Young Adulthood and Pathways to Eternal Marriage

"Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:11).

www.ldsliberty.org 

When we think about our life goals and things that we want to experience, do we think about marriage?  Why is this something that is widely viewed as an older entity?  Shouldn't we want to bond with someone and become one with them through marriage?   Honestly, I think that a lot of people are scared to have that kind of commitment.  I wish people knew how to work hard and to know that there is going to be hard times, we just have to be willing to work for it.

"Since 1950, the median age at first marriage in the United States has increased and is currently at a historic high of 26 years for women and 28 years for men" (U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). Current population survey, March and annual social and economic supplements, 2009 and earlier. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabMS-2.pdf)

Pessimism About Marriage

Why is everyone so pessimistic about marriage?  Do they really think that it is not important?

"In fact, a recent study showed that 90 percent of young adults in the United States rate 'having a god marriage and family life' as being 'quite important' or 'very important' to them" (Bachman, J.G., Johnston, L.D., & O'Malley, P.M. (2009). Monitoring the Future: Questionaire responses from the nation's high school seniors, 2008. Ann Arbor, MI:  Institute for Social Research.)

alivewithchrist.com 

It is interesting and absolutely awesome that people feel that way, but yet there are still so many people choosing not to marry.  I think that divorce has been a plague to our world.  There are so many children who are part of a family that is broken.  I can see how it would be difficult for those children to think that families are going to think that all families are like that. 

Cohabitation and Getting Ahead Before Getting Wed

"In one study, 62 percent of young adults reported that they believe that living together before marriage is a good way to avoid eventual divorce; more than half of all marriages in America today are preceded by cohabitation" (Whitehead, B.D., & Popenoe, D. (2002). Why men won't commit: Exploring young men's attitudes about sex, dating, and marriage. In the National Marriage Project, The State of Our Unions 2002: The Social Healther of Marriage in America (pp. 6-16). Piscataway, NJ: The National Marriage Project. Retrieved from http://stateofourunions.org/pdfs/SOOU2002.pdf).

Because people are deciding to wait to get married until they are settled with jobs or homes, then they are tending to lead to cohabitation.  It is a brutal cycle!

sowhatfaith.com

**** How can we deter away from cohabitation?

We definitely need to have the opposite sex in our life.  It is the way it is supposed to be going back even to the beginning.