Future generations will marvel that we have thrown away morality in such a short space of time. Where we are now is a place our forebears could not have imagined. If it was not so serious the oft repeated phrase from the Laurel and Hardy films “That’s a fine mess you have got me into” could be the epitaph written over this generation.
It all started with neglect. Birth control was seen as a Catholic thing. We largely ignored the separation of sex from childbearing (1 Thessalonians Chapter 4 verses 3/8). Then along came the pill! The biological check on sex outside of marriage disappeared.
We neglected to apply the costly love of Church discipline in cases of adultery (St Matthew Chapter 19 verses 8/9). Divorce, with its allocation of guilt and cumbersome legal procedures, was there for a purpose. The dissolution of marriage is always a disaster (Malachi Chapter 2 verse 16). The increasing frequency produced a revolution in law to accommodate the demand.
Co-habitation has always existed but seldom met with approval and usually was turned into marriage. It was the tail that wagged the dog – now it has become the dog and marriage the tail! From marriage being the mark of adulthood, the God given arrangement for the good of society and the procreation of children, it has been driven to the margins.
The church finds itself also at the margin while the field has been left open to alter marriage. Same-sex marriage found its way smoothed to orthodoxy. Other permutations will soon follow. All this removes marriage from its place as one of the foundation blocks of society and replaces it with a societal soup.
It cannot be easy to be a person of marriageable age today. And for those who live by the Word of God, praying friends and a strong church are essential.
Christian men have an obligation to protect and look out for their women counterparts. The speed with which society has shed its morals has been fast and looks like getting faster as the numbers of amoral people grow. The advice the writer of Proverbs (4 v’s23/7) gave three millennial ago still applies:
Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.
Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put perverse lips far from you.
Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you.
Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left; Remove your foot from evil.