Marriage should be banned before age 25

[anp1215]

Originally Posted by Godfollower

There, there. When you're older you'll understand. (Pat, pat).

lol. Except Luna is, I believe, in her 40s or 50s (Luna, correct me if I'm wrong). So she wasn't defending the author because they are of a similar age.

[Debora123]

Originally Posted by Luna Lovecraft

The irony is that you're arguing that perhaps we should disregard the author's ideas because she's young.

Attacking someone's ideas through name calling does not further our cause. It just gives others reason to dismiss us.

Luna

Yep.

[robwar]

Originally Posted by Godfollower

No offense, but it seems to me that the biggest reason you married at 24 and your sisters married at 21 and you're all still married three-ish decades later is the fact that your parents married at 24 & 21 and lasted 50+ years. In other words (arrogance alert: I'm about to psychoanalyze three complete strangers based on one Internet post ), you understood that marriage really is forever; so you didn't marry until you were ready, and when you ran into problems during the marriage you worked on them until they were resolved, because you understood what "until death do you part" meant.

In other words, you were properly catechized about marriage -- at least in major part because of your parents' example.

But not everyone has that benefit. So exploring the possibility of extra education / preparation for younger couples is an interesting concept, even if you are a happy exception.

I agree with you about pre-marriage classes. but the argument about 25 being too young is a bit over done when you consider that the average age of getting married is now 28.
Also considering that during my mom's time (1940's) 21 was old, people married younger and those marriages lasted much more. There was not no-fault divorce, the pill and living together before hand. In fact, living together before marriage does more harm to the marriage than not and that is where this discussion should lie. To build happy lasting marriages, people should wait to have sex, not do artificial birth control and not live together before hand. You are very passionate about pre-marriage classes and are correct but no matter how great the classes or retreats are, if the couple was already living together before hand, they have done damage to the marriage that they will have to overcome.
Even before pre-marriage classes,we should be educating and teaching our young to wait for marriage, to understand and accept the Churches teaching on artificial contraception.
that will do more to build lasting relationships than making some law banning marriage before 25.

[TiggerS]

Originally Posted by Nimzovik

Precisely. Not to mention it is better to marry rather than to 'burn.'

At the time St Paul wrote the above, the problems we now have with the divorce problem and therefore the terrible suffering brough to any children did not exist in the main. Culturally back then, marriage was regarded as a life long commitment and divorce a serious matter. Culturally, society has now changed. It does remain, however, that it is better to marry than to burn with uncontrollable passion or in hell for serious and mortal offences against Chastity. To me, the problem is that couples planning to marry are not sufficiently educated in the fact that marriage is a vocation from God to which they are called as vocation; that they are to love and serve God through and in marriage - just as a religious loves and serves God through the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in a particular ministry in The Church. The married love and serve God through their marriage vows and are called by vocation to the lay state - their ministry in The Church is outlined in theDecree on the Apostolate of The Laity, which has many references to the married. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_c...itatem_en.html
and also:
"Preparation for The Sacrament of Marriage" (Pontifical Council for The Family) http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/po...rriage_en.html

In the main, I think, many couples marrying think of marriage more in cultural terms than in terms of their religion and their Faith. They may acknowledge that they have married before God in The Church, but tend to live out their marriage more in cultural terms than in the religious as a holy call and vocation to a particular state in life (lay state) and a particular way of life (married life).
Religious and/or celibates are called to a particular state in life (consecrated or whatever) and a particular way of life (religious life - or whatever form of life their vocation may take).
The married have a distinct and holy vocation and call from God just as a religious for example may. It remains that the celibate vocation for the sake of The Kingdom (in whatever form) is superior objectively speaking theologically. While subjectively, nothing can be higher than the Will of God and that vocation to which a particular person (subject) is called.

The preparation for marriage to my mind should be a quite focused and clearly structured (similar to an RCIA program) over a relatively lengthy period (months?) and shared focus with the engaged couple and the proposed celebrant or his delegate(s) for the Sacrament of Marriage. It is a most serious matter in its own right as a call and vocation from God, not to mention the sacred obligation to any children, gifts of God, to raise them in a particular society and culture as contributing citizens of same, but the very serious responsibility and accountability before God for their religious formation through their growth process. But in the main, I dont think those planning to marry may have much familiarity at all with such concepts prior to marrying.

[TiggerS]

The para below from the Document on the Preparation for Marriage from the Pontifical Council for The Family struck me in particular. It is certainly a document worth reading as is the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity quoted previously with link - even necessary reading especially for the laity and those called to the vocation of The Sacrament of Marriage. The documents dont have to be necessarily read in one sitting, but over a number of reading sessions if one wishes.
I will very often transfer reading matter from the internet into a Word Document, where I can highlight etc. and make my own notes, references and thoughts. At the top of that document, I note the phrase/sentence and page number where I left off reading. This makes it all very easy to take up reading once more.

27. This preparation will not lose sight of the importance of helping young people acquire a critical ability with regard to their surroundings, and the Christian courage of those who know how to be in the world without belonging to it. This is what we read in the Letter to Diognetus, a venerable and certainly authentic document from the early Christian era: "Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by either country, speech, or customs...the whole tenor of their way of living stamps it as worthy of admiration and admittedly extraordinary... They marry like all others and beget children; but they do not expose their offspring. Their table they spread for all, but not their bed. They find themselves in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh" (V, 1, 4, 6, 7, 8). Formation should arrive at a mentality and personality capable of not being led astray by ideas contrary to the unity and stability of marriage, thus able to react against the structures of the so-called social sin that "With greater or lesser violence, with greater or lesser harm, every sin has repercussions on the entire ecclesial body and the whole human family" (Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 16). In the face of these sinful influences and so many social pressures,a critical conscience must be instilled.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/po...rriage_en.html

I am unsure of what "do not expose their offspring" (see above quotation)may actually mean; although I suspect that it refers to the pagan Roman custom of putting unwanted newborn babies outside somewhere exposing them to the elements and death. What is quoted has come from early Christian writings and probably during the time of pagan Roman rule - a time of promiscuity including during marriage and by both genders. Obviously, it is highlighted from what is indeed written that Christians were called to live counter culturally to their times, as we are called today. We need to "preach the Gospel with words if necessary" (attributed to St Francis of Assisi) and this means that the way we live are to be a witness to The Gospel, all of it. It is not the exclusive domain of religious and/or priests and can be safely ignored by the rest of us. While ideally especially the consecrated and ordained professionals (religious and/or priests) will point the way for the rest of us.

[Melchior_]

I got married in August 2008, I was 26 years old. My wife? 24.

It's been four magnificent years thus far, and God willing many more.

Just saying.

[Godfollower]

Originally Posted by robwar

I agree with you about pre-marriage classes. but the argument about 25 being too young is a bit over done when you consider that the average age of getting married is now 28.
Also considering that during my mom's time (1940's) 21 was old, people married younger and those marriages lasted much more. There was not no-fault divorce, the pill and living together before hand. In fact, living together before marriage does more harm to the marriage than not and that is where this discussion should lie. To build happy lasting marriages, people should wait to have sex, not do artificial birth control and not live together before hand. You are very passionate about pre-marriage classes and are correct but no matter how great the classes or retreats are, if the couple was already living together before hand, they have done damage to the marriage that they will have to overcome.
Even before pre-marriage classes,we should be educating and teaching our young to wait for marriage, to understand and accept the Churches teaching on artificial contraception.
that will do more to build lasting relationships than making some law banning marriage before 25.

Absolutely. There is no way we should be waiting until Pre-Cana to be educating people about marriage. Our kids should be learning from the very beginning that Matrimony is a Sacrament, that it is an actual case of God working through the spouses, and that it is not a mere civil trial relationship.

Pre-Cana, in my humble opinion, is merely a stopgap intended to catch the ones who missed out on that teaching. It also has the happy effect of providing a spiritual time for the engaged couple to engage (ha!) in discussions about marriage without it devolving into questions about the wedding; but its main purpose is to say things like "Whaddaya mean you haven't thought about kids yet?" and "Wait; you've been married before?!" and "Share information on finances? You mean this is for really real?"

The kids really ought to have been learning this all along.

[Godfollower]

Originally Posted by anp1215

lol. Except Luna is, I believe, in her 40s or 50s (Luna, correct me if I'm wrong). So she wasn't defending the author because they are of a similar age.

Really? She looks much younger.