She went on to say how younger people don't get married when they should, or don't get married at all. But she didn't say why. I told her there were a lot of good reasons why marriage just doesn't come up for my generation. I said that there was no foundation or support from our communities, church members and even our own parents who have been divorced or remarried. She took offense to what I said and replied, “All that is, is just the devil, working.” I laughed, not to mock her, but I thought she would at the very least give some sort of reasonable response for the sake of conversation. What I got from her was that I was just part of the problem, I wasn't saved, and that I was living in sin.   In some way, I could understand why she said that.

Yes, it's true that our country is corrupt and the U.S. does not show a strong example of working marriages – but then again what other countries do? According to the 2000 Census 11 million people live with an unmarried partner in the United States. The number of unmarried couples living together has increased tenfold between 1960 and 2000. What that means to me is that people either can't afford rent or “want to play house” without getting married. I wanted to see what other reasons young people had for being uninterested in marriage.

I know that a lot of young people my age do not like to be told how to live their lives, and not getting married is part of that decision making. Instead of leaving their parents' house and getting married, you find many people jumping into living together and then deciding whether or not they want to get married. In Christian teachings there are ways to live, how to live when you're married, how to pray when you have marital problems. But what I don't see is the congregation coming up with ways to deal with young people having some fear of marriage, and I don't mean inviting young people to Christian singles night. I asked my pastor at my church what he thinks about the institution of marriage.

Former Pastor Steven Mackey of San Jose Ephesus Seventh Day Adventist Church says there are two reasons why it is difficult for many ministers to preach about uplifting an ideal marriage. “The first reason is that family structure has changed and now you have more ‘blended families' where you have mothers or fathers who remarried with children from the previous marriages, you also have children who come from a dysfunctional home. So when it comes to showing people examples of a good marriage, there really aren't any.” The second reason, he says, are economic issues. “What I see in my church is a lot of young couples who cannot afford to live on their own so they move in with each other. But the difficult part of that is, it takes a leap of faith for that couple to move out and say that they are obeying God and wait till they get married,” says Pastor Mackey. As for a pastor I respect his view. But what about those young adults who don't feel they need to get married or even have religious institutions guide their relationships?

Elizabeth Gonzalez, 26 year-old, says being married or single should not define her. She says that marriage doesn't equal happiness and doesn't make any ones love stronger or give you any guarantees. I asked her if she is open to the possibility of marriage in the future. “Marriage perhaps served a purpose in the past that wasn't necessarily tied to love, but to be financially beneficial to both parties and extended to the larger families. And people always think that this means that I am going to be alone all my life because I don't want to get to married, but plenty of people don't get married and don't end up alone.” Gonzalez says marriage is an individual choice. “I don't think marriage is a wrong thing and I actually get really happy when I find out other people are getting married. I just don't think marriage is a necessary thing for two people who love each other to do.”

Now personally, I'm not knocking marriage. But I do think it requires some self-changing. But the more I seem to think of how challenging it can become I get a little frightened. I have been in relationships where the majority of them didn't turn out the way I would have liked it to go. Plus, there is some pressure about being married from my family anyway. In the years ahead I'm hoping to see more young people who are deciding to get married have some kind of backing from people who have been married a long time and they themselves plan out what they should expect so when they run into challenges they understandd them from the beginning and not be so quick to pull out the divorce papers.

Post a Comment:
(De-Bug will publish e-mails on this page as soon as possible.)