I found a very interesting post on a blog called Oz Conservative, which is run by an Australian traditional conservative. In the post, he looks at two women who wasted their 20s on fun and thrills. Both of them are childless and unmarried. And they are complaining that they should be married with children. How did it happen?
Excerpt:
Rachael spent her youth going out with the bad boy type:
relationships have never been my strong point. Historically, I’ve picked good-looking villains and addictive personalities.
I’ve had a ball and many passionate experiences, but nothing functional enough to constitute a long-term future and never anyone ‘normal’ enough to bring home to meet the parents.
Although she puts a positive spin on being single, she admits:
I’m realistic. I’ve probably missed the boat as far as children are concerned, and that is a shame…
[…]Yes, the life I have today is not quite the one I envisaged 20 years ago as a young woman. I foresaw a satisfying career along with 2.4 children and a handsome husband.
Then there is Bibi, now 44. She tells her story this way:
I am staring down the barrel of a lonely future without a man, let alone children.
And how do I find myself in this perilous position? One reason is undoubtedly that men like young women. Yes, I was young once and all that. In my 20s and 30s I wasn’t exactly a supermodel, but I was constantly surrounded by men. The trouble is I wasn’t necessarily looking to settle down back then…
Now that I am, there are very few available men out there and the ones there are would be more interested in my teenage nieces than in me…
[…]Bibi has a lot of friends in exactly the same boat:
In my close circle of friends, there are eight of us who are single and childless. This is a generational phenomenon – we are all aged between 37 and 45.
When our mothers were that age, such numbers would be unimaginable.
Like many women writing this kind of literature, when she looks back she recognises the negative influence of feminism on her generation of women:
I think the feminist teachings of the Sixties and Seventies seeped into our brains. My mum couldn’t be called a feminist, but I, too, grew up thinking we could be anything we wanted to be and have a fulfilling career, life and relationship…
[…]What she is trying to say here is that feminism pushed marriage and motherhood down the list of priorities (“there was more to contend with beforehand”). She admits that she was led into the magical kind of thinking I described earlier in which there is nothing in reality to limit having things as you want them to be (“we didn’t realise that men wouldn’t be interested … my generation was spoilt – unrealistic, even”).
The comments to the post are very interesting.
I was thinking about whose job it was to warn young Christian women about these bad choices, and I remembered a passage from the Bible.
Titus 2:3-5 explains:
3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.
4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children,
5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
The problem is that many older Christian women made a lot of mistakes in their youth, especially with alcohol and premarital sex. And for most of them, it’s more important that they not feel guilty about it, than that they warn younger women not to make the same mistakes. So, instead of admitting guilt and setting boundaries, they often tell young women that it doesn’t matter what you do in your 20s because God, the cosmic butler, will make everything work out in the end.
We just had a situation where one woman who had a successful marriage tried to give younger women some very basic advice about how to be attractive to marriage-minded men. And what happened was that she was attacked by pretty much everyone. The reaction seemed to be strongest from Christian women, however, who insisted that God’s grace meant that Christian women didn’t have to care what the Bible taught about morality and wisdom. The important thing was that they follow their desires in the moment, because to exercise self-control would be “horrible” and would “send the wrong message”. Telling a woman not to do what she feels like is worse than murder, because women must always do what feels good. Who cares about the words of the Bible, when a woman has feelings that are a direct line to God’s mysterious will for her happiness?
One of the commenters on this blog put it this way:
I’ve been observing this phenomenon among so-called “Christians” for well over a decade. Concepts like “tolerance” and not being “judgmental” took hold in our culture and many Christians absorbed the mindset completely. If you point out that what someone is doing is sinful or might potentially lead to sinful behavior, they act defensive or turn the tables on you and say “well, you’re not perfect either!” Some even say that they do certain things for the express purpose of not being “legalistic,” because clearly, legalism is far worse than compromising one’s witness. Jesus has become a postmodern hippie whose primary message is “let’s all be cool to each other.” The only sins left are transgressions against the belief that everyone is equal and worthy of acceptance.
In reading the responses to Lori Alexander’s article, my greatest takeaway is that people are rationalization machines. If they’ve made mistakes, they won’t humbly acknowledge them and use the wisdom of their experience to guide others in the right direction. Instead, they’ll try to find a way to argue that their mistakes weren’t mistakes at all, and that the real sinner is the person who’s judging them for what they did. It’s a deceitful, selfish game, and anyone who plays it is an enemy of the Gospel. Their argument essentially boils down to “every woman, regardless of whatever bad decisions she’s made in life, is entitled to a loving husband who’ll provide for her.” Same way everyone’s entitled to free health care, regardless of whether sufficient medical resources exist, I suppose. It doesn’t work that way, ladies.
And they use this feminist scare word “shaming.” How dare you “shame” me? I would go so far as to say that shaming is a good thing, because it incentivizes proper behavior. Men have good reasons for wanting their wives to be virgins, and if you remove the stigma against premarital sex, a lot of women are going to take Biblical teaching on the subject less seriously. If Christian men as a whole agreed that they would only marry virgins, I guarantee you that a lot of women would think twice about what kind of men they associated with. If you feel “shamed,” it’s probably a sign that you haven’t truly repented of your sins. Sin separates us from God, and if you see your sins for what they are, you should have no problem condemning the sins that you yourself have committed and discouraging them in others.
I’m sorry for this long-winded ramble, but it disgusts me how much politically correct rot has infested the churches, and this entire incident just confirms that Paul was correct to forbid women teaching. When everyone is afraid of upsetting women, we get false teachers popping up everywhere spreading a destructive message with nothing but rhetoric behind it. The end result? Fewer marriages, fewer children, fewer people taking Christian teachings seriously, and more people being miserable and lonely. Once you start ceding ground to liberalism, the whole thing eventually unravels. Lots of good Christian men and women can’t find a spouse anymore, because their society has lied to them and they don’t realize it until it’s too late. Did their churches stand against the world? Did their churches provide them the guidance they needed? Or were their churches too afraid to be seen as “out of touch,” and did they prioritize numbers over holiness and correct teaching? If we are sincere believers, it should be obvious which is more important.
Many of the women who chose to delay marriage for fun and thrills with the bad boys grew up in married Christian homes. Parents and pastors have, for one reason or another, decided that it is too unpleasant to warn young Christian women that their behavior may involve some costs in the long term. They don’t want to make them feel bad, and women’s feelings are so very much more important than what the Bible says, or even what peer-reviewed research on marriage best practices says. Even theologically conservative pastors just don’t have the courage to address the influence that feminism has had on the goal-setting and decision-making of young, unmarried women. It’s much easier to blame men when the woman’s fun and thrills plan doesn’t work out.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
“The problem is that many older Christian women made a lot of mistakes in their youth, especially with alcohol and premarital sex. And for most of them, it’s more important that they not feel guilty about it, than that they warn younger women not to make the same mistakes. So, instead of admitting guilt and setting boundaries, they often tell young women that it doesn’t matter what you do in your 20s because God, the cosmic butler, will make everything work out in the end.”
Nailed it.
One example: I knew a very well educated churchgoing wife and mother who went to Bible studies and such but still wouldn’t even tell her own children not to have sex outside of marriage because then she’d be a hypocrite. I tried to explain that it isn’t hypocrisy if you’ve learned from your mistakes. It never occurred to her to agree with God.
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What one sows one also reaps. That’s not “judging,” that’s simple wisdom. And it’s true for both sexes.
In one of Jordan Peterson’s videos he urges his psychology students to get wise and realistic about the fact that women reach their 20s at the top of their marriage and child-bearing potential and go down from there; men reach their 20s at the bottom of their marriage and child-supporting potential and go up from there. Hence, most men marry women younger than themselves and most women who wait too long never marry and never have kids.
Also Jesus’ prohibition of not “judging” in Matt. 7:1 does not mean we should never criticise bad ideas, behaviors or people. In Matt. 7:1 Jesus is saying only God is the final judge of all ideas, behaviors or people. But in Matt. 7:6 Jesus adds “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs.” And in Matt. 7:15 Jesus adds “Watch out for false prophets.” Surely, anyone who heeds this will criticise bad ideas, behaviors or people.
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Kind of taking your daily post on a small tangent:
I have observed that teens/young women in Australia do have a slightly more socially liberal bent than their American counterparts. Well, except if you talk about St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire where you have parents packing off their sons and daughters with economy size boxes of condoms to take to rich kids’ boarding school.
For instance, I saw this yesterday: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-characteristics-of-a-popular-girl-at-your-school/answer/Heather-Lauren-4/
(She’s from Sydney, Australia; popular girls are basically bad girls who are doing all the wrong things.)
It used to be the case that we said that people show go sow their wild oats (in college or in their “younger years.”) Then it was assumed they would get something out of their system and want to settle down. Unfortunately people tend to develop bad habits and many of these bad habits continue with them. It’s hard for a tiger to change its stripes.
And unfortunately, Christians take their cues from non-Christians (“the world”): some self-professed Christians are only in name and there’s little to no difference between what these ‘Christians’ act like and their non-Christian counterparts.
I would fault:
a) poor parenting: hey moms and dads, please parent.
b) poor examples/role models: hey older students, please set a good example.
c) poor cultural role models, leadership, and so on: hey older women, please teach these kids.
d) lack of good teaching (e.g., books, sermons, etc.)
e) peers/peer pressure
Let’s take two examples which are a little less touchy.
It’s not hypocritical to say, “I touched a hot frying pan, therefore, I got burnt. Please don’t touch the hot frying pan.”
It’s not hypocritical to say, “I wish I knew more about good dental care when I was younger. Nowadays I suffer from bad teeth and periodontal issues and I’ve had to spend a minor fortune fixing them. A little prevention would have been much more cost effective.”
At this juncture, I should tie hypocrisy and legalism together, and my senior pastor taught on this:
There are three types of biblical hypocrisy and at least three types of legalism which are condemned. Starting with hypocrisy:
1) Inner-Outer discrepancy
Pretending, acting, putting on a show, acting better on the outside than on the inside, telling people “do what I say, not what I do.” Or “putting on the right show, saying the right things.” There’s a Greek word for that kind of person and it translates to [stage] actor/pretender/dissembler and that’s hupocrites = hypocrite. (Strong’s #5273)
What’s the antidote? Integrity — which is ultimately integrity to God.
2) Attacking others but doing exactly what he or she decries
e.g., unwarranted self-righteousness but blind to one’s own sins and harsh to sins of others. (e.g., “That person is sooooo condescending. Can’t stand it…”)
3) Rule moralists
These people tend to overemphasize small things (making mountains out of mole hills), selective justification of their system of convenient rules or by disposition or inattention to the full implication of rules, or move the goal posts. This third type of hypocrite thinks he or she is righteous for the simple reasons that he or she abides by the selective rules.
Then addressing legalism which is condemned:
1) Works-righteousness
One might be tempted to think one is better (or even right in God’s eyes) by what we do or what sins we abstain from.
We’re never justified by what we do.
However, this is not the case of Lori A. She never said Christians are more righteous by being tattoo-free, debt-free, virgins.
2) In the case of the Pharisees, they overemphasized the ceremonial laws over the apodictic moral laws of God (which flow from God’s moral nature).
It’s not legalistic to think that God still expects me not to murder or to steal.
It’s not legalistic to uphold God’s moral laws.
3) Adding or subtracting from the Law of God (Deuteronomy 12:32, “See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.”) or adding to or subtracting from the requirements of God.
In fact, those who do not hold to the Bible and to God’s standards on sexuality are committing legalism (!!!!!!!!)
Furthermore, one could pose the question: who are the true leaders? Well, the cultural elite are one form of leadership. Popular people are another. Anyone who has influence over others is a leader. And you don’t need a title or to be knighted a leader to be a leader.
In the church, this should include older women, married women, pastors, teachers. (Some of these are absconding their responsibility.) I don’t think I’ve shared it here, but when I first started seminary, some Christians suddenly decided I was the expert at relationships, so they asked me for advice. I took this responsibility to heart and I spent hours in the seminary’s bookstore and read every book (at the time) on marriage, family, dating, and so on. Yes, there were a lot of books that just put it, “Don’t have sex before marriage.” Why is much more interesting. I’ve talked a bit about oxytocin and pair bonding already.
But there’s a ton of other wisdom that could be (and should be) shared, like “what does good male leadership look like?” and pacing the relationship and discernment and so on.
It does take a courageous man who is unafraid of the wrath of the yentas to speak up. (Thanks WK, Deti, Dalrock, others.)
God is not our Cosmic Butler/Santa Claus/Doting Grandfather who gives us whatever we want, cleans up after our messes, etc.
Sometimes God gives us over to the consequences of our actions so we might learn from them. (That’s Genesis 3 + Romans 1.)
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I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: the western church has no idea what it’s doing when it comes to marriage, men and women. It refuses to teach women how to act, find a suitable man, etc out of what seems to be fear of just upsetting a women. As Christians the only thing we should fear is the Lord himself yet most of these churchian pastorbators fear their own wives more than they do him. This leads to what few young men stay in the church becoming much the same: inferior males who women aren’t attracted to and wouldn’t make for suitable fathers and husbands. At best they get taught nothing and at worst they get shamed, yelled at, etc to ‘man up’ (but only if a woman approves of it). Finally, even if you take the initiative and become one of the few Christian youth who take marriage seriously you have little to no chance of finding a suitable partner short of divine intervention. I did a quick calculation the other day to find the probability of a young Christian man (like myself) finding a marriageable woman here in Australia. The final percentage was so small that it was barely worth considering. On top of that you have no reliable means of meeting someone: no one meets in churches anymore, online dating is crap for most men, most of the venues that secular youth meet at don’t apply to Christians and the wider ‘Christian’ community seems more interested in patting itself on the back than helping it’s youth to marry and create the next generation.
There is still time to turn all of this around however but I have my doubts that will happen any time soon.
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I personally think that people ought to get married when they have serious relationships with each other as their ultimate goal. Many, especially these “liberated” young feminist women look down on traditional marriage because they scorn the idea of needing a man in their lives. I don’t understand why many faithful life long couples won’t get married. Yes, a piece of paper or government acknowledgement does not change the love one feels for another in one’s heart, but why not marry if your relationship is basically marriage in all but name?
That said, I also feel that one must be careful not to simply get married just to get married younger. It’s better to be patient and wait for the right guy than settle just so you can marry sooner. Some people too aren’t quite ready to marry emotionally just yet, but want to in the future. Marrying when you’re not mature enough or emotionally ready to pursue that sort of relationship is detrimental and will likely be an unhappy marriage ending in divorce. My parents met in their mid twenties and married in their thirties, and have a strong ongoing marriage nearing 30 years now. Marriage should not be some sort of unpleasant duty or “chore” of being a real adult. (I’ve heard it argued people are delaying it to not grow up…) Plenty of fully functioning adults are single and choose to stay that way, and one ought to marry as a life choice for the better, because one loves someone and wants to spend the rest of their life with them. Marriage is devalued so much in our current hook-up divorce culture now, and should be taken only when the time is right. There’s nothing wrong with a woman trying out different opportunities, personal and career wise before settling down. It’s better to be established in the world before taking on a life partner such as having a solid job and savings. Marriage should be the goal of any serious relationship I feel, not just trying out a fling, but you need to wait for the right time, even if it comes later. A solid life long marriage is worth the wait :)
https://aladyofreason.wordpress.com/
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The devil continues to influence Eve.
And Eve continues to take the bait.
If you could see the bat sh!t crazy young women I see on a daily basis, WK, you would not be so gentle in your posts. The young men see it and are MGTOW all the way.
And, speaking of making mistakes, as a former atheist into my 40’s, I can tell you that, like these women, I continue to live with the consequences of my sins EVERY SINGLE DAY. I continue to repent of past and present sins, but the consequences are still there, plain as day. Do I know I am forgiven by God? Yes. But that doesn’t mean that God just sets aside the consequences in this life. And I don’t blame anyone but myself, and especially not God. I just keep on repenting and keep on following Him.
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I cannot speak for these other women. I am 35, just had my 15th wedding anniversary, and have five children. I have had times where I wondered if I somehow “missed out” by spending my twenties pregnant, nursing, and practically invisible to the rest of humanity, including men, except the one who I only saw when he was home and not at work. Is it a life to look back on and be thankful for? Yes. But it also really isn’t anything to be romanticized. I think it is human nature, to question our past. Ultimately, I would not trade my life for anything. What I have learned though, and this was a thought sparked by your article, is that if you are going to have a successful marriage, you need to be a good listener and communicator. You need to be able to repeat back what the person actually said, and not what you think you heard and translated. It’s not about you.
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I think you did very well.
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WK,
Since you do a lot of reading on social issues, might I suggest you get the book by Mark Regnerus, “Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy.” It really explains why these women are in this situation. I am finished with my copy and would be more than happy to send it to you if you are interested (free!). I have been posting citations from it on my blog, “The Thought-Provoker” and still have four left to post.
http://moralophobia.blogspot.com
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I got three of his books last year, still have to read them.
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Understood, I’ve got another one also. I have about 30 books on my “to read” shelf!
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