Would you like your marriage to be long-lasting and fulfilling? Well, check out the questions below and see if you are ready for life-long wedded bliss.
1. Are you opposed to no-fault divorce laws?
No-fault divorce laws allow one spouse to leave the marriage at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all. If you support no-fault divorce, then your view of marriage is that it’s something to be entered into lightly, because it can be exited easily. You’ll be walking down the aisle thinking “oh well, if it doesn’t work out, I can always get a divorce”. If you oppose no-fault divorce laws, then your view of marriage is that there is no escape hatch. You’ll probably be a lot more careful about getting married. Since you are convinced that marriage is built to last forever, you’ll have a courtship of at least 6 months, and involve both sets of parents in the process. If you put commitment above happiness, you’re ready for marriage.
2. Are you opposed to abortion laws?
Abortion laws basically make it easy for two people to have recreational sex, and then get rid of any complications that result quickly and easily. This way, both the people that created the effect can escape the responsibility for what they did, and keep right on pursuing their goals and dreams. If you support abortion laws, you’re really saying that you can engage in recreational sex with people who are unwilling to accept responsibility for any children that result. If you are pro-life, then you’re saying that people should be careful about having sex, and be ready to take responsibility for a child, should one appear. Being responsible is good preparation for marriage.
3. Are you supportive of daycare for young kids?
Daycare services are essential for couples who need both the father and the mother to be working. The advantage of both parents working is that you can afford lots of shiny new stuff – like vacations, boats, shoes and handbags. Studies show that children don’t die during daycare, although if you put a child in daycare, there will be effects on the child’s behavior, such as higher anxiety and aggression. If you oppose daycare, you’re putting the needs of your children above your need for shiny stuff. Putting the needs of children first is a sign that you are ready for the self-sacrifice that marriage requires.
4. Are you in favor of smaller government?
If you’re in favor of smaller government, then you would rather keep taxes low so that more money stays in the family. If you support bigger government, then you think that government knows how to spend your money better than you and your spouse do. Additionally, government usually likes to spend more money than they take in. For example, in Obama’s 8 years, we added $10 trillion dollars to the debt, which doubled from 10 to 20 trillion under his watch. If you oppose higher taxes and bigger government, then you want government to pass on less debt to your children. Putting your kids’ financial well-being over your own is pro-marriage.
5. Are you in favor of school choice?
If you’re opposed to school choice, then you think that government should decide which schools your children will attend. School choice laws allow parents to give money to the schools they think are best for the children. If a school has excellent teachers and teaches students skills that they can use in their professional lives, then parents can choose that school. Schools have to compete to provide higher quality to parents, for lower cost. If you support giving parents more choice, then you put the needs of children – especially poor, minority children – above the needs of education administrators and teacher unions. Putting kids fist is pro-marriage.
6. Are you in favor of premarital sex?
Premarital sex is really fun (so I’m told). You can have sex with people who are just really attractive, even if these people have lousy character. Your friends will be impressed, and you’ll feel more attractive – like you were climbing a ladder of attractiveness with each new partner. If you combine sex with being drunk, then you can’t remember anything after. And you can’t feel guilty if the booze made you do it, right? On the other hand, if you present yourself to your spouse as a virgin, you are telling them that you have self-control, that you take sex as communication rather than recreation, and that they can trust you to be faithful by keeping sex inside the marriage. Trust is important for a good marriage.
7. Are you in favor of welfare for single mothers?
Sometimes, women find themselves pregnant before they are married. If you think that giving taxpayer money to women who have babies before they have husbands is a good idea, then you are rewarding behavior that creates fatherless children. Raising a child without a father causes serious behavioral problems. Boys tend to become more violent, and are more likely to commit crimes. Girls tend to engage in sex at earlier ages. If you oppose encouraging fatherlessness with welfare, you want women to get married before they have kids. Taking the needs of children seriously is pro-marriage.
8. Are you in favor of same-sex marriage?
When a man and a man get married and acquire children, those children will not be raised with their birth mother. Similarly with lesbians, the children will not grow up with their birth father. Studies show that children suffer from not being raised by their biological parents. For example, children of same-sex parents have lower graduation rates than children raised by heterosexual couples. If you think that children have a right to a stable relationship with their biological mother and father, then you place a higher value on the needs of children as opposed to the needs of adults. That’s a good sign you’re ready for marriage.
9. Are you in favor of radical feminism?
Feminism shows that you think the purpose of marriage is to make women happy, and not to work as a team to serve God and raise good children. Indeed. Marriage doesn’t work if the woman approaches it as an accessory. Marriage is about a man and a woman sacrificing their own interests and compromising in order to work together as a team. Husbands and children have needs that women should care about. Feminism teaches women that husbands and children are less important than their careers, hobbies and interests. Feminism is anti-marriage.
10. Are you responsible with earning, budgeting and saving money?
This one comes to us from Bob P. He says that marriages work better when both spouses are “committed to financial planning, budgeting and a renunciation of debt to support a lifestyle. Disagreement about financial issues is one of the greatest causes of marital stress.” If you’re able to choose a college major or a trade that you don’t like, but that pays well, that’s a positive. If you’re able to string together jobs so that your resume is gap-less, that’s a positive. If you’re able to save money even though it means you’re having less fun, that’s a positive. If you’re able to give away money to others to support them, that means you’re able to sacrifice your interests for the benefit of others. That’s pro-marriage.
Well, how did you do? Leave your ideas for more policies and points of view that are marriage-friendly in the comments.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
1. Yes
2. Yes…and I would add are you opposed to taking contraception
3.Not really
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. No
7. No
8. No
9. No
10. Yes and I can certainly improve here
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Some other important questions:
Do you hold with the “Any family is a real family” lie?
That lie has been told, as mentioned in your article, one of glorifying singe mothers, divorce, and same sex parents! People in a stable marriage should be for the traditional nuclear family, as it produces well balanced kids that don’t need years of therapy!
Are you ready to put your partner first, instead of you?
This is a huge one! So many people don’t want to sacrifice for their partner in marriage! Women shunning the title and honor of “wife” and supporting their husbands, caring for him, and being the joyful wife he can come home to at the end of the day. The one who stands by her man, instead of bringing him down and ridiculing and resenting him and being a married woman. The man, being prepared to protect and provide for his wife, to honor and cherish her and be the rock and leader of the family. A man who won’t force his wife to be masculinized, like the radical feminists brainwash men to do, not provide or protect, or be chivalrous to women. You need to hold your spouse above all others, and put their needs before your own.
These aren’t all I can think of, but also mighty important for a stable family and marriage grounded in healthy values.
https://aladyofreason.wordpress.com/
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May I offer some entirely personal and anecdotal views on your questionnaire based on having been married for 30 years?
1 I have no particular opinion on divorce laws as I have no intention of getting divorced. What other people choose to do with their marriages has no relevance to me.
2 No, I’m not opposed to the present abortion laws. There are other ways to avoid unwanted pregnancies than abortion and the idea that there is a direct link between abortion laws and recreational sex is debatable.
3 My wife and I are rather old-fashioned so when our daughter was born we agreed that one parent should stay at home. My wife already had a career at that point but I had only just graduated from university and didn’t have a full-time job so I stayed at home to look after the baby. This was probably the hardest job I’ve ever had but it was also one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and I feel sorry for parents who choose or feel they have to use daycare.
4 Modern democracy is a complicated and imperfect system but it’s better than the alternatives. Rather than ‘big’ or ‘small’ government what I would like is reasonably good government. All governments waste money and are more or less corrupt so a well-educated, politically-involved electorate is more likely to keep in check government excesses.
5 I’ve got no particular preference but school choice can be something of a double-edged sword in practice – competition between schools and trying to create a cheap education system are not necessarily beneficial for society.
6 I had sex with a few women before I married. I’ve no idea if my wife did, I never asked her. What we did before we married makes absolutely no difference to us, I lost interest in other women when I met my wife.
7 I’m not against welfare for single mothers. One of my nieces was a single mother who received some welfare. She is now a very successful businesswoman and her son is a well brought up, happy productive member of society.
8 I think anyone who wants to get married should be free to do so. I don’t think any one form of marriage is necessarily more problematic than any other. Statistics derived from social studies are generally untrustworthy.
9 “Are you in favour of radical feminism?” is a slightly weird question. In general I’m not particularly in favour of anything that might be described as radical.
10 My wife and I have saved enough for a modest retirement lifestyle.
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1. You might feel that way, but does your wife? Maybe one of her friends fell out of love with her husband and it’s gotten the wheels turning in her head. Easy access to divorce cheapens the institution for everyone.
2.If you’re not opposed to child murder, you’re really not a decent human being at all. Marriage really has little to do with this. We either accept that science says life begins at conception and follow logically with the ethics, or we turn to barbarism and do whatever is convenient for us.
3. I agree with you. This one really isn’t quite as simple he pretends it is.
4. “That government which governs best, is the one which governs least.” That was Thomas Jefferson and he was there when it was set up. ‘Reasonable’ is a word used by people who want to subvert our rights as human beings.
5. Pretty much any reform would be an improvement at this point. The US spends more per-pupil than nearly anyone, and yet our test scores in are in the toilet compared to other modern nations. Then there’s the rash of teacher-student sex cases of late, many of them involving female teachers. Then there’s the indoctrination into PC causes, some of which dates back 30 and 40 years.
6. You wouldn’t lose even the slightest bit of respect for her if she revealed she’d been free-and-easy with dozens of men before meeting you? Would she lose any for you if you said you’d nailed every woman in college dorm? It’s great that you feel committed to her, but there’s something to be said for an attitude of taking sex seriously, not treating it as “fun.” I won’t even go into the STD risks.
7. Bully for her, but they’re riding in the wagon and you’re pulling it….and it’s been shown over and over again that the lion’s share of our social problems like runaways, drug use, anorexia, suicide, gang activity, and dropout rates have a direct correlation with the rise in single motherhood.
8. If marriage isn’t restricted to a man and woman, then it has no meaning at all and there’s no basis for restricting it at all after that. By the way, pointing out that a lot of heteros have been married four times, isn’t an argument for watering down the institution even further by expanding it beyond the traditional one-man-one-woman understanding of it that’s been common to nearly all cultures until recently.
9. So you’re OK with these pink-hatted, lesbian, vagina-costumed, tatted, hair-dyed freaks parading around in public in front of your kids and telling everyone how much they despise anything with testicles? They don’t think they’re ‘radical’ but they are.
10. Bully for you. Don’t ask me for a thing in your old age.
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Hello Tom Johnson, I presume your post is in reply to mine.
1 My wife is an intelligent, well-educated person so she thinks for herself. Divorce only cheapens the institution of marriage for those who marry for the wrong reasons in my view.
2 “Marriage really has little to do with this.” Yes, that’s the point I was making. The abortion debate is a separate issue.
3 Yes, it’s a difficult issue.
4 “‘Reasonable’ is a word used by people who want to subvert our rights as human beings.” Well, I think modern democracy is more than just Thomas Jefferson’s opinion, great man though he was and ‘reasonable’ means ‘having reasons for a view’. For example, Socrates certainly subverted Athenian society but his reasoning was sound.
5 Education is an easy scapegoat for all sorts of political and religious polemic. As with the daycare argument, the indoctrination of children by the education system is far more complicated and nuanced than it appears superficially.
6 I don’t think I made any statement supporting the idea of not taking sex seriously.
7 “…it’s been shown over and over again…” I don’t think a direct correlation has been established, even if it could be (the epistemological status of the ‘social sciences’ is still not settled) but the political debate over what to do about those problems is wider than just marriage and single mothers.
8 To be honest, I think that arguments about what marriage ‘means’ are quite marginal to the problems we need to address; however sound the reasoning supporting a Biblical interpretation of marriage may be, I don’t believe it would make the sort of difference that you seem to be presuming (if I’m understanding correctly the view you’re presenting).
9 Yes, I’m OK with people like that. My daughter and her boyfriend joined in the Pride festival here recently because she has many LGBT friends. I’m in favour of people having the right to freedom of expression so, for example, I would support your being able to publicly express your political, religious and lifestyle choices.
10 Please be reassured, Tom, I have no intention of ever asking you for anything other than a little time to consider my response to your views. I’m enjoying a very happy retirement which allows me the luxury of indulging my penchant for philosophical debate.
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The “GOOD”:
Premarital sex was never an option. This is really important, as was both of us being virgins when we got married.
Neither my wife and I cared about no-fault divorce laws because divorce was never on the table: our marriage is forever. Neither of us cared about abortion laws because abortion, a huge horror, was never on the table. Opposition to divorce and abortion are deal-breaker issues.
My wife is one of the most frugal people I have ever met. Even though I handle the finances (I’m the math wiz), she makes sure we don’t spent too much. She makes fantastic buying decisions, finding all the deals. We never bothered with a budget, because we both just automatically lived within our proper means and made good decisions. This is another huge issue.
The “BAD”:
The size of government, school choice (our kids go to public school), single mother welfare, and same-sex marriage were just not important to our marriage. We never focused on these at any point in our marriage, as they really have no direct bearing on it. These might show the character of a woman, but that’s about it. These are not deal-breaker issues.
We sent our kids to daycare part time, but my wife has never worked full-time all year long. It has worked out just fine.
I’m actively hostile towards radical feminism. She basically stays out of most politics, philosophy, and apologetics. These are things that are, quite frankly, my responsibility and I don’t expect her to be interested in them. She has other areas of expertise that are far more important to our marriage. For example, we’ve adopted three children from China with physical disabilities (to add to our 2 biological kids). Her experience with disabilities and medical knowledge, high IQ, and child-care experience are all way more critical for our large family.
The MISSING:
As mentioned above, child-care experience. She should want kids, love kids, and have experience with kids.
She should be able to cook.
She should share your interests or at least support them. You should do the same for her (a sacrilegious viewpoint on the manosphere).
She should be your best friend (another sacrilegious viewpoint on the manosphere).
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You’re commenting in the Christian manosphere right now! You’re allowed to disagree. Not everything has to be this groupthink mob.
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“Not everything has to be this groupthink mob.”
I mention it because according to the groupthink standards, my marriage shouldn’t have been successful. I have broken many of these written and unwritten “rules”. I attribute marital success to some of these deviations.
It’s a general warning: lists can be helpful, I’ve made some of them myself, but they are not absolute. Commenter Joe found his wife because she said “I’ll help you”. Those three simple words showed her worth. Imagine if Joe had passed on her because she didn’t meet enough things on a list? Perish the thought.
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It really depends what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re trying to achieve (for example) 4 Phd kids in the mold of Jay Richards, William Lane Craig, Stephen C. Meyer and Hugh Ross, then you need to have a plan and two practical, effective people committed to the plan. Same for other goals like political influence, church training, apologetics evangelism, etc. Nothing in life happens without a plan. No one ever showed up to a test, a job, a debate, or any real test of ability, and did well just by following their heart. This is the way the world really works. People who aim low with their marriage hit low with their marriage.
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This will surprise no one who read my comments on this blog over the past two weeks, but I would add you must marry an honest woman. She must never lie and you must never lie to her. No white lies, no keeping secrets. When you marry, you become one and it’s always unhealthy when you lie to yourself.
I would advise that when you date a woman, you make sure that lies will not be tolerated. While dating her, be wary of forgiving any lies and consider breaking up with her if you catch her lying. Secrets kill marriages, so don’t marry a liar or be one yourself. Just don’t do it.
I share a Facebook and email account with my wife. We share our computers and have access to each other’s individual accounts. We have complete trust in one another. I’ve never felt the need to follow the Billy Graham rule to ensure that we stay faithful to each other, only to avoid false allegations.
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