News stories and polls proceed to report that folks are selecting to marry at older ages. According to The Knot, a marriage planning company, the common age of marriage in 2025 is 32 (“What’s the Average…”). While The Knot gives various reasons for this average age of first marriage, the overarching reason is that each partners are within the workforce today. Before I reference the Bible to piece together guidelines for a time to marry, it should be noted that a definitive age to marry shouldn’t be given. Rather, conditions for the timing of marriage are given. Here are two conditions which will suggest it’s marriage time.
“If someone thinks he’s acting improperly toward an single woman whom he knows if he has strong feelings for her and it looks as if the suitable thing to do, he should do what he wants…they need to get married.” – 2 Corinthians 7:36
“Don’t construct a house and establish a house until your field are ready and you understand you may earn a living.” -Proverbs 24:27
I feel these scriptures are good suggestions for somebody considering when to pop the query.
7. When Is OK for a Married Couple to Separate?
If the rules above let you know the timing to get married, what concerning the timing to separate? Hmm, which may be a loaded query. Below, I give a couple of scriptures that guide principals for when and when to not separate.
“Haven’t you read, he replied, “that at first the Creator made them female and male And said, because of this a person shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the 2 will develop into one flesh? What God has joined together, let man not separate.” -Matthew 19:5-6
You could also be considering, What if my feelings fade?
Could you imagine a mother’s feelings fading for her child? Spouses’ feelings for one another in marriage grow to be like that. More importantly, during marriage, you learn to not act based on feelings alone.
Of course, the bible also gives the circumstances for divorce. In the book of Matthew, Jesus said, “Anyone who divorces his wife, aside from sexual immorality, and marries one other woman commits adultery” (vs. 19).
Sometimes in a wedding relationship, one spouse accepts Christ after the marriage. Then life becomes difficult since the latest believer adopts latest values and habits. Instructions for this example are present in I Corinthians 7:12-13, saying, “If any brother has a wife who shouldn’t be a believer and she or he is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a girl has a husband who shouldn’t be a believer and he’s willing to live together with her, she must not divorce him.”
But there’s one other variety of separation in marriage. One where sex is withheld. The bible gives us guidelines for when separation through abstinence is permissible in marriage. I Corinthians 7:5 instructs us, “Do not deprive one another except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, in order that you might devote yourself to prayer. Then come together again in order that Satan is not going to tempt you due to your lack of self-control.”
One scripture in Hebrews gives the general sentiment of those scriptures on marriage and separation, irrespective of the context: “Marriage is honorable in every respect; and, specifically, sex inside marriage is pure” (Hebrews 13:4).
Photo Credit:© Unsplash/Engin Akyurt
