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SOME HAVE
BABIES; OTHERS, REGRETS!
-
Philip P. Eapen |
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Author's webpage:
http://philip.eapen.googlepages.com
The
government wants our “boys” and “girls” to marry
late and have a small family. Don’t be fooled by
the myth of over-population!
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“Do not be conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you
may discern the will of God—what is good and acceptable
and perfect.”
Romans 12:2 is a popular text among Bible-believing
Christians. And yet, many sincere Christians think that
this verse is just about fashions, hair styles, make-up,
cinema, and beauty parlours. Many of us fail to see the
ungodliness and foolishness inherent in the world’s
current fashion of prolonging adolescence, postponing or
avoiding marriage, and delaying conception. To make
matters worse, we have accepted the myth of
overpopulation as gospel truth. Population control
(government imposed norms), as opposed to family
planning (voluntary spacing of children), has become an
unwritten doctrine.
Bitten by the “population bug,” the union minister for
health recently said, “An 18-year-old girl and a
21-year-old boy who haven’t achieved anything in life
are not meant to get married.” The minister, like most
Indian grown-ups, hasn’t realised that an 18-year-old
woman is not a “girl” and that a 21-year-old man is not
a “boy.” If he wants to see his son/daughter as a
toddler all the days of their life, I have no problem.
But if he extends that to all the young adults of India,
we do have a real problem at hand.
Moreover, marriage, according to the honourable
minister, is only for those who have achieved something
in life. In case you are listening, Sir, just surviving
till the age of 18 or 21 in India is an achievement in
itself. Marriage is not just for achievers. Obviously,
the minister wants Indian families to have lesser number
of children. To that end, he now recommends that young
adults delay their wedding until they “achieve”
something. My contention here is that we should not
become ghulams of an illusion that fertility is
forever.
Ask any urban young man or woman what the ideal age for
marriage is, and you will most probably get figures
above 25 (for women) and above 30 (for men). In
cosmopolitan cities of India, I realize, that women,
including Christians, find it difficult to think of
getting married before 30.
Is there an ideal age for a man or a woman to enter
married life? Many believe that the ‘ideal’ age for
wedding varies from person to person. The people to whom
I spoke consider several parameters or factors before
arriving at a suitable age for wedding. Completion of
studies, financial independence through a stable job or
a profitable business/profession, achievement of certain
financial or career goals, etc. Indeed, the age at which
people realize these goals vary. If an ‘ideal’ age for
wedding should depend on these variables, it is
difficult to arrive at a generalized figure.
There are others who think that physical age is not what
matters. These friends think that a person should be
‘emotionally mature’ before they marry. At what age do
people attain emotional maturity? Who defines emotional
maturity and what is the standard against which we may
measure our emotional maturity levels. Again, we run up
against a wall that we cannot scale. Someone might say
that it is nonsense to talk of attaining maturity. Each
individual has a certain level of maturity at each age
and should be content with it, they might say. Who would
want to be in their seventies, at the height of some
abstract ‘emotional maturity’ before he considers
marriage?
Education, career, ownership of a house or vehicle,
financial stability . . . the age at which one attains
these vary. For instance, a scientist may gain a Ph.D.
by the age of 26; however, a theologian may top-off his
education with a Ph.D. at the age of 40. My contention
is that we cannot and should not let educational or
career or financial goals to decide the age at which we
marry. There is a better indicator – a natural,
scientific indicator – that should tell us when our
young women and men ought to consider marriage. In a sea
of variables, there is one relatively reliable
parameter. And that is the biological clock that God has
placed in our bodies.
The Bible clearly teaches us that one of the goals of
marriage is to prevent sexual immorality. “Yes, it is
good to live a celibate life. But because there is so
much sexual immorality, each man should have his own
wife, and each woman should have her own husband. The
husband should not deprive his wife of sexual intimacy,
which is her right as a married woman, nor should the
wife deprive her husband.” (1 Cor. 7:1b-3 NLT)
Indeed, apostle Paul wrote that instruction for the
benefit of Corinthian Christians who lived in a society
that glorified immorality. Is the society that you and I
belong to any different? We live in a world that
glorifies immorality. Sex is not the problem, sexual
immorality is. This passage is therefore relevant in our
situations too.
If a mutually satisfying marriage is the Bible’s
antidote to the immorality that threatens to swallow us,
why are our teachers and preachers not recommending
marriage on this ground? Those of us who have worked
among adolescents and youth know that one of the
greatest challenges they face is to live a life of
purity. “Victorious Christian Living,” “How to overcome
sin?” “A Holy Vessel,” etc., are common themes in our
youth camps. Preachers preach about a holy life and go
home to their wives. But the young people who listen to
their sermons continue to battle the natural storms that
break apart their lives. They fail often in the realm of
sexual purity. They walk around carrying loads of guilt,
bowed down by their inability to live a “holy life.”
Have you heard any preacher prescribing marriage - a
mutually satisfying married life - as the medicine that
will give victory and happiness to those in late teens
and early twenties? I have not!
Recently a Christian technocrat in his mid-twenties
wrote to me seeking counsel regarding maintaining a pure
life. When I mentioned about marriage, he protested that
it was too early for him to marry. With what do I
compare such young people who turn their backs on a
legitimate, God-ordained prescription for their
divinely-scripted drives? They are like starving
vagabonds who drool at the food kept in shops or
restaurants. All they need to do is, return to their own
homes and feasts on what is legitimately their own.
Young man/woman, what is the right age for you to
consider marriage? I would say, when you are old enough
to commit sexual immorality, you are old enough to
consider marriage. This is why I was happy when I heard
that officials at the Central government in India
proposed to lower men’s legal age for marriage to 18.
The current health minister thinks otherwise. What does
he care about the battles that our youth face? The
man/woman of the world seeks every impure way to satisfy
his/her passions. A godly young person must turn to
God’s way to stay pure and to appreciate God’s gifts in
legitimate ways.
Oh, then, what about a job? Should not a man support his
family? Yes, indeed, every man ought to support his
family. The problem is not that our young people cannot
find a job or a means to live. The problem is that most
of us are not willing to take up available jobs or
economic opportunities. We push our youth to expect a
“dream job.” And they pursue that jackpot at the end of
some rainbow till they are old and infertile.
And that brings me to the second part of my discussion
on biological clock – fertility. Theoretically, men can
raise a family at any age. The ground reality may be
different in most cases! How about women? Can they
afford to postpone marriage and childbearing till some
arbitrary age when they might fulfil their educational
or career goals?
A whole generation of women (and men) is fooling itself
beyond measure! An increasing number of men and women
realise that they cannot have children when it is
already too late. The rising number of infertility
clinics is a testimony to that. (I do concede that all
cases of infertility are not due to deliberate delays.
Many are.)
Biologically speaking, the peak time of female fertility
extends from late teenage to early twenties. That is the
time when the best eggs are released. As most of us
know, women do not produce eggs but are born with a
certain set that matures and get released from time to
time. There is a definite correlation between fertility
and the quality of eggs. This is why it is said that the
best age to have the first child is in the late teens or
early twenties. Time and fertility waits for no one!
Deirdre Macken, Allen & Unwin have clearly portrayed
this scenario in their candid book Oh No! We
forgot to have children. Let me quote them:
“The news that the fertility window is smaller than
imagined - stretching little more than fifteen years
after a woman’s 21st birthday - is especially hard to
grasp in an era when all other life stages are getting
longer. The period of adolescence, or adulescence as
some refer to it, now lasts till the late twenties, with
youth staying in education longer, travelling the world,
dropping in and out of jobs and living at home longer.
The other end of life is also elongating . . .
“Against these elongated life stages, it seems cruel to
be told that the fertility window of opportunity is
small, tighter than most imagined and that even
technology won’t make it much bigger. Moreover, those
30-something-year-olds who have remained fit and healthy
find it hard to believe that their reproductive fitness
is not as good as their well-honed abdominal muscles.
When many 30-something-year-olds can still look like a
20-something-year-old, run marathons like an East
African and have a diet rich in sushi, it’s hard to
convince them that their ovaries and testes aren’t as
easily buffed to perfection.
“The concept that reproductive biology can be managed,
scheduled, manipulated, ramped up and switched on and
off as many times as you want is understandable given
the sort of information in the media. ... few are told
that all this wiggling and tracking down tubes had a
finite life, that sperm would become weak swimmers and
the egg would have trouble getting through to the uterus
and that this crotchety middle age of sperm and ova
would begin sooner than we thought ...” I can’t get more
candid than that!
The Bible says that the primary purpose of marriage is
sexual intimacy and reproduction. Yes, you heard me
right. All other purposes that marriage serves –
companionship, spiritual support, financial support,
etc. – can be met even without marriage. This is why
marriage is primarily physical. God did not make a
mistake when he defined marriage in physical terms in
Genesis 2:24. Similarly, God told Israel that His
expectation from every marriage was “a godly offspring.”
(Malachi 2:15). Of course, there are couples who cannot
reproduce. But that’s the exception and not the rule. We
derive our principles from the rule, not from
exceptions.
If we get this principle right, then our young men and
women will marry at such an age that permits each woman
to have her first child in her late teens or early
twenties. You can pursue higher studies at any age; you
may work and study part-time. Advances in career and
education can be attained in the late twenties or
thirties. Money can come at any time. Healthy children
won’t! Emotional maturity will eventually set in,
according to the demands of life. A 22-year old mother
may be more mature than a 30-year old single woman.
Those who wait long enough to marry, till they are
emotionally mature, might miss the bus of parenthood.
It is indeed surprising that the Indian government has
revived its program of “population control” - as if
humans are pests to be controlled. In the First World,
they are worrying about declining population! While we
are in countries such as India, especially in crowded
cities, we may tend to believe the lie that the globe is
over-populated. Crowding is just that – crowding.
Crowding is not over-population. If the world is indeed
overpopulated, why is the western world giving
incentives to their people for having more children?
Think, India, think! Jaago re, jaago!
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This page
is updated on Aug 07, 2009 |
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PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY
10 YEARS CELEBRATION
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