How have you prepared for marriage?

We most certainly live in a world that is different than what it was even 50 years ago.

In our own country, 50 years ago a young man could get a job straight out of high school with which he could support a family. Of course, even then the more college that you had the better, but those were the days when the ideal marriage was that of the single wage earner, where the idea of being a housewife was not looked down upon and that of being a mother was still a noble profession.

Though our world is changing, one thing that hasn’t changed is the human body.

Isn’t it interesting that in the little more than 6,000 years of mankind’s existence that it is still the woman who bears the offspring? While it may be politically incorrect to say that a woman’s place is in the home, there is no disputing that womankind was endowed by her Creator with body form and function that is unique to her alone, and for the purpose of children. Indeed, we could correctly say, “She is for children.”

While having children is not her only purpose, or even her primary purpose, neither does it infer inferiority to man in any way. The truth is that when it comes to marriage, she is still the one who bears them. As such, and as a father, I am still a believer in the concept of the husband being the main provider for the home.

For those interested enough to do the study, the word “husband” is saturated with the idea of providing for the home, whether in building it or in farming for it or in the investing and managing of it, but the word “wife” has no such connotation. What this means is that only until recently has the concept of the “dual-income” become fashionable. And what this also means is that unless we want to invent new words, the position of being a husband still carries with it the responsibility of being the main breadwinner.

In practical terms, preparation for being a wife and mother are far less than that of being a husband and a father. Interestingly, God seems to validate this conclusion as women still, as they have for more than 6,000 years, tend to mature at an earlier age than do their male counterparts. While I am not saying that women shouldn’t go to college, I am saying that God has fitted her for motherhood “as is.” For the young man, however, this is not true. While God has fitted him for reproduction by the age of 20, if not sooner, what God has not done is fit him to provide for his home; for this he must work (see Genesis 3). Thus, as I raise my boys, I labor to instill in them that in whatever field they would like to make their life’s work, to finish their preparation before they get married.

If that means college, then that’s what it means. If that means a trade-school or apprenticeship, then that’s what it means. But by all means, finish your preparation before you get married because the Bible tells you, “Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house.” This is God’s order for the husband.

As we have been speaking of courtship lately, and for those who would be interested in my daughters, my question is now going to be, “How have you prepared for marriage?” No more will I ask a young man how he will provide, for that requires an element of fortune-telling; no, I want to know how he has prepared himself. I am not interested in how many jobs he will be willing to get if that is what it takes, nor the toys that he possesses. I don’t care about his dreams for the future and how he is going to change the world. What I want to see is that somewhere in his past he got serious about life and began to make preparation for the future.

You see, marriage is not a right that one is owed, but a responsibility with which one is entrusted. When a young man fails to make preparation for marriage, it is because he still looks at life through the eyes of a child. Maybe that’s not his fault, but I want my sons-in-law to be men on the inside as well as on the outside.

Ron Hamman is pastor of Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla; contact him at 357-4229 or ron.hamman@gci.net.