Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a leading Evangelical in this country, writes about the problem of young Evangelical Christians engaging in premarital sex and what can be done about it ^[1]. There is nothing new in this subject, but I think his potential solution is very interesting. As he notes, most Christian leaders will immediately argue that more teaching and preaching on abstinence is needed. However, Mohler argues that perhaps Evangelicals should begin to focus more on the rise of “late” marriages – i.e., not getting married until one is in his mid to late 20′s (and even later) – and instead promote “early marriage”. He quotes a sociologist who states,

Evangelicals tend to marry slightly earlier than other Americans, but not by much. Many of them plan to marry in their mid-20s.Yet waiting for sex until then feels far too long to most of them. And I am suggesting that when people wait until their mid-to-late 20s to marry, it is unreasonable to expect them to refrain from sex. It’s battling our Creator’s reproductive designs.

As provocative as this sounds, I have to agree with Mohler and I think the advice also applies to young orthodox Catholics.

In our culture, most people don’t marry until after they are out of college, yet men and women both are physically able to conceive a child a decade earlier than that. Historically in most cultures the average age to get married is during the teen years – not after one has seen a quarter century go by.

It is true that our culture is not set up for people to marry at a very early age such as before they are 18. Yet I have seen too many well-meaning Catholic and Evangelical parents urge their children to wait until they are “ready” to get married and mean by that until they are financially stable – i.e. they have a college degree and a steady job. What this often means is that the parents prefer materialism over purity. So a young man and woman in college who are created by God to be sexually attracted to one another are forced to refrain from the relations that God has intended for them in order to secure a better financial footing – is this really a spiritually healthy way to live?

Just a note: I am in no way advocating premarital relations; in fact, I believe early marriage is a primary way in which we can combat its practice in our childrens’ lives.