Is the Church pressuring women to marry too young? Why we need to rethink the timeline
By Maxine Harrison | 6 August 2026
https://www.womanalive.co.uk/opinion/-is-the-church-pressuring-women-to-marry-too-young-why-we-need-to-rethink-the-timeline/21954.article
Historically, women have often married at a younger age, but this has frequently been shaped by patriarchal systems and economic or social necessity rather than, I believe, God’s best. God’s design for marriage is rooted in love, mutual commitment and glorifying him through that partnership. Although we now live in an era where many women marry later in life, the pressure for women to marry by a certain age - especially within some church communities - still exists.
God's design for marriage is rooted in fertility.
And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth
[Genesis 1:27-28]
And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man 24 Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh
[Genesis 2:23-24]
But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder
[Mark 10:6-9]
Jesus in the passage (which incidentally features Young Earth Creationism, even to the exclusion of Gap Theory and Day-Age Theory, let alone Evolutionism) is summarising God's design by intentionally conflating two Bible quotes from Genesis 1 and 2. The first of these actually features fertility.
Maxine Harrison is a paragraph or two later featuring two women who divorced, one of whom married at 25 and the other at 26.
The one who married at 25 seems to have had a child with her husband only at 29. I didn't get around to see the other's pregnancy story or otherwise.
The thing is, getting children becomes harder for a woman if she waits to 30. Not just fertility problems, but also more painful childbirths. And this can lead to conflict, if one (as reasonably) isn't willing to use contraceptives. Late marriages and first childbirths lead to fewer children and sometimes less stable marriages.
Meanwhile, both of the influencers seem to have believed divorce was an actual option. That's not what Jesus said in Mark.
In her YouTube series, Chanel bravely shares the domestic abuse she experienced and admits she married too quickly.
Let's be clear, "too quickly" does not equal "too early". As in "too early in life" ... it may have been too early in the relationship, though.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Cajetan
7.VIII.2026
Neapoli, in Campania, sancti Cajetani Thienaei Confessoris, Clericorum Regularium Fundatoris, qui, singulari in Deum fiducia, pristinam Apostolicam vivendi formam suis colendam tradidit, et, miraculis clarus, a Clemente Papa Decimo inter Sanctos relatus est.
PS, she also said:
Some concerns about women marrying later undoubtedly come from a place of genuine care, particularly regarding fertility and the biological realities of having children. But today there are more options available, like adoption and egg freezing.
Well, that's fairly marginal compared to the loss, and egg freezing is on top of that illicit.
Adoption should be an option for few who have genuinely tried to get children./HGL
No comments:
Post a Comment