Tag Archives: Wives

Mentoring

Marriage advice from Christian philosopher William Lane Craig

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Here is a question of the week from Dr. Craig on “Marriage Advice”!

Here’s the question:

Dear Dr. Craig,

Marriage is in the foreseeable future, and I would like to ask you for any advice before it happens. Can we avoid any mistakes? Would it be helpful to meet with a pastor for premarital counseling? Are there any helpful tips you could give from a Christian perspective or from your own experience?

Thank you in advance!

Zareen

Here are the main pieces of advice Dr. Craig gives:

  1. Resolve that there will be no divorce
  2. Delay having children
  3. Confront problems honestly
  4. Seek marital counseling
  5. Take steps to build intimacy in your relationship

And here’s the controversial one (#2):

2. Delay having children. The first years of marriage are difficult enough on their own without introducing the complication of children. Once children come, the wife’s attention is necessarily diverted, and huge stresses come upon you both. Spend the first several years of marriage getting to know each other, working through your issues, having fun together, and enjoying that intimate love relationship between just the two of you. Jan and I waited ten years before having our first child Charity, which allowed me the finish graduate school, get our feet on the ground financially, establish some roots, and enjoy and build our love relationship until we were really ready to take on the responsibilities of parenthood. The qualifier here is that if the wife desperately wants children now, then the husband should accede to her wish to become a mother, rather than withhold that from her. Her verdict should be decisive. But if you both can agree to wait, things will probably be much easier.

I wonder if the married readers agree with him about the “waiting at least a year after marriage bafore having children”?

News

Montreal Muslims found guilty of first degree murder in Shafia trial

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From the National Post. (H/T Blazing Cat Fur)

Excerpt:

After Canada’s first mass-honour-killings trial, three members of a Montreal family have all been found guilty of first-degree murder in the drowning deaths of four other family members — including three teenage sisters.

A jury on Sunday handed down its guilty verdicts for Mohammad Shafia and Tooba Mohammad Yahya, as well as their 21-year-old son, Hamed.

They had been charged with murder after the bodies of three Shafia sisters — Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and 13-year-old Geeti — were discovered in a submerged vehicle in a canal near Kingston, in June 2009.

Also in the vehicle was Rona Amir Mohammad, the 52-year-old first wife of Shafia, whom he married in his native Afghanistan before the polygamous family moved to Canada in 2007 and settled in Montreal.

A conviction for first-degree murder carries with it an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

[…]A dozen independent witnesses — including Montreal police, social workers, teachers and school officials — testified the girls feared their father and even some of their siblings, who they believed were spying on them, and were depressed and desperate to get away.

On wiretap recordings played for jurors, Shafia called his daughters “whores,” “filthy” and “rotten children” who betrayed the family and Islam and did “cruelty” to Shafia by secretly taking boyfriends and by wearing revealing clothes.

Prosecutors alleged that the victims died in an honour killing orchestrated by Shafia to cleanse the shame he felt from the conduct of his daughters.

The trial also heard that Shafia’s first wife, who was living in Canada illegally, wanted a divorce from Shafia and was supportive of the daughters who were dating.

Blazing Cat Fur also points out this Montreal Gazette article, which says that the relatives of the Shafia murderers approve of honor killings.

Like the UK, Canada has major, major problems with immigrants who are not integrated properly into Western culture and values. The Liberal government that was in power for decades was always pushing for “diversity” and “multiculturalism”, just like the UK Labour Party. Liberal professors, like those at Queen’s University in Kingston, are even pushing for Canada to adopt polygamy, in order to respect the cultural beliefs of Muslims.

In Canada, polygamous Muslims can already collect multiple welfare checks for their multiple wives.

Excerpt:

Hundreds of [Greater Toronto Area] Muslim men in polygamous marriages — some with a harem of wives — are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses, thanks to the city and province, Muslim leaders say.

Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said wives in polygamous marriages are recognized as spouses under the Ontario Family Law Act, providing they were legally married under Muslim laws abroad.

“Polygamy is a regular part of life for many Muslims,” Ali said yesterday. “Ontario recognizes religious marriages for Muslims and others.”

He estimates “several hundred” GTA husbands in polygamous marriages are receiving benefits. Under Islamic law, a Muslim man is permitted to have up to four spouses.

However, city and provincial officials said legally a welfare applicant can claim only one spouse. Other adults living in the same household can apply for welfare independently.

The average recipient with a child can receive about $1,500 monthly, city officials said.

This is another situation where liberal Toronto lawmakers want to support “multiculturalism” and “diversity”.

Oh, and did you know that multiculturalists also support sex-selection abortions? It turns out that sex-selection abortions are very popular in non-Western nations, like India. Yes – it’s another area where leftists side with “multiculturalism” and “diversity”. One wonders what multiculturalists think of honor killings and burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. After all, if you accept all views on moral issues as valid, then you approve of all of these views as valid. That’s what moral relativism and tolerance means – celebrating everyone’s point of view as equally valid.

Well, I for one think that honor killings and sex-selection abortions and widow burning and polygamy are all morally wrong. I guess I am not multicultural and diverse enough.

You can read more about the Shafia trial and the verdict here at Blazing Cat Fur.

Commentary

Greg Koukl asks: why are people disappointed with marriage?

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I found a post on Reformed Seth’s blog that discusses an interesting article from Stand to Reason.

Here’s how Reformed Seth starts the article:

Fun. Laughter. Happiness. Good times. No worries. Is this how life is supposed to be? Is our definition of loving life and seeing good days measured by the amount of happiness in our lives? Now, this isn’t just aimed at the “singles,” rather the post is aimed at marriage and what people tell us a good marriage is.

I was contemplating the notion that a marriage is defined as “good” by how “happy” the couple is. Now, I don’t want you to get the impression from me that I think a couple isn’t supposed to be happy in a marriage, no-no, I want to give you something to “munch” on. I found this article by Greg Koukl. The topic was on happiness and this is just one gem from the article:

“In the pursuit of happiness, human institutions are valid not because of transcendent ethic but because of temporal fulfillment, which is essentially self-centered. For example, marriage is a valid commitment as long as you’re happy. If you’re not happy anymore in the marriage, then you have reason to dissolve the marriage. But I would contend that if you’re getting married to be happy, then you’re getting married for the wrong reasons. Not that personal fulfillment is not a valid goal in some measure, but that’s not what it’s all about.”

Notice Greg didn’t condemn happiness in a marriage, rather he was making the point that happiness isn’t the goal of marriage. So, what is the goal of marriage?

“You marry as a covenant agreement between two people to maintain a family unit in society to accomplish certain things, to help each other and embrace the events and issues of life together as helpmates, to raise a family and provide a stable environment for them. Though all of those things may breed a measure of happiness, they breed a measure of misery as well. That’s why the covenant, the agreement, the commitment between husband and wife is not based on happiness. If it was you’d have to amend your vows to say, ‘Until unhappiness do us part.'”

Did you catch it? We don’t marry to be happy. Why do we marry? To “maintain a family unit in society to accomplish certain things, to help each other and embrace the events and issues of life together as helpmates, to raise a family and provide a stable environment for them.” That’s why man and woman marry. A person pursuing happiness alone will be horribly disappointed with marriage because marriage is not an institution for happiness alone.

Recommended read!

This post made me think of another post I saw on Neil Simpson’s blog about Phil 4:13.

Excerpt:

Philippians 4:13 (“I can do all things through him who strengthens me”) is one of the most misinsterpreted verses in the Bible. I used to misquote it. I can’t remember the last time I heard it used correctly. It is one of the top 10 searched verses on biblestudytools.com, along with another frequently abused verse, Jeremiah 29:11.

[…]It is technically true that we could accomplish great things with Jesus, of course, but that isn’t what Philippians 4:13 means. The verse refers to Christ’s power doing something very specific in the believer, not some sort of general power.

I love using Phil 4:13 as an example of how to read in context. You don’t need to read the entire Bible, or all of Philippians, or chapter 4 or even a paragraph to get the real meaning. Just go back one verse!

Philippians 4:12-13 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Verse 13 is Paul’s secret for being content in all situations. That’s it. Do every thing through Jesus and you can be content in everything. It isn’t about what you accomplish, it is about how you do whatever you do.

Phillipians is one of my favorite books in the New Testament, but you have to read the verses in context.

So is marriage about happiness, or something else?

I actually do think that there are many other uses for marriage other than the “produce super-kids” plan that I always talk about. I think that men and women complement each other well, so I would look forward to have all of my nasty parts worked on, like the messiness, laziness, meanness, snarkiness, selfishness, driving too fast, and so forth. I really enjoy the feelings I get from self-sacrificial love for someone, especially when I try to lead a woman upward, and she follows my lead, and I can see her getting stronger and better.

I think the appeal of marriage for me, other than the super-kids, is that I would have someone to watch over and protect and nurture at really close quarters. Normally, I just send people books to read, or mail checks for apologetics events, or reply to e-mails. Marriage would be much better, because we could work on things together everywhere we went. I have these daydreams about being surprised in the kitchen with a hug from behind, because I am washing the dishes without being asked to. That would be fun for me. Or of coming home from work and having the children all cleaned up and dressed and hugging me right when I get in the door, because my wife has been pumping up my reputation with them while I was at work. I have lots of things like that I would like to try out that I can’t do on non-wife and non-kid people. I could do all kinds of good things if I had a family.

I think a pretty test to see if you are ready for marriage is to see how much you enjoy taking care of other people, and to a lesser degree, pets and cars and stuff like that that need maintenance. If you spend all your time trying to go places and do things and trying to squeeze a lot of fun out of life, that probably isn’t the best training for marriage. But if you like teaching people new things, and cleaning out the bird cage, waxing the car, and mowing the lawn and performing acts of service for others, then I think that’s a good sign you are ready for marriage.

I am still struggling a lot with this… on the one hand, I would do anything for my pet bird. But on the other hand, I struggle a lot to read what people ask me to read and to reply to e-mails and stuff. I haven’t waxed my car all year! This is an area where I really need to improve – getting used to being helpful to others. I seem to be able to avoid the need to be happy, but I just pour all my time into learning and writing, and not doing hard things to help others.