Continued from last week
• The high divorce rate directly affects one million children every year.
• In a recent survey, 62% of men agreed that “while it may not be ideal, it’s okay for an adult woman to have a child on her own if she has not found the right man to marry.”
• Studies show that children from broken families are twice as likely to have emotional and physical health problems. Again, these are also more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, with this leading to difficulties in friendships.
Many children today are victims of their parents’ ignorance of the correct way to date and court. If their parents had only taken the time to study God’s principles on the subject, these children would not suffer in the way that they do—both during childhood and later in their own unhappy marriages.
Will your children, or future children, be statistics? Will they suffer in uncounted ways? Will you wait until you experience all the wrong effects of improperly dating, courting and preparing for marriage before addressing the gaping wounds you and your children will experience? Or will you deal with the cause now—before it is too late?
Other Shocking Statistics
Let’s return to the subject of unmarried couples who live together. Over half of all first marriages today are preceded by cohabitation, compared to virtually none early in the twentieth century, just 100 years ago.
Young adults now so often postpone marriage until their late 20s to early 30s. While most men and women are choosing to establish themselves in jobs and careers before marriage (which can be good), they also most often spend a long period unmarried but sexually active. This newer phenomenon has been described as “sex without strings, relationships without rings.”
Yet, looking at destroyed marriages, wounded children and broken families does not paint the full picture of the effects of wrong dating habits today. Sadly, dating today directly leads—almost universally—to premarital sex.
“Leads to” is probably not even the right term, because “dates” today often involve sex on the first date! Actually, more often than not, sex is the expected norm as part of the first date, and most of the “dates” that follow. Millions do this.
So many, blinded by pure lust, are committing fornication as a veritable way of life! Surrounded by illicit sex on every side, and often guided solely by their hormones—and what the dating partner almost certainly expects—rather than by what is right, couples routinely commit every kind of sexual sin imaginable. And many do this without the slightest pang of conscience giving them pause.
Within minutes, often induced by a variety of drugs, alcohol and an unwholesome environment, young people unconsciously reject the possibility of a healthy, fulfilling, God-ordained and designed wonderful relationship of husband and wife. Instead, they choose to dive into mindless, instant gratification, giving little or no consideration for the devastating long-term effects they will surely experience.
One shocking previous statistic brings this trend to the forefront: One-third of all children in the United States today are born out of wedlock! Think what this means! One out of every three children now begins life without a proper family and lacking the environment that the Almighty Creator designed and intended.
The Downward Spiral
Breaking this down, we can begin to understand the compounding trouble afflicting most families today. What happens to all those in our generation who have lost even the most basic knowledge of how to have a happy, abundant marriage? What will happen another generation from now? What will happen to today’s children’s children?
