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Le_Cracquere
Guest
Sounds as if a certain author has issues, to put it mildly.
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Le_Cracquere
Guest
I take that as a challenge, madam.
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Norseman82
Guest
At first I thought it was by those two Louisiana families from “Fix the Family”.
I think it is a good idea, male or female, to not go into debt in a field that won’t get you a rate of return, especially when so many jobs are being lost to foreign outsourcing and automation.
I agree with Xantippe that it’s hypocritical for a man who isn’t a virgin to seek a virgin wife; but, if he is a virgin, I’ll fight by his side.
Tattoos - many guys find that unattractive on women. I’m old school - I remember when cigars were for men and earrings for women. Certain things are the province of men and others are the province of women. Otherwise, the day will come when they’ll want to use each others’ bathrooms (oh, wait, too late…)
I think it is a good idea, male or female, to not go into debt in a field that won’t get you a rate of return, especially when so many jobs are being lost to foreign outsourcing and automation.
I agree with Xantippe that it’s hypocritical for a man who isn’t a virgin to seek a virgin wife; but, if he is a virgin, I’ll fight by his side.
Tattoos - many guys find that unattractive on women. I’m old school - I remember when cigars were for men and earrings for women. Certain things are the province of men and others are the province of women. Otherwise, the day will come when they’ll want to use each others’ bathrooms (oh, wait, too late…)
And since when does God have one and only one person in mind for each of us? This is not Catholic teaching. In fact, the founder of Catholic Answers, Karl Keating, debunked this very notion in one of his e-letters (no longer on Catholic Answers, but found one via a Google search):
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DisorientingSneeze
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I do trust that both you and Mr. Keating know more of Catholic teaching on the subject than me. I will say that I think there is something he and I are both saying despite our extremely different message. The concept of Prince Charming is dangerous. Believing you need to hold out for a person who perfectly fits your personal preferences is a problem. God knows you far better than yourself in terms of choosing a spouse.
Our freedom in choosing a spouse compared to other eras does poke some effective holes in my way of talking.
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Xantippe
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I agree that it’s not true that God has chosen one person for everybody, and it’s just a question of finding that one person, who will eventually turn up.
The hard cold truth is that there are some individuals who are very easy to find a suitable match for, and others who are harder to find a good match for, and yet some others that there isn’t a suitable match for at all.
There isn’t somebody out there for literally everybody.
That said, the subjective experience of True Love or of happily married people is the feeling that one has found the one person intended for one. Theologically, that isn’t correct, but it faithfully reflects the subjective experience of the couple. In fact, it’s such a persistent idea that it occurs in Plato’s Symposium, in Aristophanes’ speech about the origin of love:
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DisorientingSneeze
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Does believing you could have just as easily married anyone else suitably matched lead to melancholy pondering of whether a better match is out there in darker moments? Does it lead to less empathy for others’ marital troubles because they chose that person and they could have chosen anyone else?
None of these questions reflect upon the truth of what you are saying or argue against it. It is just very different from how I’ve been thinking of marriage this whole time, so I wonder how it shapes the thinking of those living it.
None of these questions reflect upon the truth of what you are saying or argue against it. It is just very different from how I’ve been thinking of marriage this whole time, so I wonder how it shapes the thinking of those living it.
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Xantippe
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That’s an interesting question.
I would have to say that I’m in the camp that says that (subjectively) I can’t imagine being married to anybody but my husband and (having been married 20 years) I’m very doubtful that there would anybody out there who would be more suitiable for me. If something were to happen to my husband, I would expect not to remarry.
But at the same time, given that there are billions of people on earth, it probably isn’t objectively true that there isn’t anybody as good.
But on yet a third hand, it’s also true that marriage is (if taken that way) is a unique opportunity for learning about the other person and about yourself, so it is possible to become the most suitable people for each other.
I don’t think my views would lead to lack of empathy, because I don’t think it is true that people could choose anybody else.
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Norseman82
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Well, when I read comic strips and watch TV shows and movies (even cartoons), the whole “and to think of who(m) I could have married” line is often brought up in marital “disagreements”, so I guess that “pondering whether there is a better match” is always going to be a part of marital life. However, we must remember that the wedding vows include “for better or for worse”. I guess that is one part of “sacrificial love” within marriage - a conscious choice to continue loving someone that one has freely chosen to be with in matrimony despite temptations of “something better”. Otherwise, spouses will be considered like software that can be upgraded to version 2.0 (or 3.0, etc.).
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Xantippe
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I don’t really buy that. I know it does come up in TV, but realistically, if you could have married somebody better–why didn’t you?
My feeling is that the answer is–because they weren’t actually better and/or there wasn’t an offer.
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Xantippe
Guest
I wanted to go back to this, because it occurs to me that there are virtually unlimited demographic indicators for reducing the risk of divorce. Some examples:
–dating more than a year before proposal (dating 3+ years is best, but you still get a 20% improvement from 1-2 years of dating compared to under one year of dating)
–high household income (you get best results with $125k annual income or higher)
–regular churchgoing (Woohoo! Regular churchgoers are 46% less likely to divorce than never churchgoing. However, occasional churchgoers are more divorce-y.)
–However, being looks focused (for men) and wealth focused (for women) with regard to marriage increases the risk of divorce. (This is a problem for your brethren who can’t shut up about HB9s.)
There are other demographic pluses that you can find elsewhere, like being from an intact family, being college educated, not being previously divorced, not being too old or too young (currently, late 20s/early 30s are best), and not having too big an age gap.
The bigger the age gap, the shorter the marriage
Love may be blind, but crow’s feet may lead you all the way to divorce court. There are many early indications of what might cause a marriage to crumble before a couple walks down the aisle — and t…
nypost.com
“A five-year age gap statistically means you’re 18 percent more likely to divorce (versus just 3 percent with a 1-year age difference), and that rate rises to 39 percent for a 10-year age difference and 95 percent for a 20-year age gap.”
"Having your first child out of wedlock statistically means you’re 59 percent less likely to have a divorce than a couple with no children, but having a child during a marriage means you’re 76 percent less likely to split, Olson found.
“But that could also mean happier couples have more children. You’re 43 percent more likely to divorce if you have different levels of education than a couple with the same level. But celebrating a 10-year wedding anniversary bodes well: You’re 43 percent less likely to divorce if you stay together two years, but you’re 94 percent less likely to divorce if you reach 10 years.”
As I said, there are virtually unlimited demographic variables to look at. It would be easy to go nuts over that stuff.
And I have to say, of all of the demographic variables, virginity is one of the worst possible to lean on as a safeguard from divorce, because the other person’s virginity is something you mostly have to take on faith, whereas a lot of other stuff is easily verifiable.
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Xantippe
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Dare I say that spending too much time tweaking everything to be just right or passing on somebody nice and interesting because their demographics aren’t perfect is not unlike riding on a hamster wheel?
Faster and faster and faster, but going nowhere…
Because you can always hypothetically imagine somebody better–who may or may not exist. It’s not a recipe for contentment.
It’s also a very consumerist way of approaching marriage.
Faster and faster and faster, but going nowhere…
Because you can always hypothetically imagine somebody better–who may or may not exist. It’s not a recipe for contentment.
It’s also a very consumerist way of approaching marriage.
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DisorientingSneeze
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I found all the age gap information super interesting. I wonder if it varies at all depending on which spouse is older, and if so, why?
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Cruciferi
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At this point, I can’t imagine spending time and money on anybody but myself 
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ATraveller
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There are so many bizarre caricatures in that blog post.
I don’t know if someone at this prominent Evangelical resource site was subtly addressing this (I personally doubt it) but it was written in 2014 and it appeared on one of their social media feeds:
www.thegospelcoalition.org
I don’t know if someone at this prominent Evangelical resource site was subtly addressing this (I personally doubt it) but it was written in 2014 and it appeared on one of their social media feeds:
My Wife Has Tattoos: Marriage and New Birth
Spencer Harmon shares that a marriage between two unique and imperfect people is God’s way of displaying His grace so that others will praise Him.
www.thegospelcoalition.org
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alice24
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Where does this tattoo craze come from?!
I know more cathlics with tattoos than without. I have tattoos and I´m orthodox. I don´t look inked from head to toe (spent most of my working life until now in conservative jobs with the need to cover it) and as I don´t have “Hail Satan” inked on my forehead, I don´t see the problem.
I know more cathlics with tattoos than without. I have tattoos and I´m orthodox. I don´t look inked from head to toe (spent most of my working life until now in conservative jobs with the need to cover it) and as I don´t have “Hail Satan” inked on my forehead, I don´t see the problem.
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Norseman82
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I think that refers to people looking “in hindsight”.
Yep…
I would imagine most of those statistics are irrelevant when you’re talking about two well formed Catholics who believe in and understand marriage and work for it to last.
Obviously that’s not always the case in reality but the closer you can get the better.
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Giggly_Giraffe
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Women prefer men who don’t watch porn.
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F_Marturana
Guest
The author of the article really thinks listening to Vanilla Ice and / or the Beastie Boys risqué enough to be a character flaw?
Vanilla Ice just had the one song be popular. It was pretty vanilla.
Vanilla Ice just had the one song be popular. It was pretty vanilla.
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