Poll: Age for Dating and Marriage

[Outsider]

My opinion is solo scriptura.

"1 Corinthians 7:9
But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."

In general, I think it's better for them to be over 18, but if they simply must.

Loretta Lynn, for example, got married at 14 and her husband was 24. They stayed married till they died. I don't see anything wrong with this.

This got me mobbed on farcebook. But I don't care. It varies from individual to individual. People don't fit into your neat little slots.

[Outsider]

I have no idea at all of what king of age expectations our congregation has. I will just say that personally, I think that only "dating for marriage" should be encouraged or approved. What I mean by "dating for marriage" is to avoid dating just for the sake of dating, due to peer expectations, etc. (Going out on informal 'dates' in a group - that's not such a negative in my mind.

I think "dating" is a garbage tradition. I think "courting" is a more civilized way to go about the mating ritual.

[temporal1]

My opinion is solo scriptura.

"1 Corinthians 7:9
But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."

In general, I think it's better for them to be over 18, but if they simply must.

Loretta Lynn, for example, got married at 14 and her husband was 24. They stayed married till they died. I don't see anything wrong with this.

This got me mobbed on farcebook. But I don't care. It varies from individual to individual. People don't fit into your neat little slots.

It’s been years, but similar happened to me when i suggested pregnant women are best to dress modestly, avoiding form fitting clothes or naked bellies in public.

And, i believe young mothers, teen mothers, should benefit from help with their newborns, not to abort them or remove them.
Esp family support but church and community support, too. Esp encouraging their husbands-fathers, too. Learn together.

[Outsider]

This got me mobbed on farcebook. But I don't care. It varies from individual to individual. People don't fit into your neat little slots.

It’s been years, but similar happened to me when i suggested pregnant women are best to dress modestly, avoiding form fitting clothes or naked bellies in public.

And, i believe young mothers, teen mothers, should benefit from help with their newborns, not to abort them or remove them.
Esp family support but church and community support, too. Esp encouraging their husbands-fathers, too. Learn together.

I think the farcebook staff encourage mobbing anyone who doesn't support the party line. I recently deleted my account there because of the harassment. They were hacking my account nearly daily- and it had to either be staff or someone who had hacked an admin account, because my passwords aren't that easily brute-forced. And I don't believe the money-grubbers there would allow a real exploit of the system to stand for more than a day...

[Ken]

Loretta Lynn, for example, got married at 14 and her husband was 24. They stayed married till they died. I don't see anything wrong with this.

She was 15 and he was 21. In her autobiography she recounted how her husband cheated on her regularly and once left her while she was giving birth. She described how she and her husband fought frequently, but that "he never hit me one time that I didn't hit him back twice." And said that her marriage was "one of the hardest love stories".

The fact that she managed to make it work isn't a recommendation for others to do the same. There are always exceptions to every rule and she seems to be one of them. But marriages that young have an enormously higher failure rate than is the case for people who wait until they are a bit more mature. If you want to increase the chances that marriages will last then you should want young people to wait a couple years until they are more mature. That is just common sense.

If you think 14 year-olds are mature enough to make life decisions about marriage, do you also think they are old enough to vote? drink? buy pot? join the military? drive commercial trucks on the interstate? sign legally binding contracts? control their own medical decisions including elective surgery?

I think "dating" is a garbage tradition. I think "courting" is a more civilized way to go about the mating ritual.

Other than semantics, what do you see as the difference? To my ear, "dating" sounds like a more mutual arrangement where both the boy and girl agree to do things together. Whereas "courting" sounds more like the guy pursuing the girl whether she really wants the attention or not.

[JohnH]

I have no idea at all of what king of age expectations our congregation has. I will just say that personally, I think that only "dating for marriage" should be encouraged or approved. What I mean by "dating for marriage" is to avoid dating just for the sake of dating, due to peer expectations, etc. (Going out on informal 'dates' in a group - that's not such a negative in my mind.

I think "dating" is a garbage tradition. I think "courting" is a more civilized way to go about the mating ritual.

I've known some people who were really into the Josh Harris "courtship" ideas. They ended up with kids who still aren't married in their 30s.

Josh Harris himself eventually abandoned Christianity altogether, and now he and his wife are divorced. I would not take any marriage advice from him.

[Ken]

I have no idea at all of what king of age expectations our congregation has. I will just say that personally, I think that only "dating for marriage" should be encouraged or approved. What I mean by "dating for marriage" is to avoid dating just for the sake of dating, due to peer expectations, etc. (Going out on informal 'dates' in a group - that's not such a negative in my mind.

I think "dating" is a garbage tradition. I think "courting" is a more civilized way to go about the mating ritual.

I've known some people who were really into the Josh Harris "courtship" ideas. They ended up with kids who still aren't married in their 30s.

Josh Harris himself eventually abandoned Christianity altogether, and now he and his wife are divorced. I would not take any marriage advice from him.

I had to look him up. From his Wikipedia page:

"By the late 2010s, Harris reconsidered his view that dating should be avoided, apologizing to those whose lives were negatively impacted by the book and directing the book's publisher to discontinue its publication."

and

In 2016, Harris appeared to be reconsidering the claims that he had made in the book and apologized to several who publicly communicated how the book had influenced them to stay single or had been used by adults to impose stringent rules on them.

and

During a 2017 TED talk, Harris said his greatest regret about the book was him transferring his fears into the book. He said: "Fear is never a good motive. Fear of messing up, fear of getting your heart broken, fear of hurting somebody else, fear of sex... There are clear things in statements in Scripture about our sexuality being expressed within the covenant of marriage. But that doesn't mean that dating is somehow wrong or a certain way of dating is the only way to do things. I think that's where people get into danger. We have God's word, but then it's so easy to add all this other stuff to protect people, to control people, to make sure that you don't get anywhere near that place where you could go off course. And I think that's where the problems arise.

[Ernie]

But the bottom line is this. If you want to see affordable housing for young families in the urban areas of this country where most of the jobs are, then it is going to be higher density.

It would be nice for you if this was the case...
But as we noted earlier, jobs in cities pay less and are less available/plentiful per capita for young people. So not sure why this would seem like a solution.

I don't think that is the case at all, unless you are limiting the discussion to a small number of manual labor type jobs in the trades geared towards young men without college educations like construction and and agriculture. And even then, not so much. My youngest daughter wants to be a psychologist. Is she more likely to find employment in a larger metro area or a rural agricultural town?

My observation is that there are more openings in rural areas. The city/educated folks I interact with all the time here in State College are finding it very difficult to find jobs in cities. But they want the non-financial perks that come with living in cities. So they limit their job searches to cities for the most part.

[JohnH]

Something interesting I perceive is that, it seems to me, Ken's perspective on jobs is always about finding employment working for some other employer. So, for example, "My daughter wants to be a psychologist. Can she find employment in such and such a place?"

The perspective plain people have tends to be much more about offering goods and services on the general market as a small business. So, if a hypothetical plain person were a psychologist, they would simply find a way to start offering their services. (Come to think of it, I do know of a psychologist / counselor who does exactly that.) They would not, generally speaking, be worried about finding some other employer to hire them. Nor would they think it necessary to live in a big city and would prefer smaller towns / rural areas.

Likewise, plain people aren't very concerned about making sure their young people can get jobs at fast-food places, etc., nor would they adapt their lifestyles (such as adopting smartphones) merely to meet the requirements of Wendy's as an employer. Instead, they would view it as a responsibility of their own - expecting members with businesses to hire young people. Generally speaking, I'm not aware of unemployment being much of a problem for young people in established plain circles.

[Ken]

Something interesting I perceive is that, it seems to me, Ken's perspective on jobs is always about finding employment working for some other employer. So, for example, "My daughter wants to be a psychologist. Can she find employment in such and such a place?"

The perspective plain people have tends to be much more about offering goods and services on the general market as a small business. So, if a hypothetical plain person were a psychologist, they would simply find a way to start offering their services. (Come to think of it, I do know of a psychologist / counselor who does exactly that.) They would not, generally speaking, be worried about finding some other employer to hire them. Nor would they think it necessary to live in a big city and would prefer smaller towns / rural areas.

Likewise, plain people aren't very concerned about making sure their young people can get jobs at fast-food places, etc., nor would they adapt their lifestyles (such as adopting smartphones) merely to meet the requirements of Wendy's as an employer. Instead, they would view it as a responsibility of their own - expecting members with businesses to hire young people. Generally speaking, I'm not aware of unemployment being much of a problem for young people in established plain circles.

I have absolutely nothing against people starting their own businesses. More power to them. My brother runs his own business in the trades. It is a demanding life without a great deal of freedom but it is what he likes doing and is good at. He is also physically wearing down and doesn't know how much longer he can keep going the same rate even though he is younger than me. It does take a certain type of personality to run a business and not everyone is cut out or suited to that sort of work either. And the success rates are not really that great. You can find statistics all over the internet but on average about 20% of small businesses fail in the first year and over half within 5 years. It is a whole lot more grim for people who get caught up in work-from-home MLM type schemes which seem popular in plain circles. During one of the many lawsuits against Herbalife it was revealed that over 90% of their sales representatives make no meaningful money out of their efforts, or end up losing money. MLMs are basically a scam to avoid labor laws but a whole lot of plain folks and rural folks seem to get sucked into them. And a lot of small businesses right now are getting crushed by the vagaries of our tariff policies. So it can be a fickle world.

Look, we live in a diverse world. I'm happy that people can make productive livings in rural areas and I understand that a majority of plain Mennos live in pretty rural areas, mostly as a legacy of a centuries old farming heritage. But there isn't anything necessarily Biblical or historical about that. Early Christians were mostly urban people. And early Anabaptists were often towns folk not farmers. The fact that today in North America most plain Mennos live in rural areas is largely an artifact of settlement patterns and the availability of cheap land in the 18th and 19th centuries when most Anabaptist migration happened.

But today, less than 20% of Americans live in rural areas. And only about 1% of the population are actual farmers. And many of them have side jobs or other full-time jobs as well.

I take a broader view and want to see all Americans have opportunities to succeed and thrive in our society. Including the over 80% who live in urban and suburban areas. That means good jobs, good schools, good communities, affordable housing, and all the things that to into leading a productive life and raising productive families. Everywhere that people life.

And frankly you all should be very thankful that over 80% of the population of this county has chosen to live in cities and urban areas. Because if there was ever a large-scale migration wave in the other direction your communities would quickly become unrecognizable. And I doubt that is what you want.

As for how hard it is to make a living in the city? Here in our community we are surrounded by young families whose parents work in finance, medicine, tech, education, and business. Few with inherited wealth. Many with multiple 6-figure incomes along with good healthcare, 401(k)s, etc. I coached youth soccer for many years and that was the bulk of my parents. What is the common thread? college education and hard work. Just like the young rural plain Menno families you are so eager to describe. It takes effort to succeed in this country no matter where you are. But the notion it is harder to do in cities is laughable.

Circling back to the subject of this thread? I do think young people should basically have their future trajectories at least planned out before they dive into marriage and family. If you are inheriting some family business that might happen at a fairly young age. But for the vast majority whose path isn't laid out in front of them by family it is going to take some time. And for many, some years of higher education. I'm not sure what the rush is.