How Important is Virginity Prior to Marriage?

[Journeyman]

The Church obviously teaches that sex outside of marriage is a grave sin. But most Catholics over the past 30 years or so have tended to ignore this teaching. I was recently at a meeting of parents regarding chastity for teens and one parent stated that it is unrealistic to expect kids to abstain from sex and many parents seemed to agree.

This caused to me think that maybe a lot of parents figure that if their kids don’t get pregnant or don’t contract a terrible STD, that sex prior to marriage is not hurtful and that it won’t hurt a marriage later in life.

What do you think? Does sex prior to marriage bring in negative baggage to a marriage? What if one or both spouses have sexual partners prior to meeting their spouse? If you or/and your spouse were not virgins prior to your marriage, did that have a negative, positive, or neutral impact on your married life? And what would be your advice to the teens of today regarding fornication?

 

[George2]

It is not important at all but purity is.

You can marry a non-virgin. What the Church wants you to marry is a good Catholic. She or he need not necessarily be a virgin.

 

[Pug]

A widow or widower is not a virgin when they remarry, and I trust it is not a detriment to the second marriage. No person should be saddled with the idea that they are a lesser potential spouse for not being a virgin.

Regular self-gratification for years before marriage might be a significant problem. It can alter your whole attitude.

The other problem is being raised thinking that it is unrealistic to abstain from sex for a few years. What does that say about the attitude your parents have towards you. They think you are an uncontrollable sex machine or something. How lovely. Who has any self-respect if your parents think that about you? And how can sex have any meaning if it is such a compulsion?

 

[Deacon2006]

For the first time couple (ie not widowed) virginity has a significant role to play in the longevity of the marriage. Virginity preferrablly and if not at least not living together prior, refusing to use contraceptives and attending church every week after marriage are the hallmarks of couples that never seem to get a divorce. The more your lives reflect the secural culture the more your marriages reflect the moral nature of our times.

God Bless

 

[JimG]

Journeyman:

I was recently at a meeting of parents regarding chastity for teens and one parent stated that it is unrealistic to expect kids to abstain from sex and many parents seemed to agree.

Oh dear, I feel a generation gap coming on. Unrealistic to expect kids to abstain from sex? At the risk of sounding entirely out of touch, in my teen years it was taken for granted that teens would abstain from sex. And they did.

 

[arso347]

Sin is being disobedient to God. Our God does not make “rules” just for the heck of it. He knows what’s best for us, and his plan for how we should live our lives reflects that. To say a particular sin has no adverse effect is to say that it isn’t a sin, regardless of our ability to determine its harm to us then or at a time down the road.

Gods plan is the perfect plan, and that means “no sex before marriage” is the best way to begin a marriage. Anything less has to have at least some ill effect.

Of course God can bring good out of every situation, and a person’s current heart and intentions are infinitely more important then their past. This does not, however, mean that the sin made no difference, or, in this case, that virginity prior to marriage is not that important.

The situation of marrying a widow is, of course, a different subject.

I am so thankful both my wife and I were virgins when we married. The joy of knowing that I am her only one is indescribable.

 

[rayne89]

George2:

It is not important at all but purity is.

You can marry a non-virgin. What the Church wants you to marry is a good Catholic. She or he need not necessarily be a virgin.

You are something else. On one thread you rant viciously at a young women for cohabitating with her fiance and here you say virginity is not at all important. So you can have sex before your married just don’t live together. You blasted her for going against church teaching. Newflash:
2353 *Fornication *is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.

*"She should not, while she is living in sin, downplay it’s seriousness on a public forum and you should not defend her doing so. *

*She has no right to do what she is doing. We have every right and indeed a duty to Jesus to remind her." *That was what you said.

I guess than it would be my duty to remind you that having sex before marriage is against church teaching and your causing scandal by expressing your opinion that being a virgin “is not important at all.”
Sorry Journeyman didn’t mean to go off on a rant on your thread but George here flipped out on a young women here who asked advise on how to be a good wife because he found out they were living together , (they’ll be married next month)because “it goes against church teaching”. I find this hippocracy disgusting.

To answer your question. I think being virgins when two people get married is the best thing for a marriage. That being said neither my husband and I were (although he was my only one). Do I wish we were-absolutely! I think kids today are being taught that they are expected to have sex and they’re wierd if they don’t. That’s the message I got from sex-ed when I was in school.

 

[Journeyman]

Thank you for your responses so far. Why do many parents feel that it is virtually impossible to stop kids from having sex and the parents don’t seem too worried about it (their major worry is making sure their kids are using “protection”) Do parents look at their own marriage and figure “Heck, we weren’t virgins and it hasn’t hurt our marriage” or do they think “Heck, we weren’t virgins, so how can I expect my kid to show self control and refrain from sex”. Are parents afraid of being hypocritics when it comes to sex?

It seems that if parents had sexual relationships prior to their marriage, and if those relationships caused any kind of regret, then the parents would want to ensure that their kids had a better knowledge of church teachings regarding sex and how to apply those teachings in the real world. And if parents did not have sex prior to marriage, they would realize, as arso347 said, “the joy of knowing I am her only one is indescribable” and would want to make sure their kids could reach for that same goal. OTOH, is it possible that those parents with prior sexual relationships saw nothing wrong with that behaviour and it has not had a negative influence on the marriage?

One more thing for parents of pre-teens and teens, how important to you is chastity for your kids?

 

[StratusRose]

Not realistic? That’s what the Devil wants us to believe. It IS possible. I am living proof. Those parents are adhering to our secular culture that is filled with LIES. I suggest that you put together a list of websites for these kids like the pure love site on Catholic.com and , those are some great links for teenagers to take a gander at.

 

[space_ghost]

i guess it depends upon the two getting married… it was important to me, but i was 22 and she was 21 and we both were…
it was important to the both of us… if she had come to me months before the wedding and said “i have or had messed up” i would like to think that i would have been mature enough to forgive, but i remember the early years, and i probably would have been a jerk and punished her and myself…

tough question… anyone and everyone sins… i guess it’s what we do afterwords that makes the difference… :twocents:

 

[asquared]

Sex creates a bond between two people. That is the nature of sex. That bond remains even when the couple separates. It will interfere with any subsequent bond. Sex has three purposes, procreation, creating and strengthening the marital bond, and pleasure. Disregarding any of these 3 purposes (which can be discerned by anyone as part of natural law) distorts the act and causes harm by working against human nature. The testimony and experience of my generation, who came to sexual maturity just as the lie about contraception and libertarian sexual mores was being spread is this: sex before marriage, with someone else or with the person you marry, destroys or diminishes the ability to arrive at true intimacy within marriage. Artificial contraception destroys or diminishes intimacy in marriage. Both go hand in hand, both destroy marriage.

A special word for those contemplating marriage today, or living together, who fear divorce because of the experience of their parents: if you wish to greatly increase the chances or virtually insure you will someday divorce, by all means live together before marriage and contracept.

 

[Timidity]

Journeyman:

Does sex prior to marriage bring in negative baggage to a marriage?

Yes, but it’s not insurmountable, of course.

Journeyman:

What if one or both spouses have sexual partners prior to meeting their spouse? If you or/and your spouse were not virgins prior to your marriage, did that have a negative, positive, or neutral impact on your married life?

Some positive, mostly negative. Again, nothing insurmountable.

Prior sex doesn’t destroy the marital bond, but it does, I think, injure it. Makes something less than it could/should be.

Journeyman:

And what would be your advice to the teens of today regarding fornication?

Take from one who’s been there: don’t.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

A person does not need to be a virgin to be a good candidate for marriage–that is, doesn’t need to have an absolutely unmarked sexual history. A history of chastity is important, though, which is to say that they currently have and live in a mature understanding of sex. You want to know that living chaste life is within their ability.

People fall, and in our society, the onslaught of the attack against chastity is relentless, so that is “realistically” going to be a problem area. It’s not that it’s okay, but it is like traffic accidents… you have to admit that they happen, even given efforts to the contrary. (Oregon DMV calls them “crashes”, because the vast majority are preventable… so don’t get on me that my analogy takes the responsibility off anyone.) Trying to be chaste these days is a little like driving in a country without traffic laws. Keeping out of trouble takes some serious vigilance.

By this analogy, “wearing your seatbelt” isn’t having a condom in your wallet. It’s being in a family and Church that you can go to when you’ve run yourself into the ditch.

 

[Christian4life]

I don’t think sex before marriage is even remotely okay in ANY situation. Let me tell you how it has damaged my life.

God forgive me, I and my husband did not wait until we were married. We were both Christians, and we fully intended on getting married, having this big white wedding with all our friends and family all planned out in our heads. Well, we were both virgins at the time, but that shortly changed, and looking back I think it was because we spent so much time alone togethor. That is NEVER a good idea when you’re just dating someone.

We used this reasonable enough sounding rationalization that we were “married in our hearts” and that as long as we were going to be married it didn’t matter if we waited or not.

 

[Christian4life]

Well, this is what happened: somehow my family figured out what we were doing. My family, full of non-Christians who I had been praying for and trying to be a good example to for the past 4 years. They knew I had intended on waiting until marriage, and they didn’t care what my rationale was, they simply saw me as making a statement that 1. I couldn’t control myself enough to wait, and 2. Sex before marriage is okay. They even thought we were living togethor! 4 years of good works undone within a week!

As if that weren’t enough, some of my friends figured it out too! My very impressionable quasi-Christian friend who looked to me as an example started sleeping with her womanizing boyfriend, and to this day I blame myself for contributing to that whole mess!

I guarantee you you are someone’s idea of what an ideal Christian is, so don’t blow it!

Secondly, I started to feel really bad about it. I sat in the back of church and cried all through service because I felt like such a hypocrit even being there. So I stopped going. I didn’t come back for quite a while, and I missed it terribly.

Third, and worst of all, my relationship with God really suffered. I still felt I HAD a relationship with him, but what kind of person was I that I constantly had to ask forgiveness - then to just keep doing the same thing again. Once you get going it is so hard to stop, ESPECIALLY when you really are in love.

Oh my goodness I just can’t believe how badly this has affected our lives! We both began to feel so bad about the fact that we were sleeping togethor and not married, we tried to stop but in some ways we didn’t want to, and we just couldn’t stop!

Finally we ended up (on the advice of a friend) eloping and having done with it. The dream wedding I had looked forward to all my life was just a small ceremony in court with 2 witnesses. I still cry sometimes when I look at pretty table linens. I know that sounds remarkably selfish but I had this thing all planned out since I was 4 years old! Yet I know we did the right thing, I hold our wedding day sacred, and I know we would’ve just broken up if we hadn’t gotten married when we did - and would’ve caused more sin and problems to radiate out from our sin.

My grandmother STILL won’t talk to me because I didn’t invite her to my wedding. All the rest of my family are still hurt and resentful about it, and so is my husband’s family - even though THEY don’t know why. But I know in my heart we did the right thing, as we would’ve had to wait 6 more months, lived in mortal sin 6 more months, if we’d had that big wedding.

Now we have a beautiful little girl who was concieved, thankfully, in wedlock, but by only 3 WEEKS! I still don’t know what I would tell her if she hadn’t been!!

I still don’t know what to tell her when she gets to the age where I need to talk to her about these things! I don’t know if I can ever bear to tell her the truth about how daddy and I goofed up, and hope she doesn’t think that it’s okay to make the same mistake…

I don’t really want her to know at all! I just want her to know that sex before marriage is NEVER a good idea!

I know this is all very personal and I hope I haven’t offended anyone, I hope someone may be helped in some way by my unhappy story.

 

[ToddC]

asquared:

Sex has three purposes, procreation, creating and strengthening the marital bond, and pleasure.

I have to disagree with this quote. There are two purposes of the sexual act: 1) Procreative, and 2) unitive. The separation of these two functions is what brings about injury to us as persons and to us as a society. As John Paul II indicated in his Theology of the Body, (paraphrasing here) the ‘one flesh union’ of the marital act makes visible the invisible reality of the godhead. That is, the marital act is a visible sign in the natural world of the life-giving, selfless love of God himself. It is a beautiful mystery of our humanity which is created in the image and likeness of God. The marital act is pleasurable, but it is not a ‘purpose’ of the act. Pleasure is a consequence. I don’t believe God acts out of a sense of pleasure as we understand pleasure.

Journeyman, to answer your question, I believe most of today’s parents feel they can’t offer their children anything different than what they had growing up. This is tragic. If society continues to give in to this way of thinking, nothing will ever improve. As one who did everything wrong regarding sex as a teenager and young adult, I regret not knowing the ways of Chastity. I was never taught how to behave and live chastely. Indeed, living chastely within marriage has been difficult at times, but worth the effort. No husband should see his wife as a sexual object. It diminishes here dignity as a person, and that of the husband.

I will not repeat this mistake with our children. There are many resources to help in this area, many of them on Catholic Answers. We should all work to give our children better than how we had it.

Peace be with you all.

 

[Tom]

Journeyman, you need to hang around with different people! No parent I would respect believes it’s unrealistic to abstain.

Journeyman:

most Catholics over the past 30 years or so have tended to ignore this teaching.

Where are you getting this? From a liberal press? You haven’t talked to my children, they know how their parents feel. I have three sons and one daughter, not one of them think Dad feels sex outside of marriage is “assumed”.

Journeyman:

I was recently at a meeting of parents regarding chastity for teens and one parent stated that it is unrealistic to expect kids to abstain from sex and many parents seemed to agree.

Was this a group of Catholic parents? Did you voice your disapproval? I certainly hope we’re not making decisions on what to teach our children based on “groups” of parents.

Journeyman:

This caused to me think that maybe a lot of parents figure that if their kids don’t get pregnant or don’t contract a terrible STD, that sex prior to marriage is not hurtful and that it won’t hurt a marriage later in life.

I certainly feel sorry for their children.

Journeyman:

Why do many parents feel that it is virtually impossible to stop kids from having sex and the parents don’t seem too worried about it (their major worry is making sure their kids are using “protection”) Do parents look at their own marriage and figure “Heck, we weren’t virgins and it hasn’t hurt our marriage” or do they think “Heck, we weren’t virgins, so how can I expect my kid to show self control and refrain from sex”. Are parents afraid of being hypocritics when it comes to sex?

You keep making the same statements that no one thinks it’s important, I hope you’ve seen in the responses that it’s not true.

Journeyman:

One more thing for parents of pre-teens and teens, how important to you is chastity for your kids?

I was the parent who “talked” to my sons, my wife did the “talk” to our daughter. I assure you none of our children was in the least bit confused with the message.

 

[sarcophagus]

Virginity preferrablly and if not at least not living together prior, refusing to use contraceptives and attending church every week after marriage are the hallmarks of couples that never seem to get a divorce.

I hope this doesnt mean that i am destined to divorce!!

I was not a virgin prior to my marriage
My husband and I did live together before marraige
I use b/c pills for medical reasons, can’t go off them, temporary infertility is a side effect
We don’t go to church…at all.

I think this is somewhat biased.

 

[JimG]

rayne89:

… I think kids today are being taught that they are expected to have sex and they’re wierd if they don’t. That’s the message I got from sex-ed when I was in school.

I think you have identified a large part of the problem. Whether knowingly or not, we set up our kids with an expectation that they will have sex. In doing so, we force them to be countercultural if they wish to be chaste. Not an easy thing for any teenager.

This is a burden which was not placed on my generation, as both the culture and the parents assumed that we could and would refrain from sex until marriage. Kids tend to meet our expectations, whether spoken or not.

 

[dhgray]

There is a push in the CFC-Youth for Christ and CFC-Singles for Christ for purity. The push is coming from the young people themselves. They are fighting back against society. I’m so glad my daughter had decided to join the CFC-YFC this year and take a stand against the teaching of the world.