Waiting Before "I Do"-ing It

You shouldn’t have sex until after you’re married.

Chances are that if you’re reading this blog, you’ve been told some variation of that advice at least once in your life. And statistically speaking, chances are you’ve also had premarital sex. A 2006 study by the Guttmacher Institute in New York has found that by age 20, 77% of respondents had had sex and 75% had had premarital sex. And according to a 2008 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study, “Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do.” Then there are all the statistics about physical health and sex, such as “Nineteen million new STD infections occur each year, almost half of them among young people ages 15 to 24.” The numbers are there and they can be frightening, but at the same time they are just numbers. Throwing a bunch of statistics at the youth of America is not the way to promote abstinence.

Catholic Church teaching clearly explains that abstinence should be practiced by unmarried individuals, but it can be intimidating and may read more like a list of “don’ts”. In my experience, this is really off-putting for young adults. I’m not here to try to convince everyone to remain abstinent, but I do think that if we all tried to better understand why the Church believes in waiting, in the end we will see that it actually makes sense.

The teachings of the Church are certainly all consistent and logical, but for some reason people still disregard them. There seems to be a gap between understanding them and explaining how they should be implemented into everyday life. First, rather than seeing sexual morality as what one can or cannot do, author Christopher West suggests seeing what it means to follow Christ’s example of selfless love and applying that to relationships. This love is grounded in totality, faith, freedom, and is meant to be forever. While there are people who probably possess the faith and freedom to love, how many couples can confidently and truthfully say they love their partner with the totality and intention of permanence that West is talking about? Boyfriends and girlfriends can split up, fiancés can break their engagement, but the vow that is taken in marriage is really the only way to accomplish all of these factors that make up real love.

Those who participate in the sacrament of marriage share in a special union that cannot be achieved by two individuals who have not shared marriage vows. West specifically points out that the sexual aspect of marriage is no different. It is apparent that a couple must put in a lot of work to get to the level of a true bond worthy of marriage, and “the fact that a couple is now married does not automatically make their sexual union what it is supposed to be.” Having premarital sex, no matter what their level of commitment, only shows that a couple does not understand the importance of the act or the true meaning of love as God intended it. Once a man and a woman can truly love each other and therefore get married, sex can act as a renewal of their wedding vows as it is supposed to be. It is also important to see that a marriage bond is sealed by the Holy Spirit and can only be broken through death. Those who are casually having sex, dating, or even engaged have not yet established this connection and therefore have not recognized the sanctity and the permanence that marriage conveys on all aspects of the lives of the two individuals, including their sexual relationship.

It is no secret that in our society sex before marriage is an accepted, if not normal, part of life. I think the challenge now is to reshape the way we think about this topic and the way the Church presents it. On the health side of the argument, delaying sex until marriage or abstinence is the only method supported by medical research that offers 100 percent protection from sexually transmitted diseases and early pregnancy. But people also need to start thinking about sex in relation to true love and commitment. Can a couple who have not committed to spend the rest of their together through marriage truly be in love and have a healthy sexual relationship? Rather than stressing what people shouldn’t do or what is wrong, the Church and society need to start educating young people about love and marriage and then allow people to make their own decisions with that information. If that is enough to change the mind of one or two individuals, I think eventually the trend will start to spread and once and for all we will see a significant decrease in premarital sex.


Written by: Kat D.

Sources used:
Finer, Lawrence B. Trends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954–2003. Public Health Reports.

Stein, Rob. "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds." The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801588.html

West, Christopher. "Good News about Sex and Marriage: Answers to Your Honest Questions about Catholic Teaching". Cincinnati, Ohio: Charis Servant, 2004,(65-73).

http://www.rmfc.org/RMFC-Abstinence.pdf

http://www.sadd.org/stats.htm#stds