Marriage as capstone rather than cornerstone

My mother was by no means against traditional marriage or children, but she made it clear that she expected my siblings and I to finish college before we got married. Half of us did, half of us did not. I cannot say that those of us who did it one way have the advantage over the other. It may be that well-meaning adults somewhere along the line–mothers, fathers, teachers, grandparents–taught that to be successful one had to have a degree and a career and a condo. Once that was attained, everything else would follow. I once had a conversation with a fellow Lutheran teacher about vocation. He was concerned that he was guiding students into careers (“You’d make a good doctor, lawyer, teacher.”), but wondered if that was not always the right direction in which to be pointing them. How often do we tell young people they would make good parents?

I had a colleague, who (by office comments) lived with her boyfriend about 7 years, and was married to him 7 years. About then, she wanted a child. He evidently didn’t because they were divorced, and within a year or two she had a child by someone she was not married to.

Is marriage the be/all, end/all (capstone) of life? We build on a cornerstone, not on a capstone. my thought is that one would get married when we find that person we love and the time is right (for the lovers) not for others.

Many young men refuse marriage because it is not the deal it once was.
It used to be that a man married a woman and exchanged large chunks of his life/time/energy and took on considerable risk to provide for a wife. The wife in turn ran the household, provided regular sex, and raised the children.

Enter no-fault divorce, child support and feminism. Now, a wife can divorce her husband for any reason she deems fit and saddle him with alimony and child support, while denying him access to his kids. The whole culture supports her ‘independence’ and the right to her own body so sex often becomes a bargaining chip used to procure the husband’s obedience to his wife. A generation of men has seen this in action with their parents. Why bother with marriage when there are millions of women steeped in feminist ideology who are perfectly willing to have sex without the commitment of marriage?
There is a huge subculture on the internet called the manosphere that deals with this subject and spills no small amount of electric ink teaching guys to avoid marriage and pick up women for un attached sex. They are not going to ‘man up’ and buy into an institution that they feel is against them on every level.

Patrick @ 7
Now, a wife can divorce her husband for any reason she deems fit and saddle him with alimony and child support, while denying him access to his kids.
Or, conversely, a wife can marry “until death us do part”, stay at home, raise the children, run the household,
“be there” day and night … and find herself dumped, without job experience, when the “no divorce ever” husband, (now 50’ish) goes looking for his “fountain of youth”.

Helen@9

Women initiate over 60% of the divorces in this country. These young guys look at the odds and don’t feel like playing the game.

There was once a Golden Age of marriage a long, long time ago. Things were better then and God was happy. It’s a lot worse now. We need to do things like we did back in the Golden Age. God would like that too.

Marriage must be selfless. The two become one flesh. When selfishness takes over, marriages and marriage fall apart. This is the irony of the whole recent push in our country. This group of people is clamoring for marriage, that group is doing everything possible to avoid it. To what end? To protect one’s own interests. That is the real breakdown of marriage.