By Scott Tibbs, April 27, 2016
More men should marry younger, and we should encourage that practice, says Pastor Doug Wilson, and I agree with that sentiment. It would be helpful to both individual men to marry younger and to society as a whole.
Obviously, there are many caveats to that truth. I am not addressing those here.
First, let's acknowledge the grim reality: Porn is everywhere in our culture. Children today are growing up in an era where porn is more ubiquitous and easier to access than anytime before in human history, and every technological advance has made porn easier to use in private. The VCR made it so one did not have to go to a movie theater, the Internet made porn available instantly and digitally, and laptops made it easier to hide than a desktop in the living room. With smartphones, it is easier to use porn privately than ever before.
On top of how tragically ubiquitous porn has become, the "hookup" culture has made sex something extremely common, and having plowed through multiple partners is more common now than in decades past in these United States. (I am not qualifying that statement either!) It is actually rare for someone's husband or wife to be her or his first lover.
But as the Apostle Paul writes in the seventh chapter of Corinthians, the marriage bed helps protect both men and women against sexual sin. The most memorable line may be "it is better to marry than to burn." Marrying younger protects men against years of sexual sin that they will bring into their marriage, as well as the warped ideas about sex that will influence how men see their wives.
Finally, marriage is a societal good because it tames and civilizes men, and civilizing men at a younger age is a good thing. Plus, there is nothing more sanctifying than having children. I have joked many times that you have not really lived until you have stumbled into work bleary-eyed and exhausted on three hours of sleep because the baby will not stop crying and go to sleep unless he is being held. Children force you to get out of yourself and think about someone else's needs more effectively than anything else.
If we Christians are interested in protecting marriage, the problem is not, never was and never will be same-sex marriage. The problem is too many young people abandoning marriage altogether as well as married couples getting divorced. We can start cleaning that up in our own churches, setting an example for the wider culture and instructing new Believers into why marriage is a good thing to be pursued.
