Clem, a coworker in our sister department, is apparently getting married. It seems like it was just yesterday that he had a moderate crush on Mouse and was lamenting how difficult it was to meet girls around here.

It wasn’t yesterday, but it was less than six weeks ago.

For the record, Clem is 21 years old.

One of my coworker Marcel’s friends also announced his engagement, three weeks after Marcel introduced to two of them.

The Cranstons, the family we live with, have four daughters. I’ve mentioned Becki, the youngest and only unmarried and childless Cranston. The oldest, about my age (29), is married with four children. The other two have three or four kids between them (or will, hopefully, once her/their pregnancy/pregnancies lapse).

Many moons ago I very much loved a girl named Julie. She and I dated for almost five years when I started considering popping the question. The reaction among those I told was uniform: You’re too young, don’t do it!

I was 23.

Of all the differences between the southern metropolis of Colosse and Mocum here in the Deseret ‘burbs, the most apparent to me (in part because I work with young people, mostly) is the timetable. In Colosse, as with most big cities outside of Deseret, you’re expected to date through most of your twenties, start thinking about marriage at 25 at the earliest, try to be married by thirty, then have kids a few years after that.

Not that I believe in the big city model. It underestimates a woman’s decline in fertility after thirty and (subjectively) it causes problems down the line when the parents can’t see their grandkids graduate from high school.

I discussed the issue with Clancy last night and we both reminisced about how little we knew of ourselves at 21 and how much we had to learn about life in general. On the other hand, a good argument could be made that if you fully form by yourself, sacrificing the “me” for the “we” becomes much harder.

Nationally, the average first-time groom is 27 and first-time bride is 24. Most urban centers like Colosse pull that number up while rural areas pull that number back down. Deseret is somewhat unique in that even in Gazelem, our urban capitol city, that number is probably being pulled down.

In a state-by-state comparison of divorces per capita (“Divorce Rate”), for all it’s religiosity Deseret is actually midling (#27). The reason that it’s not higher is probably because of the church that so emphasizes family and marriage. Or perhaps I should say encourages young marriage and strongly, strongly discourages premarital sex. From what I understand, they actually “check” to see if you’re a virgin before allowing you to marry in a temple. Though that could be urban legend, a couple LDS coworkers recently discussed a particular GYN whose job it was to check. So I don’t know.

But in any case, the cultural pressure to get married young coupled with a biological pressure to have sex doubling back to a cultural pressure not to have sex (in any manifestation, including masterbation I think) before marriage undoubtedly leads to more than a couple of ill-advised marriages. It certainly leads to a lot more marriages, young or old, wise or dumb.

Viewed in that context, Deseret’s midling divorce rate actually becomes somewhat impressive. Southern states (including my own) that have large rural tracts where people marry young and get married more don’t do nearly as well as Deseret does.

In fact, if one were able to come up with a marriage/divorce ratio (“Marriage Success Rate”), I’d imagine that Deseret would do pretty well. The south would probably do a lot better as well. Most of the states with the lowest Divorce Rates (most located in the northeast) would probably not have as good looking Marriage Success Rate.

So the question is whether or not it’s acceptable to have more failed marriages for even more successful ones or whether it is not, in fact, better to have married and lost than never to have married at all.

This blog does not exist yet. It is the eventual site of Hit Coffee, how generously hosted by Blogspot.

Becky has an inquiring post about a niece of hers that is debating whether or not to give up her virginity sooner than planned (plan was marriage). Most of the advice seems about the same (If something is “right” then go for it, but not for the reasons she gave).

Barry of Inn of the Last Home had an interesting question in the comments section:

I’m curious as to what kind of articulation people can put on the reasons why it’s a moral decision in the first place?

That is, taking out the religious tenet of “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery”…where does the moral question come into play to those who either aren’t religious or don’t follow the 10 commandments that closely?

In other words, we hear all the time that it’s a moral and upright decision to wait until you’re married, or at least in a stable, loving relationship and not just sleep with everyone you know.

Why?

I’m not a particularly religious person. Nor did I wait for marriage and I don’t have any real regrets about not waiting. But I do think that a case can be made against premarital sex or sex outside of a serious relationship without relying on religious precepts.

It does, however, require the belief in some or all of the following:
1. When possible, it’s better that children are raised with two parents instead of one.
2. When possible, it’s better that a child’s parents are in love or at least have an amicable relationship.
3. It’s better that no one (male or female) has a child that they do not want.
4. Abortion, even if it should remain legally permissable, is not a better thing than not being in a position to want one.

Imagine a 100-barrel gun were possible. If you stick a bullet in one chamber and spin it (“Russian Roulette”), aim it at someone and pull the trigger, you are taking a 1/100 change of killing someone. Whether it kills that person or not, you’ve arguably committed a “sin” because you pulled the trigger knowing that there was a chance (however small) that someone would get hurt.

Now we take the chance of killing someone every time we step in to a car. But the difference between the gun and the car is that the latter is necessary (or there will be consequences if you don’t go to work or the store or whatnot) while the former carries no negative consequence for not doing it.

Which brings me to sex. Every time two people have sex, they run the risk of concieving. Contraception fails even when properly applied and it’s often not property applied even when the people having sex think that it is.

An unexpected pregnancy within a loving relationship can be a wonderful thing. For instance, I came a couple years after my mother said she was done. But outside the level of trust that a marriage or serious monogamous relationship can provide, unplanned pregnancies are rarely wonderful things.

If both parties agree that the baby should be put up for adoption or the fetus aborted (if you believe that abortion is not morally wrong), then it can at best be neutral. But generally speaking, things aren’t usually that simple. Either he wants to keep it or she does. Women that have had abortions have not (in my second-hand observations) been able to keep a complete emotional distance (even when they still believe it was te right thing to do).

If she wants the child and he doesn’t, he has to pay child support for a kid that he doesn’t want and the kid grows up without a father, with a resentful father, or at least with a reluctant father. However you stack it, the kid is not going to grow up in an ideal home.

And every time two people have sex, they run the risk of this happening. It’s another chamber of the 100-barrel gun. Both participants know that they’re doing it. And like the gun and unlike the car, it doesn’t have to be done.

So what if one party or the other is completely sterile? That’s a tougher question. A solid argument could still be made that they’re contributing to a culture of promiscuity that encourages fertile people (like April’s niece) to question their moral judgment. There’s also the matter of STDs, which may be an even better gun metaphor than unintended pregnancy.

Now having said all this, I did not practice abstinence in my younger years and I wouldn’t expect it of the younger set today. However, I do think that discretion (going through as few chambers in the gun as possible), and saving yourself for someone that you have enough a degree of trust to confront the parenthood issue, is on some level a moral decision.