Dusk Scene of a Flooded River and Nearby Town, Henry Ossawa Tanner

A FRIEND told me the sad story last night of a couple who had had an on-and-off relationship for many years but never married or had children. They both ended up unhappy and alone.

What went wrong? They failed to follow the rules.

They had a sexual relationship outside marriage. They did it for pleasure but also decided they could not marry because the man’s career was not established. She waited and waited. He did what he wanted and liked to do — but it didn’t earn much. She got pregnant. They aborted the child. She waited and waited. Finally, she left him after ten years and they were both miserable. They were “meant to be together.”

Now what might have happened if the woman (or man) had refused a sexual relationship before marriage from the beginning? Maybe his lassitude would have vanished and they would have married. Maybe she would have found someone else. Maybe they would have still ended up alone, but their loneliness would not have been embittered by the terrible regrets and venomous, mutual recriminations that followed the killing of their child. When women generally withheld sex before marriage, men had more motivation to take on the unpleasant tasks of survival, and the incentive to kill one’s own child was less common.

This couple is definitely not entirely to blame for their tragedy. A river of tears runs through modern society. It was created by the Sexual Revolution, which brings limitation not liberation.

The rules are not based on prudery or a hatred of sex. They are based on profound knowledge of human nature.

The highest reason not to have sex outside marriage is love of God, who orders all things to His own glorious fecundity and our own ultimate happiness. But many a young person, now more than ever, is too shallow and self-centered to love God. The next best reason is based in wisdom, not prudery. Sex outside marriage is not conducive to human happiness and social order. Couples who go through similar experiences but then go on to marry and have children are merely creating misery for others by the standards they set. Like businesses that dump toxic waste into rivers, they pollute the lives of others. People in the past were not better than people today. They were fortunate enough to be given the rules. The sources of wisdom in our culture have dried up. Wisdom is nowhere to be found. God has left us in the waste land of human folly.

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