Marriage
26
Marriage
Myths: The Test Drive
"You would be a fool not to. How
else do you think you will know if you like it? It might not suit you at all.
It's such an important decision that you should gather all the information you
can about it before you make it. Only an idiot doesn't take a test drive."
That paragraph may well represent
wisdom about choosing a car, but it is absolute folly when selecting a husband
or a wife. Yet the idea that living together before marriage results in a
better chance at a lasting marriage is extremely popular. The last data I could
find from the Census Bureau (2016) estimates that 18 million people live
together as partners. That is triple what it was when I graduated from high
school in the early 90s. Furthermore, The Centers for Disease Control estimates
that 50% of all women under 30 will choose this route on the way to marriage.
Jesus said it so well in the Autumn
before His death: Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your
father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the
truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of
his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8.44) Of the various
marriage myths we will examine for the next few weeks in this blog series,
surely this has to be the biggest and the most damaging. It is an utter lie.
Living together before marriage
violates God’s Word. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled:
but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. (Hebrews 13.4) The physical
act of marriage is not designed for a test drive. It is designed for the union
of two souls. It is designed to create the intimacy necessary for trust and
love to thrive. It is designed to produce children. It is designed to bring joy
to a couple who have risked everything on a life committed to each other. The
last thing God intended for it to be was a selfish, commitment-free mirage of a
hedonistic joy ride.
Ironically, the very pragmatism that
lies at its core would argue against entering a cohabitation living
arrangement. In a February 2010 report, the Centers for Disease Control found
that married couples ten years in who lived together prior to marriage divorced
at a rate of 40%; married couples ten years in who had not lived together prior
to marriage divorced at a rate of 34%. Apparently, the test drive theory is
faulty. Now, why would that be?
I propose the answer is relatively
simple. The vital element necessary to a successful marriage is commitment.
There is no other way to build a good marriage. At some point, and soon, every
marriage requires it. Living together as man and wife, mingling your past,
present, and future, sharing the same living space, reacting differently to the
same stimuli, experiencing health problems, legal issues, financial
difficulties, parenting pressures, and a thousand other things will push you
apart. In this scenario, when your dreamboat turns out to be a bit of a
shipwreck, commitment becomes the cement that binds you together. The married
couple who initially cohabited, however, bring a decreased sense of commitment
and an elevated sense of "we're trying this" to the relationship. It
does not take a rocket scientist to establish why the latter approach produces
a greater chance of divorce.
There are no better ideas than God's
ideas. Living together before marriage is a bad idea.
