Just for the record, I’ve never seen a shotgun wedding. I’m sure such things exist somewhere, perhaps in our recent past in the backwoods somewhere. It’s also quite possible that men somewhere have felt pressured, shamed into marriage. I don’t wish to completely dismiss that as if it isn’t a valid concern in someone’s life, it’s just not my world at all.
So within internet culture there’s quite a movement of men against marriage and this narrative that suggests there’s a marriage strike going on, that men are revolting against marriage because it’s a rigged game or something. MGTOW’s, men going their own way, that’s a real thing in the world.
It’s somewhat amusing because there’s this huge culture clash going, a contrast between what I read sometimes versus what I actually see all around me. There’s also an obvious economic culture clash, so like, “don’t get married, she’ll take all you stuff,” totally baffled me at first. What stuff? “Stuff” is like all the things husbands haul home that become lawn ornaments. Why would I even want his stuff? I’ve been trying to get rid of his stuff since he brought it home!
Duh IB, they’re talking about gold diggers, divorce settlements, resources. Very funny misunderstanding, wait….you have resources?
So where I live a lot of tradition is just out the window. People tend to live together, not get married, and many men are often, well poets, guitar players…..jugglers.
I’m serous about the juggler thing, not long ago I offended a woman who wanted to start a family, have a baby by saying, “But how, your boyfriend doesn’t have a job?” Yes he does, he’s a juggler! Oh, sorry. Well than…
I’m being a bit tongue in cheek and making fun of people, but I was the exact same way. My mother eventually got married a few times, but it wasn’t her idea. She didn’t really care about marriage. Neither did I, neither do most women all around me. I did not do the traditional and Godly thing, and get married because the bible values it. It was actually my husband who valued marriage, it was he who held those values. I believe when he said we should get married my answer was actually, “Why?” It didn’t even compute.
That’s the world I come from, one so disconnected from values of any sort that it really took a miraculous movement of the Holy Spirit and my husband’s persistence for me to even consider the possibility. “Why,” really was my mindset, as in I totally don’t get this. I often say, I got married because God said, because He did, because to me marriage was counter cultural, counter intuitive, just not done, and I wasn’t really feeling it either. God kept whispering in my ear, “but didn’t I say…?” And my husband kept whispering in my ear, “because it’s the right thing to do.”
As you can see, I’ve since become quite a marriage advocate and part of that is because I come from this time and place where the value and worth of marriage was nearly lost, where I myself could not even see it, where culture became separated from tradition of any sort, and the losses there are profound. So, Jesus Christ equates His own relationship with His church, to a marriage. If you think about it, marriage is one of the first things God creates and in the end it is His bride He returns for. So marriage is not just this casual thing to be tossed aside, forgotten, or redesigned. It matters.
So it is with some despair that I occasionally bump into Christian men promoting this idea that men are being shamed into marriage or that women must fix all these things that are wrong with the world or else men will just stop getting married. Despair, because I know it just doesn’t work that way in real life. Women are such followers, if men devalue marriage, women will just happily follow suit and begin to devalue it ourselves.
Also, it’s actually a message of feminism that suggests marriage is a patriarchal, oppressive, out-dated institution. They have launched a war against marriage. Actually in many places they have won a war against marriage. The LGBT lobby has a war against marriage going on, too. Some red pills and MGTOW’s have a war going on, too. When Christian men also step into the fray and begin attacking marriage, there just isn’t much else to hold it up.
God doesn’t say, once everything is to your liking and going exactly as you want, than and only than can you stand up for the values and traditions that I designed. Just saying.
As the luckiest man in the world, I’ve been married to a girl I don’t deserve for almost 35 years. Any guy who has to be talked into it isn’t worth the risk a poor girl has to take. The first thing a great needs to know if whether or not she’s talking to a full grown man or a very old adolescent.
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First thing a girl needs to know is whether.,,
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Ahh, that’s very sweet. You can make all the typos you want, no apology needed. 🙂
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Sorry for the typos.
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It’s unfortunate that some Christian men don’t see the importance and value in marriage. I can’t stand when people blame the woman for why she isn’t married yet. As a woman you can do everything the right way but if a man doesn’t want to get married then that’s that. It has nothing to do with what the women does or doesn’t do. Men need to be held accountable for this. I think the church needs to help mentor single men and women in understanding why marriage is important. Great post I really enjoyed it.
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Good point! I think the church really does need to mentor people about why marriage is important, and not just in the “living together is sinful” context, but I mean the actual fruits and benefits of marriage for two people spiritually, but also for communities, the economy. It’s not just about two people anymore, it can be like ripples on pond, a foundation that begins to impact so many other systems.
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take my stuff? go ahead. I’ll just get new stuff. better stuff. LOL
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Ha! Yes, precisely. 🙂
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It amusing how so many people seem to be against marriage, yet people are still getting married, and divorce rate is actually beginning to decline.
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I know, right? The divorce rate has actually been declining steadily for sometime now. Most people on dating sites and what not seem to actually want marriage, so this idea that there is some kind of marriage strike doesn’t resonate with me.
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I find it amusing that on the one-hand “feminism suggests marriage is a patriarchal, oppressive, out-dated institution” and at the same time, the LGBT community bemoans any resistance to their ‘right’ to marry. I’ve become adjusted to a more tolerant view of this, but still maintain that my acceptance was forced under duress. LOL!
I still believe that the term ‘marriage’ is really only proper in a strictly Biblical adherence (for ALL the reasons you quite adequately presented). I don’t fully understand why a more appropriate secular term like ‘civil union’ is not embraced as sufficient by the LGBT, although many want a religious ‘endorsement’ on their unions, even when the corresponding life-style embraced by the ‘couple’ isn’t compatible with Biblical based religions.
Reading about ‘Christian’ men who shun marriage as a preferred union, speaks to me more about their increasing (from progressing generations) lack of a sense of commitment and responsibility. The godly profession of true love expressed in a Biblical marriage vow is intended to provide an unshakeable foundation upon which to build a lasting relationship – not only for the couple, but for successive generations of their offspring. The SPIRITUAL ramifications far out-weigh any physical ‘contract’.
Marriage is so important to a godly assurance of blessing, that there is a promised sanctifying of the children of married couples – even when only ONE is a believer!
“For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy” – 1Cor. 7:14.
As the world strives for ‘equality’ – even in the value of religions – ‘marriage’ has succumbed to a similar declaration of equality where it has become merely a tax-shelter or a banner of pride, rather than a binding ordinance of God. No wonder fewer people consider it a mandate and think too little of its godly virtues.
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“I find it amusing that on the one-hand “feminism suggests marriage is a patriarchal, oppressive, out-dated institution” and at the same time, the LGBT community bemoans any resistance to their ‘right’ to marry.”
I hear you! For years I heard about how marriage wasn’t important, it was actually oppressive and evil and than the next day, marriage is a basic human right!!…for gays. You must tolerate this new development which we are going to force upon you…. by being intolerant! Ai yi yi.
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What the LGBT crowd is doing is fornication. They don’t like their sexual relationships to be called sinful. So they demand societal affirmation via a legal endorsement, that is, marriage. Now that they have “marriage”, consider what they are doing with it. They are using their “marriages” to beat up on businesses who want nothing to do with their “marriages”.
So, no, I don’t have tolerant view of same-sex marriage. I don’t have a tolerant view of fornication.
When we have sex, there is a lot going on besides just the possibility of making a baby. When two people have sex, as the Apostle Paul said, they commit against their own body (1 Corinthians 6:18). As a practical matter, when one person seduces another, that person commits a sin against their own body and the body of the person they seduce. Of course, the one allows their self to be seduce shares in that guilt.
When two people of the same sex have sex, there is no way they can either anatomically or mentally for the two to become one. They can only sin against the body.
What about “traditional” marriage? Marriage forces a man and a woman to consider the consequences of the sexual act and to make the commitment that act demands. Why must it have legal significance? We need to protect the right of children to have parents who are responsible for them. We also need to protect the rights of people who take their obligations seriously from those who do not.
So is there a movement afoot to shame men into marriage? I don’t really know. Given I think men who have sex outside of marriage should be ashamed anyway, I sort of hope so. What worries me is that so many don’t understand the definition of marriage. We risk going back to the days before the First Coming of Christ, when many saw nothing wrong with pedophilia and temple prostitutes. Sex is not a gift we should pervert with such vile foolishness.
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Amen,Tom. Well said and sensible, indeed.
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Tom, I totally agree with your reasoning and it is certainly consistent with most scriptural interpretations. However, the generalization indicating that ALL gays are sinful fornicators is the exact point where I employ a reserved tolerance. I know a person who is openly gay – yet professes just as openly – the she is celibate. Her ‘love’ of same-sex individuals is professed as merely Platonic, having been raped as an adolescent by an older male cousin. Her ‘love’ of the female gender OVER the male is a related conviction. She is a practicing Catholic and when we talk she always maintains her innocence and love of God.
The ‘tolerance’ I expressed is in direct relation to those who, like her, are ‘victims’ of the politically correct stigma imposed upon them. NOT ALL gays are fornicators – while the MAJORITY apparently are. But ‘tolerance’ is NOT to be rooted in endorsement – it is ‘forgiveness’ rooted in an appreciation of GRACE – except for which, there go I.
Judge NOT is Christ’s command. Yes, there is right and wrong – and we who accept and know the difference should adhere to it and steadfastly proclaim it. But we are MERELY the ‘messengers’ NOT the ‘judge, jury, and executioners’. WE must allow the SAME grace by which we are saved to be granted to those less aware and therefore, still quite confused and WRONG.
I had the honor many years ago to minister to a gay man (an admitted fornicator) the love of Christ and His plan of redemption, which he emphatically embraced. He immediately forsook his gay lifestyle and a year later married a woman. They became an ‘average’ family of five, successfully integrating into our Christian community as committed leaders. He NEVER returned to his former homosexual friends or habits.
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@MJThompson
I have no disagreement with what you just wrote. The way I understood your February 8, 2017 at 4:54 pm comment is that you had become more tolerant of same-sex “marriage”. Since your scriptural seems to be quite considerable, I was sufficiently disappointed that I felt the need to reply. I am relieved to see I just misunderstood.
Thank you for the clarification.
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I think men ought to be married by age 34 and women by age 37.
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Beware of such assumptions. While you’re completely free to express your opinions, the ramifications of such are rather naive. If ANY ‘deadlines’ are imposed 34 year-old men and 37 year-old women will be ‘pressured’ into ‘tying the knot’, most likely against their will, and NOT motivated by true love – an errant concept of marriage.
Conversely, under such ‘requirements’ there is an inference that EVERYONE ‘ought to be married’ – which is NOT consistent with scripture or reality. There are many who NEVER marry – for many good reasons – who live perfectly happy lives without such commitments.
Why ‘men @ 34’ and ‘women @ 37’ – Any significance to those specific numbers? Younger for men and older for women, where do these ideas originate?
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I’ve gotta stop commenting when I am drunk.
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I’m a MGTOW. The ex claimed to be a Christian. When she decided she valued her also adulterous lover over me, she played the false DV card and destroyed me. Every divorce lawyer in the world will advise his client to play the card for it insures a slam dunk victory.
The younger men have seen what was done to their fathers, uncles, brothers, and friends by a female unleashing the power of state violence by proxy on a man. Until the Violence Against Women Act and its progeny is repealed, which will not happen, marriage is nothing more than the muzzle of a pistol superglued to a man’s temple with the wife given permission, nay encouragement, to pull the trigger at any time for any whim. Only a blithering idiot would volunteer for this.
Biblical marriage died with no fault divorce in the 1970’s. Today it is nothing more than a civil contract with the great possibility of criminal court for the husband when the wife decides she wants out. Please name another civil contract where one partner has the ability to have the other partner thrown in jail with one phone call. There isn’t one.
You want to save your religion and your country? Stop and reverse the cancer of feminism. But that isn’t going to happen. Read Oswald Spengler or J.D. Unwin. Western civilization and Christainty are in their death throes. Historical and cultural forces are at work and cannot be overcome.
MGTOW is merely a symptom of the impending deaths. Western culture, governments, and the church have crucified men on the altar of political correctness. Did you think we would just mindlessly take this abuse forever? We will not sacrifice ourselves in a war that cannot be won. Best advice for all men is to go MGTOW and enjoy the show.
All of the above is fact! Any argument against is based in myth of wishful thinking. Cheers.
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The ideology of MGTOW is based upon observations that focus merely upon the LETTER of LAW, while true Biblical Christianity is based upon the ‘spirit’ of the Law. The sacrifice of Christ fulfilled ALL the Law, thereby rendering it VOID for all who accept HIS death as sufficient substitution for theirs. The subsequent ‘spirit of the Law’ is lived out in an awareness and appreciation of GRACE.
Any ‘contract’ (civil or religious) is NOT what ‘binds’ true believers (male or female). My marriage is FACTUAL proof of a 40+ year committed relationship that serves as perpetual evidence that MGTOW ideology is errant in thinking either the institution of marriage or true Christianity “are in their death throes”.
Your idea that “Historical and cultural forces are at work and cannot be overcome” does NOT take into consideration that although it may well be impossible left merely to mankind, ALL things are possible with God – which is the ‘heart’ of the ‘spirit of the Law’ – which is GRACE!
For a deeper understanding of the principles referred to in this reply, please visit my blog where I’ve posted several in-depth Articles on related topics @ mjthompsons.wordpress.com. Peace!
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