Are young marriages the solution to sexual immorality?

I am a Christian and like all Christians, I believe in the Bible teaching of abstinence before marriage and monogamy within marriage. However, like some Christians, I believe there is a major problem with the abstinence teaching. The problem is that teens and young adults are told that they are not ready to marry until they are much older; around the ages of 25-30. If you tell them that they should only have sex until marriage, and that they should practice abstinence for 10, 15 or more years before they can marry, many of them will not even bother to wait. It is for this reason that I advocate making the marriage option available to teens and young adults ages 16 and over with six months of mandatory premarital counseling and preparation to help prevent divorce. This option is practiced in a lot of foreign countries and meets Biblical principles.

The Bible verses that I use to justify this are these:

1 Cor. 7:1-2 (NKJV) says, "Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman, Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and each woman have her own husband."

1 Cor. 7:8-9 (NKJV) says, "But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion."

Such a married couple can still use birth control until they are ready to raise a family of their own.

Here is what an anonymous former youth pastor has to say on the subject that I saw on another message board:

"I used to be a youth pastor in a large church, and I will tell you why abstinence programs do not work: because God (or if you prefer, Nature) made the human body to reproduce beginning in the teenage years. Around 16 is the healthiest time physically to have a baby; that's also when the hormones telling teenagers to go forth and multiply kick in really hard. To tell a teenager to suppress his or her God-given urges and not have sex till marriage and not get married until they're 25 or 30 is not only utterly unrealistic, it violates the very law that God has put in their hearts.

The church that I was in had the good sense to recognize this and actively promoted young marriages. If a young couple appeared to be getting serious about one another, they were invited to explore their relationship with their parents and the pastors. There was a special 8-week premarital class, and the church made it clear that parents were still expected to help support their married kids while they graduated from high school or college, learned a trade or started a business. Most teen couples continue to live with one set of parents or the other until they could be in financial shape to buy a house, with the parents expected to put up the down payment. And of course having parents around is built-in free child care and marriage counseling.

I'm very happy to say that this program works. I saw probably 10 or 12 teen marriages while I was with this church and only one of them has ended up in divorce. It's amazing what happens when you do things God's way."

Here is a link that also advocates young marriages: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/114/story114151.html

I would be interested in reading what the rest of you have to say on this subject. Please vote in the poll.

I feel that it would be a good idea except for the fact that many people would be getting married younger and end up getting divorced. I think it would cause many conflicts especially since you are still under the parents care until you are 18 years of age so that sounds pretty difficult to pull off.

Young Marriages

Yes, I belive that Christians should marry young, but such marriages should be arranged by parents. All the evidence shows that arranged marriages are less likely to end in divorce.

I found an interesting article on young marriages at this site:

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2005-weekly/us-18-11-2005/p6.htm

I see that this option is very popular in the Muslim community including those living in the U.S.

Yes, In my church all marriages are arranged and we have only a 2% devorce rate. Sometimes someone else that knows you well can see theses beter than you can.