Being over 25, coming from a stable 2 parent family and having the same religious background are important factors, too. So is being a virgin at the time of marriage.
I think biologically we’re best suited for procreation when we’re around 20. People married much earlier than these days back in the times when not everyone went to university and thinks worked somehow. If being over 25 years of age were to be a soft requirement, I would say such a requirement existed because of the state of our culture in this day and age, not because of inherent human qualities.
As for coming from a stable two parent family, I’d say it’s important (even though I don’t come from one), but I’d make a distinction between that and an age requirement and a clear distinction between that and being a virgin. I am assuming that by being a virgin you understand never having had consensual intercourse. You also probably exclude widows. This leads me to think you focus on circumstances of losing one’s virginity which have a moral significance. Coming from a broken family is not a child’s fault, however. Of course, you can consider the ill effects of being raised in a broken family and the ill effects of not being a virgin, and you can compare the two. But I wouldn’t lump them together too much or indeed the distinction could be blurred. Sometimes blurring the distinction of personal culpability leads to such things as people shunning illegitimate children and treating real, living people as fruits of sin whose very existence is an offence.
Besides, just on the margin, people who have sincerely repented for whatever made them lose virginity in a way that’s morally significant, shouldn’t have it thrown in their faces. Yes, it’s a complication. Yes, it has negative results. Yes, it can cause problems. But the sin has been forgiven and the person may well be holier than his or her virgin spouse to be. I guess I just want to say that with the sin absolved and with no such dangers to future marital life as could make it impossible to live a healthy marriage, the circumstance of not being a virgin shouldn’t be such a great obstacle as it is sometimes.
When two people live together before they get married on some level there is always the idea that “I can always leave if it doesn’t work out.” This permeates other aspects of the relationship.
That’s something which bothers me even in non-sexual cohabitation. That basically turns into a sexless marriage which isn’t really marriage, i.e. perhaps some form of sexless cohabitation. The people grow to live and depend on each other as spouses and then boom, everyone’s free to leave at any point.
The couple does not seek to compromise in the same way a married couple does because the situation is not permanent.
I would say that is something which plagues all kinds of relationships. These days people seem not to want to compromise in any way and starting over with a new person is preferred over trying to work on a given relationship. That’s an illusion. It won’t necessarily be any better with a new person, while it may well be better with one with whom we’ve already put some work in it. Cf. dancing partners. Most people would fix problems with the existing dancing partner instead of looking for a new one with whom to learn all the synchronised steps, but not so with a life partner.
There is a certain kind of independence (different from the type of independence retained by individuals within a marriage) that damages the relationship, instead of trying harmonize and blend into a couple sharing a life, couples that live together try to harmonize while attempting to retain an identity that is separate from the relationship of “couple.”
Yes, I think that kind of independence is very popular these days in all sorts of relationships. People are “single inside”.
Obvious examples of this are things like “It’s my money, I can spend it how I want.” “I don’t have to tell you where I’m going.” “I can make career decisions without your imput.” “You shouldn’t look in my phone because it doesn’t concern you who calls me.”
It’s reassuring to see that more people notice the problem. I take exception to the part about looking in the phone. I think it’s normally wrong to snoop into someone’s phone. I’m not a fan of secrets and I think it’s healthy if spouses aren’t secretive about phones, e-mail, letters etc, but demanding someone’s passwords or checking his phone doesn’t sound healthy to me. I’m not a fanatic of privacy of correspondence, but it’s still a concern. Even if it shouldn’t be made into more than it is, it’s still valid.
Like I said, these are obvious examples, but this phenomenon exists in more subtle ways, too. The psychological aspect of it is this: the individuals in the couple are trying to reserves parts of themselves for themselves in case things don’t work out. If there is not total mutual giving, then the losses are less devastating when things don’t work out. Unfortunately, this attitude sabotages a marriage, because in order to last a marriage needs partners that are able to sacrifice self, ego, and personal desire at times for the other person in that relationship. So, couples who live together before marriage have trouble uniting as a whole and giving themselves totally over to the success of the marriage.
Yes. I believe non-Catholics may be able to understand this, but I wager the difference between a Catholic and a non-Catholic’s approach to this is noticeable. This is another thing which makes me want to stick to the idea of marrying only a Catholic unless there’s a very exceptional situation.
As if because I was not raised Christian, I will always be whore, regardless of conversion. There is no charity in statements like that.