Although we live in a culture that is dominated by the thoughts and opinions of secular leftists, science provides useful information for those who want defend Biblical morality. Consider the issue of sexuality and marriage. Secular leftists claim that sex outside of marriage is natural, and produces happiness. Bible believing Christians and Jews say chastity is best. Who is right?
Here is the latest study authored by Dr. Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah. His previous book on relationships was published by Oxford University Press. In his analysis of the data, Wolfinger controlled for divorce rates, religiosity, and socioeconomic status.
Here’s the most important graph:
Other factors that increased marital happiness: having a 4-year college degree (5%), having a salary > 78K (5%), regular church attendance (6%). Notice that women are more dissatisfied with marriage (in general) than men are, and they tend to blame the spouse they freely chose for that unhappiness.
The Federalist also reported on previous research relevant to this study:
Psychologists Galena K. Rhoades and Scott M. Stanley found that women who have had sex with someone other than their husband report statistically significant drops in marital quality over those who don’t. A 2004 study by sociologist Jay Teachman showed that intimate premarital activities such as cohabitation and intercourse increased the rate of marital dissolution by anywhere between 28 and 109 percent, depending on the activity.
Wolfinger also noted in a previous study that only 5% of women were virgins when they married.
Wolfinger noted that a possible explanation for the link between promiscuity and unhappiness is that people look back on their past partners and compare their spouse unfavorably to them. This is especially the case with women. My concern about this is that feminism has taught women to try to increase their social standing by having hook-up sex with attractive bad boys. If those women ever marry, they do it when they are older, less fertile, and less attractive. The husband they eventually “settle” for will (in their minds) always compare unfavorably to the hot bad boys they had sex with when they were younger and prettier. This, I believe, is what leads to their unhappiness with the man they chose to marry.
More partners also means more marital instability
In a previous post, I blogged about several studies linking virginity to marital stability. Couples who don’t have sex before marriage, or even who delayed it, reported better communication, higher satisfaction, better quality sex, and a lower chance of divorce.
Men ought to be aware of this research when they are choosing a spouse. Obviously, you want a virgin, for the increased happiness and increased stability. For marriage-friendly character, you want to avoid women who are promiscuous thrill-seekers. You want to avoid women who run up debt doing easy non-STEM degrees and traveling. You want to avoid women who hook up with hot bad boys aren’t serious about commitment. Women who choose fun and thrills in their teens and 20s are setting a pattern of using sex as a way to get happiness in the moment. Later on, they’ll continue that pattern of seeing relationships as commodities that are designed to make them feel good, moment by moment. They’ll look at marriage as a way to fulfill their needs. They’ll have internalized the view that relationships are not commitments to invest in self-sacrificially. The pattern will be: “if it doesn’t make me feel happy right now, then it should be ended”. Men who aren’t serious about evaluating the character of the women for the marriage enterprise are running the risk of divorce, it’s that simple.
The best way to make sure that you have a clear head when evaluating a woman is to stay sober, and keep her hands off of you. When a man refuses to let a woman cloud his judgment with sex, then she is forced to learn how to love him, help him, and submit to his leadership. Male chastity encourages women who have been influenced by feminism to abandon selfishness, fun-seeking, and thrill-seeking, so that they learn to care for others. Male chastity also helps a man to resist older women who chose bad boys in their teens and 20s and want to get married to a good provider in their 30s. The studies discussed above clearly show that such women are more likely to be unhappy, and their future marriages are more likely to be unstable. Avoid them.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
A society of hook up culture and rampant divorce seem to go hand in hand… Sad!
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This is all speculative, pop-psychology but my guess is the other problem it causes in the marriage is that it makes it harder for the man to love and cherish the wife. Right or wrong, the ability of a man to love and cherish a woman is influenced by his feeling that “this woman is mine and mine alone.” Female promiscuity (1 or 100) before marriage contributes to the undermining of this feeling. This issue (the husband having trouble loving her) probably contributes to female unhappiness and divorce just as much as her standards set by previous partners, her ability to pair-bond, etc.
That’s my guess.
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Men are worried that they are receiving less than her best, because she gave her best to a hotter no- commitment guy in her youth, then settled for him as a last resort. A lot if women to sex down or witthold sex because the man they settled for isn’t as “good” as the hot guy who didn’t commit to them. It’s called being alpha widowed.
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It probably has nothing to do with the no commitment guy being ‘hot’ or ‘alpha’ as far as the fornication…but the fact that the sexual act is a bonding act for women. Of course they are going to have an emotional and spiritual attachment to the cad…but that doesn’t mean he’s more alpha, masculine, or ‘hot’ than the guy she married.
In comparison a virgin bride doesn’t bring that into the marriage so her husband is the only ‘alpha’, or ‘hot’ guy she’s had with that act.
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I have friend who is married who pines away for two guys she had sex with before marrying. Looks at their careers and creeps their Facebook pages to see how many kids they’re having, compares herself to their wives.
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What I don’t get is that cads seem shocked these women they had sex with somehow seem to ‘reappear’ in their lives. Social media made this a lot easier too.
I’m like…duh.
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Seen this from HS friends. Girl had lots of sex and tumultuous relationship (for all practical purposes a marriage) with a jerky guy (the usual stuff, “cheated” on her, pulled her hair out in a fight, etc.) Years later she married a nice guy. She adds the jerk to her FB page.
She gave what was rightfully her husband’s to some jerk. You think she’d at least have the decency not to add the jerk to her FB friends list. Nope. Thank God didn’t get involved with that girl.
Women want the following rules which favor them: screw around with no-commitment guys when young and hot in hopes of getting them. Later get a nice guy who is faithfully locked into marriage (just as he enters the years when he is most attractive and his value in the marriage market goes up). Some guys are saying “it’s my turn now!” I don’t condone this behavior but what do you expect?
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‘Women want the following rules which favor them: screw around with no-commitment guys when young and hot in hopes of getting them. ‘
Perhaps I’m dense about how the female mind works…but I just don’t get how giving sex to a ‘hot’ guy who won’t commit suddenly makes him do a reverse mindset to become a guy who wants to commit. Even if she gets pregnant he could still bolt (because guess what sex alone and a child created from it isn’t a commitment to each other…marriage is) and then you have that issue as well.
The only other reason I could come up with is she doesn’t want to commit to him either…but still wants to do the act which should be in a permanent commitment…thereby damaging her a lot.
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You’re thinking with your mind, they’re thinking with their feelings. They inagine that the universe exists to make them happy, so risky behavior will all magically work out in the end.
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Fundamentally, the sex act has intimacy, importance, meaning, etc. It can’t be made to “not matter.” That is against human nature, natural law, etc.
E.g. even most secular people see “cheating” as problematic (a theme in many pop-songs) – traditional terms such as “adultery” and “fornication” are replaced with another moral term-“cheating” just includes people who are in “committed” fornicating relationships.
I agree that the cad being more “alpha” isn’t the only or even the main problem. Man wants to feel the woman is his – it doesn’t matter what the qualities of the previous guy(s) is/are. Guys would still want virgins even if the previous guys were just like him.
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This is the kind of thing that should be shouted from the rooftops to young people. Although I do seek Christ, I think studies like this would be more effective than saying “The Bible says…..” if for any other reason a lot of pastors make the Bible say anything they want, taking verses completely out of context and creating entire doctrines out of them. That’s precisely how we got the “Family First” and “Marriage Mandate” doctrines, despite virtually an entire chapter (1 Corinthians 7) extolling the single state as superior. Jesus’ words certainly fly in the face of “Family First.”
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I agree with you completely, and yet here we are with fideist pastors and churches, even after decades of failing to meet the challenge of secular leftism.
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I hesitate to put my two cents in—as I agree with the study you are writing about. I would hope that as a Christian young man, the thing you are most looking for in your future wife, is a Christian woman who walks with God and is experiencing His love and forgiveness. A marriage based on Christ, where both partners are submitting to God and God’s spirit is leading and guiding them, is the most important thing for the success of a marriage. I have been married for 30 years and have many friends married for longer than that and they were not virgins when they got married. They became Christians after they came to Christ, and Christ is what they base their marriage on, not their lack of virginity. God Bless!!
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I meant to say, they became Christians after they lost their virginity. :)
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