I am seeing this happen very very often in Fundamental/moderate settings (BMA, Keystone, Mid Atlantic etc) and somewhat often in intermediate (Pilgrim, Hope etc).Biblical Anabaptist wrote:My children are all grown and married, but it is my understanding from various sources that the young men are asking the young ladies for dates but are being turned down because the young ladies are not ready to be "tied down" to marriage. Is anyone else seeing this? If this is the case, Why?Josh wrote:Everywhere I go there is a shortage of schoolteachers, which is interesting as I keep hearing complaints there are too many single girls and not enough guys pursuing marriage with them.
I blame shrinking family sizes.
Perhaps this is a subject for another thread.
Common reasons given are:
“I want to serve in the mission field first.”
“I just never saw myself saying yes to the first guy who asked me.”
“I need a stronger man in my life than you. I just see myself marrying a very strong man.”
“I just don’t see myself marrying someone raised Mennonite. I think I’d like to do missions and meet someone over there.”
In my opinion, the plain Anabaptist world is infected with the same problem the ungodly world has: women are choosing careers for fulfilment and too many young men are busy chasing the world and have nothing spiritually to offer.
In all the above examples, I feel like both the guy and the girl were to blame. I feel the best way I can help is to do everything I can to make young men spiritually stronger.
In Holdeman circles, it used to be that girls almost never ever said no. Now it does occasionally happen and this is worrisome for our leadership. They are evaluating if all the career and mission opportunities for young women are such a good idea. They are also evaluating what is leading to less spirituality and more carnality amongst young men.