine against future divorce! Mind you, I’m not suggesting folks go about "sowing oats" heedlessly. Promiscuity is rarely healthy. But when we idealize a more innocent past, and make an idol out of virginity and marriage, I’m not sure that’s particularly healthy either.
The young men I work with and my male peers don’t see women as "cows". (Vulgar, sexist humor notwithstanding.) For the most part, they don’t see sex as "milk" to be taken "for free". The fellas I run with and work out with are either reasonably happy in their marriages or they are single men looking to get married. The teenage boys I work with may be very horny (the same can of course be said for many of their sisters), but they too talk of marriage. Two years ago, during a discussion about sex, I asked a group of two dozen All Saints kids from impeccably liberal families, "How many of you want to get married someday?" All the boys and most of the girls raised their hands. Interestingly,three girls were the ones who said they never wanted to be married, for a variety of reasons. (One young woman remarked privately that when and if gay marriage becomes fully legal, she’d love to wed.)
Most of the teens I work with expect to have sex before marriage. Many, of course, are already sexually active. But the fact that "my kids" have had sexual experiences does not seem to noticeably dim their desire to someday marry; rather, it has the salutatory effect of making them less eager to marry very young! They want to marry when they’re well and truly ready financially, educationally, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually. And because most aren’t waiting, they expect that they will be able to make that marriage decision — when the time comes — motivated by a profound desire to unite with another human being, not a craving for a physical experience that they have never known.
Do our All Saints kids have a sound view? Perhaps. But given that divorce statistics in the liberal churches are no "worse" than those in conservative ones, my more traditional friends will have a hard time defending the notion that "waiting" is the best guarantor of lifelong marital bliss!
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