Is it a sin to marry a minor?

[Ryuzashi]

Yeah i plan on helping her get a GED. Shes not the money hungry type of girl ...Heck, she loves using her money on me LOL...

Shes a real sweetheart and cares truly alot about me, if she ever left me... its caused i screwed up and didnt gave her attention. >.<
But while yes we do got married and i wished we could have waited and done it properly, I had no choice... it was either i married her or i lost her for ever. *sigh*

Lets hope everything works perfectly and neither of us regret getting married down the line. Thanks for all your thoughts

On a side note, someone mentioned allowing your 16 yr old daughter getting married to some guy she met online...
now tell me... would dads manys decades ago thought the same way?

Times has changed and stupid laws have been made, and more stupid laws will be created making life more strict by the day.

I wonder if one day those CHIPS will be made and they will forced everyone to use them and Christians will be classified as renegades for refusing and we will all go to jail.

Imagine that happening! Where we wrong for not wanting things inplaneted on our body? for having our own opinion?
But simply cause the goverment decided to say it needs to be done, and the majority of the people follows them cause they are easily manipulated then everybody has to do it.

This is just an example or how life changes and people think or are forced to think.

Not saying it will happen but imagine if it did, kinda unfair no? lol


Now that we think of unfair things that make no sense or has no negative inpact in life, remembers of my wife in school... i bought her a uniform, and a white polo shirt, a nice shirt must i say , they forced her to get rid of it and buy a different one... you know why? cause it had 1 or 2 extra buttons in the front.. what the? and if she had refused to get a different one, she would have been kicked out of school. Simply cause her shirt had 1 or 2 additional buttons. This is a example of something that didnt exist a couple years ago when i was in school.

See how life its becoming more strict by the day?

Was there a vote where us people could say no we dont agree with it or yes we agree with it? no. They forced that rule, and life will have more and more rules/laws forced upon us to a day we wont have free will.

Same as my job, if i were to use a hat SLIGHTY crooked , they complain at me... LOL? Even though i work in Garden Center outside in the sun... heh

Sorry for the long post, just giving a example how life has shaped and how it will continue and how it will have a negative impact on us.
Its like those futuristic movies that life is strict and you gotta be careful what you do no matter how little or stupid it is cause you will get in trouble, looks silly and you think it wont happen, but its already happening.... slowly.

Again, my apologies for all this just to explain something lol

[cslewislover]

I hear you on all those bizarre, strict, or whimsical rules. -__-

[zoegirl]

On a side note, someone mentioned allowing your 16 yr old daughter getting married to some guy she met online...
now tell me... would dads manys decades ago thought the same way?

Your darn totin' they would feel the same way. They would have been considered predators....not because of the age difference but because of the secrecy!!! Men were called out for that! It was considered the father's duty to protect the daughter. Men who snuck around versus a man who courted properly?

There are mitigating circumstances with the abuse, but take that out of the equation and I would still not call this ideal.

Are you involved in a church?

[Jac3510]

Ok, Honestly, folks,

Even accepting that in this case everything worked out, TO all of the fathers out there, would you be ok if your 16 year daughter comes and tells you that she has been chatting online with a 27 year old man and wants to get married?!?!?

Forgive me if I am skeptical.

Would we *really* advise a 16 year old girl to escape her abusive relationships by marriage? Really?!?!?!?

Lets face it, this is not the healthiest way to start a marriage. All I'm saying is that, just like any other Christian based marriage, they should seriously think about some sort of counseling to help them start right.

Honestly? Now that I HAVE a daughter, if she wants to get married at 16, then I have NO problem taking her request seriously. With that said, if I am to give my consent to such a marriage (or any, for that matter), the man in question will have to meet the standards of marriage, which the sermons I linked to--especially the first--lays out VERY well.

If a guy in his mid to late twenties met my 16 year old daughter and convinced me that he was a godly man in every way, why would I have a problem with it? Honestly?

I would request that they wait until she graduated HS (which won't be a problem for me since I plan on homeschooling my children), but then, that is primarily due to the possibility of pregnancy.

As to whether or not someone should marry to escape an abusive relationship, I simply don't have a problem with that if the man in question is a godly man. The issue is not the motivation of marriage, but the godliness of the people involved (particularly the male). It seems to me that Ryu is a godly man. Obviously, I don't know him well enough to make that statement definitively (but I promise you I would if it were my daughter in question). If that is the case, then I have every reason to believe that he will treat his wife, young as she may be, with all the respect and love that Christ intends for a husband to show his wife. So, forgive me lax on this, but I can think of few things more beneficial to a young woman in a difficult situation than to meet a wonderful young man who loves the Lord first! Naturally, such a man would likely insist that the two of them go through extensive marital counseling for both their sakes; but again, such a man would likely not marry a woman--troubled or not--if he was not sure that they had roughly the same view of marriage anyway.

The bottom line for me is that I have NO problem with a girl in her late teens marrying a godly man. I can't think of a better thing to happen to a girl (or a guy, for that matter!). Can you?

[jlay]

The teenager is a modern phenomenon. it didn't exist until recent times.

People were always married in their teens.
Today's culture of promiscuity and unwanted pregnancy is just as much a product of the cultural norms as it is depravity.
We allow people to stay children far too long. We expect so much from kids academically and athletically, but we leave them in the crib when it comes to spiritual and relational growth. Dating didn't exist until modern times.

Teens and young adults have so much time on their hands, and they are programmed to think that those years are meant for their selfish fullfillment. And thus the high divorce rate. Much of our youth spend those years experimenting sexually and socially, then we expect them to get married and not look back. Crazy. Our ancestors where hard working citizens by the time they were 16 and 17. They didn't have time to hang out at the local mall. They didn't date. They courted, or were arranged in a marriage, got married and got on with life. No goofing around running to the premier of the latest 'Twilight' movie.

Yet this is what so called Christian families raise their children in, expecting different results.

[ageofknowledge]

"First marriages by women under age 18 are the most likely group to divorce," said Brette Sember, a retired attorney, author of "The Divorce Organizer and Planner." "The divorce rates are quite high for this group. Recent studies have shown that the brains of teens and those in their early 20s are not fully mature, so to expect someone to make a lifelong commitment and be able to stick to it at this age is just not realistic."

....Studies show that today teenage marriages are two to three times more likely to end in divorce than are marriages between people 25 years of age and older. The most comprehensive study on marriage and age that sociologists cite was published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001, from 1995 data, and it found that 48 percent of those who marry before 18 are likely to divorce within 10 years, compared with 24 percent of those who marry after age 25.

“Most young women don't fare very well when it comes to raising a family as a teenager, and those precious few who get married, the marriages are very short-lived,” said Bill Albert, chief program officer for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “I know and respect a lot of 17-year-olds, but I don't think any of them are ready to be married and begin the lifelong task of raising a child.”

"Early marriages are the most unstable. While divorce and separation rates are high in the U.S. overall, rates are particularly high for teen marriages (see Figure 5). For instance, about one-half of teen marriages (among women aged 18-19) will end in divorce within fifteen years, compared to about one-third
of marriages for women over twenty. In 1995, women who had married as teens were far more likely to have undergone a marital dissolution than those who married even just a few years later. While the effect is particularly dramatic for women who married before age 18, even older teens who marry experience divorce and separation at higher rates than those who wait until they are out of their teens."

http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publica ... s/0087.pdf

[Jac3510]

The teenager is a modern phenomenon. it didn't exist until recent times.

People were always married in their teens.
Today's culture of promiscuity and unwanted pregnancy is just as much a product of the cultural norms as it is depravity.
We allow people to stay children far too long. We expect so much from kids academically and athletically, but we leave them in the crib when it comes to spiritual and relational growth. Dating didn't exist until modern times.

Teens and young adults have so much time on their hands, and they are programmed to think that those years are meant for their selfish fullfillment. And thus the high divorce rate. Much of our youth spend those years experimenting sexually and socially, then we expect them to get married and not look back. Crazy. Our ancestors where hard working citizens by the time they were 16 and 17. They didn't have time to hang out at the local mall. They didn't date. They courted, or were arranged in a marriage, got married and got on with life. No goofing around running to the premier of the latest 'Twilight' movie.

Yet this is what so called Christian families raise their children in, expecting different results.

I just wanted to quote here for my strongest possible agreement.

[Ryuzashi]

And yet again someone proves me right in the "this days people don't think for them self, they just base things on what others say"

They cant predict my future or how my marriage will end up to be. Studies show that the majority of blah blah and etc etc, but MY studies show that the majority of teenagers this days smoke cigs, go to bars / clubbing 2 and 3 times a week and are unstable with a pretty messed up view on life.
My studies show that marriage decades ago lasted longer than now. Yet again you see how the forced evolution of this world has impacted us all.

My grandma was 18 when she got married and my grandpa was 15 years older than her, they still living together. The same goes for someone in my wifes family, they got married really young and they where always together. Things where so much simple and easier back in the days, and people still wanna advance? into the future?

Yes i was goin to church, i stopped cause my job and other factors, but im gonna start goin here soon, i was going to this XG Youth church, its basically a church that has alot young ones, but everyone is welcome. You dress as you like, speak your mind, they have there own band with Electric Guitar and all, and they make their own music (related to god and stuff) They help each other and stuff, it was pretty neat and different compared to your average normal church where they make everything so strict and serious and boring (sorry lol) , but this church makes you all feel like a big family and have fun while learning from God.

You cant throw kids in a regular church this days cause they will hate it and fall asleep, put them in that church and im sure they gonna wanna go again lol

[zoegirl]

My question had to do with the fact that he had been secretly chatting with her online.

I have a big issue with men chatting with teenage girls online. Did this story have a happy ending...from all accounts yes, but you better believe that papa bear and mama bear darn well better be furious at any guy chatting online. I have too many nieces to not worry about this.

How i n the world do you know who these guys are? It is not the case where you might know the man from church and know his background.

All along I have simply said that this has not been an ideal way for marriage to start and like any other couple preparing to marry, they should get some counseling. Most churches encourage pre-marital counseling. That's all. My mother married to escape an abusive household and it hurts to hear her regret her marriage. Starting off a marriage to escape abuse just doesn't seem like the healthiest way to develop a strong foundation. She has not had the best examples from her abusive parents in how to deal with arguments, for instance, and his Godly character alone might not be enough to understand how to help her. My other sister married a man from an alcoholic family and she didn't realize how much relational baggage he brought with him to the marriage, even though they were both strong Christians at the time.

Personally I *don't* like the idea of teenagers getting married, especially knowing the large number of teenagers that I encounter everyday. The vast majority just aren't mature enough to carry on a relationship. They just rarely form lasting relationships, barely holding a crush, vascillating between boy #1 and boy #2 and don't know themselves yet. And the boys don't either. In all of my years working at a Christian school, I can only count maybe 5-10 couples that met when they were in high school, dated through high school and college and then married, which is awesome but rare. And they were mature enough to wait! My sister and brother-in-law were an example of this.

I get very disappointed in some of the churches that I have seen that only encourage their daughters to think up until they get married. It's subtle, they don't say exactly that, but it seems like all they want to do is educate them just enough to get married, even encouraging them to skip college.

Is this immaturity because of the culture that we have bred....sure....but while we have this culture I'm not going to support or encourage them to get married.


Ryu, I'm NOT saying that your marriage is doomed, please don't mistak ethat. I have simply seen the evidence from problems with different backgrounds and encourage you to seek some counseling. (Jac's videos, for example)

[Ryuzashi]

Yeah i understand what your saying and your right, you never know whos in the other side of the computer and if their good or bad and its best for them to finish school and be completely independent before doing such big plans in life.

Im sorry to hear about your family.

[zoegirl]

Oh they have done well, which illustrates the point that commitment to the marriage DOES make a difference. But it was something they each had to deal with.

[Harry12345]

Like it or not, marriage has changed. People nowadays usually marry people they are romantically in love with. Nothing wrong with this, as long as it conforms to the setup that God has mandated.

I don't buy into the idea that 'cultural norms' compel people to sin; fact is, people have a choice. That marriage is now encouraged at a later age is no reason or excuse for higher promiscuity and rising STD rates.

[jlay]

Of course people have choices Harry. don't be ridiculous. But to infer that the culture does not impact those choices is naive. When the culture doesn't frown upon casual sex, and even glamourizes such behavior, then guess how that will effect what choices many will make. There are a lot of choices children should NOT have to make. If a parent OKs teen dating, where kids are left alone, guess what choice they are forced to make??? If parents do not allow such dating, then most of the time the choice is removed.


I work with inner city ministry, and I can testify that one of the biggest issues is getting kids to make good choices in spite of the culture they grow up in.

[Harry12345]

Of course people have choices Harry. don't be ridiculous.

I'm most certianly not.

But to infer that the culture does not impact those choices is naive. When the culture doesn't frown upon casual sex, and even glamourizes such behavior, then guess how that will effect what choices many will make. There are a lot of choices children should NOT have to make. If a parent OKs teen dating, where kids are left alone, guess what choice they are forced to make??? If parents do not allow such dating, then most of the time the choice is removed.

Okay, so when I go before God I'll say, "Sorry God, it was the culture I lived in". Responsibility is the issue here. Many teenagers today are extremely wise when it comes to sexuality, I should know. It is simply a case of resisting the culture. BTW nothing wrong with 'dating', as long as no lust or sex is involved. You should get to know someone before you marry them. You're in marriage for life, might as well make it as happy as possible.

[jlay]

Harry, if you weren't being ridiculous before you are now.

"Sorry God, it was the culture I lived in". Responsibility is the issue here.

When did I say it wasn't? Just because the culture is an influence doens't mean God won't hold people accountable for their choices. Are you trying to put words in my mouth? You are preaching to the choir when it comes to Godly accountability in regards to choices. But denying the INFLUENCE of the culture is being willfully ignorant of reality, or just stubborn.

BTW nothing wrong with 'dating', as long as no lust or sex is involved.

Harry, that's almost an oxymoron. That just isn't a reality. Dating is situation that feeds the problem. It is a product of the modern culture, and most people are so used to it, they consider it wierd to speak against it. I don't think anyone can defend modern dating with the bible.

It is simply a case of resisting the culture.

There has to be a reason to resist the culture. If parents and others who speak into the moral shaping of a child give it the big thumbs up then what?

You should get to know someone before you marry them. You're in marriage for life, might as well make it as happy as possible.

I just don't see any facts to back that up. People who live together before marriage obviously get to know each other. Yet, they have a high divorce rate. Arranged marriages have a much much longer success rate.