SEX

That anyone would have a negative reaction to the title of this post is not the work of God or the Church but of the devil. It is a gift from God and a powerful one at that. It is beautiful, unifying. It changes the face of the earth.

Think how powerful it is. It creates life! It creates entire peoples. Contracept one sexual union between your father and mother and you would not have been born. Go back one more generation and your parents nor your brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews would have been born. Go back one more generation and contracept just one more sexual union and your great grandmother or grandfather would not have been born, none of your Aunts and Uncles, nor your cousins (and their kids) would have been born. Beyond that the number of people can become staggering. What a powerful thing!

When the Church teaches that sex should be saved for marriage, it is not because it is dangerous or dirty or a tool of the devil, but because it is beautiful and powerful and God provides us a way whereby we can engage in sex in the environment in which it is best lived out.

It is interesting to look at the statistics and for premarital sex and cohabitation. Just look at the first page of a search on Google. There reports of divorce rates are three times higher than for couples who wait for marriage. Two other good articles are here and here. The one that suggests anything remotely different is one that says that as long as the only sexual union is with the future husband things may be Okay. It does go on to say however that more than one partner raises the results back through the roof. So if you date someone and have sex (and the average length of relationship is 21 days once sex enters in) the chances are great that the relationship will end and that automatically puts you into the multiple partner relationship category if you ever have sex again.

So why risk it? If you knew that eating Chinese food was bad for your and your partner’s soul and that you raised your chances of divorce in the scores of percentiles you would avoid Chinese restaurants like the plague. There we touch on the why the Church teaches as she does. She wants you to be successful. She wants your relationship to last. She cherishes your marriage. She wants your love to be life long. Do want it too? Statistically and faithfully she teaches the way to do it.

“But our love is different.” So everyone thinks. I hope it is. But why risk it? Rather risk success. Risk being statistically life long partners. Risk chastity. Risk holiness. Give God the benefit of the doubt. Risk offering your spouse holiness. Risk loving to that extent. Risk it all and risk less.

MARRIAGE STATISTICS


(What we are doing as a society is not working!)


1. Of the 2.3 million marriages in 2006, about half (53%) take place in a religious setting.
2. The average cost of a wedding is $27,500.
3. Married households are barely above 50%. Of the U.S. 111 million households, 52% are now made up of married couples with and without children.
4. 25th Wedding Anniversary becoming more rare. There is less than a 50% chance that couples currently married will reach their 25th anniversary.
5. Divorce Rate continues about 50%. While the average divorce rate is 50%, it is 40% for first marriage, 60% for second marriages and 73% for third marriages.
6. The seven year itch continues. Couples separate on the average seven years after marriage and divorce after eight.
7. Over 90% of people get married once. But those marrying are waiting until they are older and they are less likely to remarry following a divorce. Rate of Cohabitation Escalates. Over 6 million couples now cohabit, a dramatic increase from only 500,000 cohabiting couples in 1970.