It was 1961 when I graduated from high school. The birth control pill was new but not widely available. There were several girls we graduated with who got married right after graduation. They say that babies take nine months to grow in the womb but first babies may take less time. That was the situation with these girls.
Pregnancy used to be a valid reason to get married. Have you heard of "shotgun weddings?" The girl's father would threaten the baby's father with death, that he had better marry the girl he got pregnant. And that frequently happened. It was done "to give the baby a name," and also to spare the young woman the embarrassment of not being married with her first child. Of course, we know it takes two to conceive a child.
Research since then has shown that if a young woman is pregnant at the time of marriage, the marriage has a 95% chance of failure. Not good odds!
Life in America in 2014 is upside down. Used to be "first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby carriage." It seems that is hardly ever the case any more. Now it is "first comes sex, then comes co-habitation, then either the couple will split up or marry." True, unselfish, sacred love hardly ever enters this scenario.
I will admit to being under pressure from my mother and grandmother. Before I knew where babies came from, on the rare occasions we would see a pregnant woman in public, they would caution me, "Janice, don't get that-away. It'll follow you to the grave." What they meant was, "Don't get pregnant before marriage, people will talk about you your whole life."
I can imagine that mother and grandmother were holding their breaths when I got married in June of 1963. My daughter was born 10 days early, nine and a half months after we were married! Poor ladies! Years later, I found out the reason they were so worried: my grandmother was born the day after her parents were married in 1898! This must have been scandalous in those Victorian times! Poor grandma was taunted when she was growing up.
People accept that some women will get pregnant before marriage but the situation is out-of-hand when 75% of black women in New York City abort their babies before birth. Many women today use abortion as birth control, as was predicted after the Supreme Court struck down laws forbidding abortions in 1973. Abortion, killing the baby before birth, is truly "birth control." 57% of American women have had at least one abortion, sad to say.
Our culture tells young people that they can have sex when and where and with whom they please, just as adults do. The culture says that young people as well as older people cannot restrain themselves and WILL be sexually promiscuous! I don't buy that at all! We are certainly able to discipline ourselves for all kinds of sports contests, all kinds of job requirements, etc. We are perfectly able to say "NO" when we need to say "no."
Perhaps if we ALL would live responsibly, it will be a good example to young people. I'm not naive, but don't sell our young people short! What do you think: is pregnancy a good reason for your daughter or son to marry?
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