Okay, maybe that title is a little bold. What I mean is that I think more young people need to be open to the idea of getting married sooner rather than later. I’m not saying that everyone should getting married right out of high school or college. Certainly I’m not advocating people getting married merely because they are old enough, but to tell a person not too get married just because they are young is also equally absurd, especially if every other aspect to consider is lining up (maturity, finances, etc).
Marriage is a hot topic. It’s hot because it is one of the most personal issues that we can ever deal with. What we (and those around us) decide about marriage will for a large part determine who we will become, what we will do, and what our society will look like. It determines not only the present world, but the future world as well.
Just this morning, I read two articles on marriage. The first dealt with one man’s opinion as to why he thinks the federal government should overturn the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996. In order to keep this from being a political blog, I won’t comment on his entry except to say that just because some people groups have practiced other definitions of marriage in the past (or even today), this does not mean that God intended marriage to be anything other than one man and one woman.
The second article I read was Albert Mohler commenting on an article in Christianity Today regarding why Christians ought to marry earlier. The trend is that people are getting married later and later. I took the opportunity while in seminary to take a class that Dr. Mohler taught: Theology of Marriage. In the class, he gave even more points as to why early marriage is a good thing.
Personally, I can attest to early marriage being a good thing. Abby and I got married when we were 21 years old. We’ve never regret that decision. Our anniversary is a week from today, and we love that we’ve been able to experience the blessings of marriage together for these last 7 years now. We also started having children when we were 24 years old (we have two now, with one on the way). We’ve never regret that either. Being parents of young children while we ourselves are still young has had huge advantages.
Getting married and having kids is a part of growing up. I think a lot of people want to delay that. But consider the blessings as well, and examine why you’re delaying it.