Philip P. Eapen - Some Have Babies; Others, Regrets!

Some Have Babies; Others, Regrets!

Philip P. Eapen

Copyright 2012 Philip P. Eapen
ISBN 9781476432717

Unless otherwise stated,
Scripture quotations taken from
the New American Standard Bible,
Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971,
1972, 1973,1975, 1977, 1995
by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

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Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern the will of Godwhat is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2 NRSV

The second verse of the twelfth chapter of St. Pauls Epistle to the Romans is a popular text among Bible-believing Christians. And yet, many sincere Christians think that this verse is just about fashions, hair styles and makeup, cinema, and beauty pageants. Many of us fail to see the ungodliness and foolishness inherent in the worlds current fashion of prolonging adolescence, postponing or avoiding marriage, and delaying conception. To make matters worse, we in India have accepted the myth of overpopulation as gospel truth. Population control (government imposed norms), as opposed to family planning (voluntary spacing of children), has become an unwritten doctrine. Yet, we fail to see the worldliness in these.

Bitten by the population bug, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Indias former Union Minister for Health said, An 18-year-old girl and a 21-year-old boy who havent achieved anything in life are not meant to get married.(1) The minister, like most Indian grown-ups, hasnt realised that an 18-year-old woman is not a girl and that a 21-year-old man is not a boy. If he wants to see his sons and/or daughters as toddlers all the days of their life, he is free to do so. But if he extends that to all young adults of India, well have a real problem at hand.

Moreover, marriage, according to the honourable minister, is only for those who have achieved something in life. In case you are listening, Sir, just surviving till the age of 18 or 21 in India is an achievement in itself. Marriage is not just for achievers. Obviously, the minister wants Indian families to have lesser number of children. To that end, he now recommends that young adults delay their wedding until they achieve something. My contention here is that we should not become ghulams, slaves, of an illusion that fertility is forever.

Ask any urban young man or woman what the ideal age for marriage is, and you will most probably get figures above twenty-five (for women) and above thirty (for men). In cosmopolitan cities of India, women, including Christians, find it difficult to think of getting married before thirty.

Is there an ideal age for a man or a woman to enter married life? Many believe that the ideal age for entering wedlock varies from person to person. The people to whom I spoke consider several parameters or factors before arriving at a suitable age for entering wedlock. Completion of studies, financial independence through a stable job or a profitable business or profession, achievement of certain financial or career goals, et cetera. Indeed, the age at which people realize these goals vary. If an ideal age for marriage should depend on these variables, it is difficult to arrive at a generalized figure.

There may be many who think that physical age is not what matters. They might think that a person should be emotionally mature before they marry. At what age do people attain emotional maturity? Who defines emotional maturity and what is the standard against which we may measure our emotional maturity levels? Again, we run up against a wall that we cannot scale. Some might say that it is nonsense to talk of attaining maturity. Each individual has a certain level of maturity at each age, and they should be content with it. Who would want to be in their seventies, at the height of some abstract emotional maturity before he considers marriage?

Education, career, ownership of a house or vehicle, financial stability the age at which one attains these varies. For instance, a scientist may earn a Ph.D. by the age of twenty-six; however, a theologian may top-off his education with a Ph.D. at the age of forty. My contention is that we cannot and should not let educational, career or financial goals to decide the age at which we marry. There is a better indicator a natural, scientific indicator that should tell us when our young women and men ought to consider marriage. In a sea of variables, there is one relatively reliable parameter. And that is the biological clock that God has placed in our bodies.

The Bible clearly teaches us that one of the goals of marriage is to prevent sexual immorality. Yes, it is good to live a celibate life. But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband. The husband should not deprive his wife of sexual intimacy, which is her right as a married woman, nor should the wife deprive her husband. (1 Cor. 7:1b-3 NLT )

Indeed, Apostle Paul wrote that instruction for the benefit of Corinthian Christians who lived in a society that glorified immorality. Is the society that you and I belong to any different? We live in a world that glorifies immorality. Sex is not the problem; sexual immorality is. This passage is therefore relevant to our situation too.

If a mutually satisfying marriage is the Bibles antidote to the immorality that threatens to swallow us, why are our teachers and preachers not recommending marriage on this ground? Those of us who have worked among adolescents and youth know that one of the greatest challenges they face is to live a life of purity. Victorious Christian Living; A Holy Vessel; How to overcome sin? etc., are common themes in our youth camps. Preachers preach about a holy life and go home to their wives. But the young people who listen to their sermons continue to battle storms of passion that break apart their lives. They fail often in the realm of sexual purity. They walk around carrying loads of guilt, bowed down by their inability to live a holy life. Have you heard any preacher prescribing marriage a mutually satisfying married life as the medicine that will give victory and happiness to those in late teens and early twenties? I have not!

Recently a Christian technocrat in his mid-twenties wrote to me seeking counsel regarding maintaining a pure life. When I suggested marriage, he protested that it was too early for him to marry. With what do I compare such young people who turn their backs on a legitimate, God-ordained prescription for their divinely-scripted drives? They are like starving vagabonds who drool at food kept in shops or restaurants. All they need to do is return to their own homes and feast on what is legitimately their own.

Young man, young woman, what is the right age for you to consider marriage? I would say, when you are old enough to commit sexual immorality, you are old enough to consider marriage. This is why I was happy when I heard that officials at the Central government in India proposed to lower mens legal age for marriage to eighteen.

Justice Chauhan, Chairman of the Law Commission stated thus in his report on Reform of Family Law:

If a universal age for majority is recognised, and that grants all citizens the right to choose their governments, surely, they must then be also considered capable of choosing their spouses. For equality in the true sense, the insistence on recognising different ages of marriage between consenting adults must be abolished. The age of majority must be recognised uniformly as the legal age for marriage for men