NO HUSBAND, NO PROBLEM. So claimed a headline in the January 16, 2007 St. Paul Pioneer Press. Fifty-one percent of women in America are now living without a husband. According to Professor Stephanie Coontz, “there is no going back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that organizes people’s lives.” The article offers nothing on what will organize people’s lives. Neither is there any clue on how the children (and the men) are faring. In fact, you wouldn’t guess from this article that women continue to have babies without husbands.
So let’s consider some much needed perspective.
Even the “No Husband, No Problem” ladies aren’t doing so grand. According to US News, March 12, 2007, one in four females ages fourteen to fifty-nine is infected with a sexually transmitted virus. Of these, 7.5 million are fourteen to twenty-four years of age. It is not reassuring to raise the risk of sterility and cervical cancer in this way.
Another recent news item equates high alcohol consumption with females who eschew long-term commitment in favor of “hooking up.” The alcohol eases the anxiety and the underlying aversion to being used as a sexual commodity.
So how is the rest of the population faring? USA Today, February 14, 2007, notes that overflowing prisons will cost states an additional 27.5 billion dollars in the near future. Present prison population in the nation is 1.53 million. We can expect an increase of 13% in the next five years. The additional $27.5 billion is to build facilities and to meet the expense of housing the additional prisoners.
Following are some things I have observed from years of volunteer jail ministry:
- Most of the men had not married or were not presently married even into their late 20s and their 30s.
- Many of these men are fathers, frequently having children from more than one woman.
- Female inmates are typically single mothers. To a high degree, their lives revolve around their children.
- Jail inmates rarely have any practical knowledge of what makes for a good marriage and family.
Wouldn’t we all love to curb the deception, the cheating, the stealing, and the violence that has invaded every community? Our justice system is overwhelmed. However valid our concerns about terrorism, the far greater damage to date has been self-inflicted. The people locked in prison cells are not the elderly and infirm, but those whose brain power and strength are at their peak. What a positive force for good they might have been! Yet we are so dysfunctional that we fail to convey even the minimum standards by which these people may live free.
Let’s define our society’s problem for what it really is. First, our most pressing social problems are moral and spiritual (problems between us and God). Second, the longer the time and the farther the retreat from God, the greater the damage.
And the third? Morals stand or fall together. The ancient commandments, “Thou shall not steal,” and “Thou shalt not kill,” are where we want to live. We want to fix the rotten floor of crime and domestic violence. But our efforts are vain, so long as we ignore the leak in the roof. We deal with this problem by heeding another of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shall not commit adultery.” (This includes every form of illicit sex).
Sexual sin is rampant. It is worldwide. Yet any thinking person should know that an intimacy as involved as sexual relationships is bound to have major repercussions. If this were not so, illicit sex wouldn’t need to be artificially repackaged for attempted pregnancy prevention and disease control (having accomplished neither). Violators would not live in fear of sexual partners.
Sex is not an evolutionary toy, destined for an adult Hollywood Playland. Far from it. Rather, it is a gift from God. It merits obedience to God’s instructions. It doesn’t carry an “adult only” rating, but a far sterner one, “for marriage only.” According to the Bible, marriage makes of two people “one flesh.” The man and woman who heed those instructions, do indeed effectively organize people’s lives. They train their children in integrity, loyalty, and duty. The result is order, security, and freedom.
The man who fears God will be rewarded. He will be a faithful and consistent provider for his wife and children. He has a powerful incentive to maintain a good work ethic, to pay off the mortgage, and to keep a well-maintained home. He exercises a healthy reserve with women other than his spouse. He knows a precious intimacy with his wife, a treasure that he cannot afford to lose. Bar hopping and criminal activity would come at a price he cannot afford. He sets the example on which the next generation can build. In the culture, he is a giver, not a taker. He models the Biblical teaching, “He that loveth his wife loveth himself.” He is part of the righteousness that “exalteth a nation.”
In contrast, sexual immorality is a badly botched counterfeit. It bonds sexual partners shoddily and ends up straining and tearing at the very fabric of the relationship. Because there is no fear of God before their eyes (Romans 3:18), the sexually immoral can readily exercise the option of cheating in any other realm.
We see then, that there is no such thing as a stand-alone sexual revolution. It becomes a total cultural revolution. It has generated landfills of media garbage in the guise of entertainment. It has produced hordes of sexual addicts. It has left in its wake millions of ruined marriages, and millions more have dashed the potential of a good marriage. It has produced the gaping financial hole known as a welfare state. It has lined the pockets of pornographers, drug dealers, and pimps. It has made prisons a fast growth industry. It has desensitized people to murder, with the killing of over 40 million of the tiniest U.S. citizens. It is the loathsome nesting ground for the dark deeds of sexual predators. It issues free tickets for AIDS and STDs.
That is why locking the door on sexual gratification outside of marriage (Thou shalt not commit adultery), would be priceless. Would men be less happy and less fulfilled if they opened themselves to God’s command? Not likely. If men were compelled to choose celibacy over marriage, family, and responsibility, would they? Not for long. But in the present culture of no moral judgments, men opt to steal their gratification. (So long as groceries are free, why buy the store?)
What these men don’t understand is that a good marriage would save from the cycle of death. It is worth the “purchase price” many times over. The difference between having women versus having a wife is the difference between a cheap imitation in feigned relationships, and the real treasure of a mate exclusively your own. It is also the difference between freedom and bondage.
The natural tendency of women tends to be focused more toward serving others, especially their own offspring. As a result, single mothers may be able to instill the same attitude in their daughters. Did you ever wonder why mothers and grandmothers raise the children, rather than fathers and grandfathers? Even so, in the absence of the responsible husband/father figure, the young women are easy prey to vile and abusive men (as their mothers before them). The male children tend to run in packs. Unfortunately the young men are initiated into adulthood in the negative ways of their peers. They fall for the baited trap of “getting what I want for myself.” The sad result is confused, angry, and often violent men, at odds with an ordered society, severed from real life challenges and responsibilities. Their sons, in turn, grow up without their fathers, repeating the cycle.
Men appear (falsely), to pay the lesser price for what the Bible calls stolen waters. Possibly women could be more easily persuaded. There are compelling reasons why the groceries shouldn’t be free. If a girl could be taught that she is well worth the price of waiting for marriage:
- She will be spared being handled as cheap merchandise, with its trail of tears, fears, and anxieties. She would not need to resort to alcohol and drugs.
- Her focus on reaching adulthood could first be to serve her husband. She would then have a clear focus in mothering their children. This instead of the long, lonely, insecure road of “doing for her babies.”
- Children would be supported by their fathers instead of by the state (or left to fend for themselves).
- The girls could avoid the “house of straw” syndrome. The hungry uncommited wolf thinks little of using, abusing, and abandoning the easy prey, to move on to the next conquest. But someday, in a perverted sense of jealousy, he may double back for the kill, jealous that she might be with another wolf.
- She would have to change her wardrobe. In today’s shameless moral climate, many females look way too available. If we would reverse course, ladies will need to be decently clothed.
Am I optimistic that the West will be saved from the deadly effects of the sexual revolution? Not unless we would also accept that ultimately we face accountability to divine law and divine judgment, a fear that not even the majority of churches seem inclined to acknowledge.
-by Lester Tryer