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 first 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 
Minimum screening criteria I will advise my sons to use:
Does she believe in contraception?
Does she believe in believe in marital separation except for extreme circumstances: physical abuse, extreme neglect, unrepentant adultery?
Does she believe in remarriage while you are still alive?
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You need devotion and tons of emotional maturity!!!
https://aladyofreason.wordpress.com/
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Admittedly, my wife and I met over a decade ago so I am a bit rusty.
Overall, the questions you ask must be somewhat discerned and over time, rather than as an immediate litmus test.
Personally, I tended to have some yes/no questions and a lot of open-ended questions, and even then, life has a habit of throwing curveballs.
I usually started with:
0. Are you a Christian? How did you decide? (tell me about your conversion or your confirmation? What has your life been like after that?) what does being a Christian mean?
Lots of people may say they are Christian, but I am looking for signs of veracity (conversion or confirmation, sanctification as a deliberate partnership with the Holy Spirit, motivated to love others/ serve others because Christ loved us first, desiring to worship God/glorify God, etc.)
1. As per Neil Clark Warren, I have my shopping list and I prayed and thought hard about why each item was important (the ten must haves and can’t stands). I also recognized for my shopping list, I was looking for a needle in a haystack.
… which also meant, I knew how to appropriately pursue once I identified a romantic interest/crush/whatever terminology.
2. Is there enough mutual interest and potential for a first date?
(I don’t have to know everything, I just need to see enough potential and no red flags.)
Near or at the end of each date, based on what I know, do I still see enough potential and do I like what I see? (And on the date: have some fun, intersperse with conversation including self-disclosure while asking discerning questions.)
If so,
– tell her I had a good time / I enjoyed myself
– “I’d like to see you again, what’s your schedule over the next week or two?”
– leave on a high note
– leave with plenty of time to go our separate ways, get home, prep for bed, sleep
As I have mentioned in the past, some Christian women expressed they wanted to be stay-at-home moms, but really that meant they wanted to marry a really rich guy (say like $100k+, preferably $150k+) who would also do chores and yardwork and whatever else. (Sometimes translated: they were lazy, they didn’t have a good ‘theology of work.’)
The much rarer breed was the Christian feminist who wanted to gun for her career (or saw a family or husband as a detriment or drag). No thank you.
Ideally you want to find someone who sees marriage as win-win — you’re helping each other in fulfilling God’s goals for you individually and together.
And that would also be looking like “How can I support and encourage her?” As well as the lady being supportive of my [informal] ministry. Amusingly I did visit my wife’s church and she headed up their Sunday school (more run like small groups), and she met my small group members (I was a Bible study/small group leader) and saw me running various ministries.
For me, there were quite a few criteria (emotionally healthy, highly intelligent, fairly sanctified, within reasonable age range of my age, etc.)
On the plus side, I ran into a lot of pastor’s kids, missionary kids, seminary students, ministry leaders, etc. with whom I matched decently well.
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Basically if they support God’s will when it comes to sexuality and don’t view children as a burden or something to be discarded…that’s most of the battle.
The libertine view on sex and killing children will torpedo a person’s view of marriage guaranteed.
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View on contraception is the best question. They’re less likely to fake agreement because they might end up pregnant right after the wedding (if they anticipate this with joy they are good marriage material). This makes it immediate and “real” for them.
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Does it have to be an official law passed by Congress? I figure it’s fine if my wife and I agree not to divorce, not get get an abortion, not to send our kids to daycare, etc. We don’t have to force non-Christians to follow the same principles as us, do we? Not everyone is saved, after all. Christ’s kingdom is not of this Earth.
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Wow, we actually agree. These rules are just for individual Christians looking for a spouse.
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Moses, who headed a combined “church” and civil government, tolerated divorce and remarriage on condition that a man who divorced his wife issue a formal written letter of dismissal. This avoided evil (Jesus used the term “hardhearted”) men dismissing their wives then after the wife had been married to another man, accusing her (and the man) of adultery. It also reduced the temptation for evil men murdering unwanted wives.
Being a Christian presumes a forgiving heart. While a man doesn’t have to tolerate endless unfaithfulness of a wife, a Christian should be long-suffering.
The church of Christ is not a civil government, so it doesn’t have to make the concessions that a civil government must.
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I’m not sure that, as a practical matter, nofault divorce actually allows men to leave marriages for any reason or no reason at all. In practice, it operates that way for WOMEN, but does NOT operate that way for men.
Yes, a man can leave a marriage any time he wants. He can get that no-fault divorce. But here’s what he will have to endure for doing that:
1) He will be giving his wife at least – AT LEAST – half of all the marital assets.
2) He will be forced to give his former wife an income stream in the form of child support/chilimony.
Let’s be honest here – child support isn’t so much child support as it is a form of alimony. Custodial parents aren’t required to use child support for actual child support, nor are they required to account to anyone for their use of that money. Child support is not computed based on actual child support costs, but are instead a percentage of the payor’s income and the amounts are simply garnished from the payor’s wages like taxes. They’re a line item deduction from the payor’s wages.
The vast majority of child support payors are men.
3) He will probably be forced to pay his ex wife some alimony at least temporarily, and in some cases, permanently until one of them dies or she remarries. That’s in addition to child support.
4) He will almost always NOT be the parent with primary residential custody of his children. This means he will have almost no real relationship with them, will not know them, they will not know him, and he has no real influence over their upbringing and training. He’s reduced to a source of income in terms of his fathering.
So, as a real practical matter, he can’t divorce his wife. He will be subjected to extreme, extreme financial pain. He will likely be impoverished, at least for a year or two. He will essentially completely relinquish his relationship with his kids.
The objection is always “well, dad, you don’t get primary residential custody because you don’t ask for it. My rejoinder – why ask for it when the court will never give it to me. Second, if i ask for it, the court will ask me when I’ll have time to be a father when I have to work my tail off to meet my child support and alimony obligations, and live in a crappy one bedroom apartment because I’m living on about 60% of my income (after having half of my material possessions given to my ex wife).
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It’s laws like this that have to change if we expect men to see marriage as rational.
I am a romantic man, and love to buy gifts for women I admire. But I can’t really get involved in a situation where my finances and freedoms will be ruled by a feminist judge. Too bad for marriage-minded women.
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And, let’s say that a husband waits until his child(ren) are grown and gone before he divorces his wife. No fault, of course, just because he wants to leave, just because he doesn’t want to be married anymore.
He will be forced to pay for college expenses for his child(ren). Many courts are now forcing noncustodial fathers to start coughing it up for college. (Note that if he’s married to the child’s mom, he can just say “no” and no court will force him to pay. But if he’s divorced from the child’s mom, mom will just take him to court and say “make him pay for Susie’s college” and the court will say “OK. Dad, pay up”.
He could also be forced to give her lifetime alimony. More and more states are going now to lifetime alimony in “gray divorce” situations in marriages of 20 years duration or more. Especially true if they had a traditional marriage of husband breadwinner, wife SAHM and wife is just getting back into the workforce. Both H and W are around 50 or older, it’s harder for a wife who hasn’t been in the workforce for 20 years to get back into a full time job when she has less than 20 years of good active work left, and she cannot build up a good pension, and later Social SEcurity will not be enough. Someone’s gotta pay for that because we can’t have a woman living on nonexistent Social Security and eating cat food (her cats have to eat too).
And this is ON TOP OF her half of the pension/401k he amassed during his worklife.
A woman must never, ever, EVER be allowed to suffer or even be inconvenienced in any way, ever. But men will be left to die in the streets, their rotting corpses carried away by end loader.
Remember a cardinal rule of First World Western society: Women will always, always, ALWAYS have what they need. Always. Because a man or group of men will make sure she has it. Or a group of men (government) will use other men (police, IRS, judges, men with guns, clergy and men with shaming power) to make sure that a man or other groups of men give her what she needs.
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The civil laws were not in question. We have no control over the legislatures and governments of this world.
They allow women to divorce their husbands, something never permitted among the people of God. Jesus acknowledged that women do divorce their husbands, presumably by their civil governments’ laws. He did not grant them allowance to marry another for so long as their husbands lived.
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Reblogged this on Free Matt Podcasts and commented:
**** Weekend laziness; I like to re-blog an interesting article when I find one. I know a few people that have seen a trainwreck when they didn;t do their marital homework before they got married. This article takes a short dive into a few of those things.
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Wintery’s Friend –
i liked your comment till:
On the plus side, I ran into a lot of pastor’s kids, missionary kids, seminary students, ministry leaders, etc. with whom I matched decently well.
my first husband was a MK, so i knew a lot of those and PK’s … not sure that’s a ‘plus’ at all.
– – –
Wintery Knight – good, thoughtful piece. i’ll share it with my daughters.
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I’ll check out your blog. I don’t think the advice will be bad for them.
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my daughters both read … had interesting conversation.
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Saying “no’ to numbers three and seven ignores a social reality. I agree with the response in an ideal society – but we haven’t had one of those since Eden.
If you don’t want children in daycare, create a society where a family can exist on a single income. If you don’t provide some sort of support for single mothers you are going to create even bigger social problems than welfare – and you won’t prevent pregnancies by saying welfare won’t be available.
Interesting discussion questions though, if a little simplistic.
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In the past elections, about 70-80% of young unmarried women voted for the Democrat party, which means higher taxes on working families. So it’s very clear to me that young, unmarried women don’t want a husband. They want to chase hot bad boys and then rely on the government for provision. That’s where we are as a country. Young women want abortion and free contraceptives so they can go wild, then send the bill to working husbands.
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Interesting thought. Not the women I have met, but my experience might be considered anecdotal as opposed to being scientifically valid.
Of course if you were to have abortion and free contraceptives then you wouldn’t be worrying about welfare mothers or daycare because there would be no reason for them.
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People still give birth to children out of wedlock right now, even with those things. The out of wedlock birth rate is 42% – and that includes women of all races.
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Not all immoral women are murderous. Being immoral about some matters doesn’t mean immoral in everything.
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