You Should (Try To) Get Married

5 Reasons from the Bible that Pursuing Marriage Should Be the Norm

The Village Wedding, by Samuel Luke Fields, c. 1883

I know that what I am about to say is extremely context dependent. I am attempting to argue that our culture is tilted away from marriage, so I am trying to push in the opposite direction.

But maybe your experience in whatever subculture you run in has been so emphatic on marriage that one is treated as a second-class citizen if they are not. Maybe you would like to be married and are trying but still, no dice. Maybe this is a painful reminder of a state that you wish you were no longer in.

If so, sorry—sincerely.

But our culture seems relatively gun-shy about “pressuring” singles to seek out marriage. In 2023, a Pew Poll revealed that among unmarried young adults, three-quarters of them do not feel any pressure from parents to get married.

Meanwhile, 88 percent of parents say that it is extremely important for their children to be financially independent and working careers that they enjoy.

“If you want to get married,” the sentiment goes, “that is fine, but you should really focus on getting established in your career.”

Marriage and family, apparently, aren’t as valuable as money.

Which is insane, given the overwhelming evidence that career and money are nowhere near as important as marriage and family when it comes to happiness. Social scientist, Brad Wilcox explains his book Get Married:

When it comes to predicting overall happiness, a good marriage is far more important than how much education you get, how much money you make, how often you have sex, and, yes, even how satisfied you are with your work.

Now it may be that parents are aware that pursuing a career is a little more controllable than finding a well-suited spouse. Or it may be that parents are just hoping that after a career, they will get married and have kids.

But another survey found that only 39 percent of registered U.S. voters say “society is better off if people make marriage and having children a priority,” and a majority say society is “just as well off if people have priorities other than marriage and children.”

Marriage and children are just not as much of a priority.

But they should be.

“They Should Marry”

If our wider culture is dragging its feet on the way to the altar, the Bible is there to spur them along. The Bible believes that marriage is a wonderful blessing:

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD. (Prov 18:22)

Yet, within the Church, sometimes people challenge the notion that people ought to get married because of Paul’s teaching on singleness from 1 Corinthians 7. Paul, a single man, encourages other Christians who are able to follow his example:

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Cor 7:6-9)

The apostle Paul wishes that everyone would follow his example so that they may be able to be more single-minded in service to the Lord (1 Cor 7:32-35). He encourages single people to not seek a wife (1 Cor 7:27), and tells us that the one who marries “does well,” while the one who remains single “does even better” (1 Cor 7:38).

This sort of sounds like Paul is pretty heavily tilting the scales away from marriage, right? And if that is the case, should we be all that concerned with our kids delaying marriage?

First off, let’s respond to what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians, then let’s address whether or not we should be concerned about declining marital rates.

5 Reasons Paul Is Not Making Singleness the New Norm

First, notice that in 1 Cor 7:6, Paul considers his advice about singleness as a “concession, not a command.” Paul realizes that what he is advising is not normative, but the exception. Which tells us that marriage–not singleness–is the norm.

Second, Paul wishes that all were like him, but is aware that the peculiar calling of his missionary life is not something that all are called to, I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. He has received a special gifting and ministry which entails a life of singleness, but not everyone is like him. Paul later notes that even a fellow apostle, Peter, doesn’t have the same ministry he has, and so is able to avail himself of his right to have a wife (1 Cor 9:5).

Third, later Paul points to the instability of the current moment as further evidence that singleness may be the best choice to consider: “I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is [as in, “don’t get married”]” (1 Cor 7:26). This seems to indicate that Paul’s preference for singleness was somewhat context dependent. Intense persecution, war, famine, civil unrest may create an environment where Christian prudence leads singles to forego marriage, at least until that distress passes.

Fourth, notice that Paul includes “widows” alongside the “unmarried” here (1 Cor 7:8). In his letter to the young pastor, Timothy, Paul similarly provides counsel to widows, but there Paul is more blunt: “So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander,” (1 Tim 5:14). Paul assumes that marriage and children are the norm.

Finally, while Paul believes the life of singleness is a good concession, he makes a categorical command: if you cannot exercise self-control in your state of singleness you “should marry.” If you are burning with lustful passion, marriage will not in of itself fully remedy that (if it did, there would be no such thing as adultery), yet it will provide the only context where that desire can reach its God-given consummation, this side of heaven. If you find an abiding desire for marriage, Paul says you ought to pursue it. Paul repeats this advice at the close of the chapter when addressing those who have been betrothed but not yet married. If they can follow Paul’s model, they should forego marriage–Paul believes this is “better” (1 Cor 7:37-38). Nevertheless, if the betrothed couple find strong sexual “passions” that are difficult to control, Paul advises: “let them marry–it is no sin,” (1 Cor 7:36).

Painting in the Grotto of St. Paul, Ephesus, late 5th century

The idea that Paul presents here, in regards to singleness, is to lift up the unique value and benefit of an exceptional kind of life: the life of singleness for Christ. But not at the expense of maintaining the goodness of the norm: marriage.

A consequence of lazy thinking is to lose the ability to admit the validity of exceptions while also maintaining the normativity of the basic rule. Seatbelt laws went into effect in my home state of Washington in 1986. I still remember my dad bristling at being told he had to wear a seat belt or he would get ticketed. He frequently told us kids a story of a friend of a friend of a guy who knew somebody who got into an accident and was thrown sixty yards from his Corvette in the collision. His car was crushed like a tin can and (my dad always said with deep feeling) if he had been wearing his seat belt he would have similarly been crushed.

Exceptional story notwithstanding, that doesn’t disprove the fact that most of the time, a seatbelt will save your life. Exceptions don’t invalidate rules, they prove them–precisely because they are rare; they are exceptional.

Not everyone will get married, but most people will. This lines up with what God’s word teaches us. The first blessing God pronounced over humanity in Genesis still stands over us all: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Human beings fulfill this blessing/command in two ways: You can get married and have kids, or you can be like the apostle Paul and become a spiritual father to those you lead to Christ. Paul isn’t forsaking the command to be fruitful and multiply, he is just doing it spiritually.¹

Most Christians, however, do both. They have biological children while also making disciples–usually, starting with their own children! This is because marriage is the norm.

Should We Be Concerned About Young People Staying Single?

Come on, Marc. If the Bible has a category for being single being totally fine, then why wring our hands over this?

While there are righteous, godly reasons for intentionally remaining single, that does not mean that every reason for singleness is righteous or godly.

If you are remaining single out of a desire to be singularly devoted to Christ, to throw yourself into dangerous, cutting edge missionary endeavors or take up a unique challenge that would not fit with a marriage, then you are following Paul’s model. I don’t think most singles in the church are doing this.

If you are single, despite your efforts for the contrary to be true, your status is similar to Paul’s, but for different reasons. You are not intentionally single. You have received the “gift of singleness” but you would like it to be different. You are “asking, seeking, and knocking,” but just waiting on the Lord to provide a spouse. I think this is the majority of singles—they want to be married, but are not yet.

But, the reason I am writing a book to young men about becoming men who are worthy of marriage is because pursuing marriage is just that: a pursuit! Which means, it takes effort.

Particularly if you resonate with Paul’s words about “burning with passion”, then you should be putting in the work.

If you are persisting in singleness because you don’t want to stretch yourself into maturity, don’t want to put in the effort that a relationship requires, don’t want to give up freedom, don’t want to cultivate the humility and creativity needed to understand the opposite sex, have found porn or video games or TikTok to be so-so satisfactions that have blunted the edge of desire just enough for the time being, to distract you from the hard work of character development needed to become worthy of marriage…then you are not remaining single for righteous reasons.

If Paul could sit you down, he would ask you: Are you burning with passion? If so, then exercise self-control, become worthy of the responsibility, and seek out a spouse.

For Parents

I think this means that we need to put a little more gas on the “Get Married” pedal when talking about the future with our kids. That may sound scary, but the data is hard to disprove: marriage is a key part of a happy life, and getting married early is really good for you. There is, of course, the risks of your child marrying a train wreck. And since those risks are very easy to imagine and seem colossal (abuse, divorce, etc.), it seems wiser to ruminate on than the opposite.

But, there are real, substantial goods² that are missed out on by failing to marry. We cannot guarantee that anyone will for certain get married, and nudging your kids more pointedly to tie the knot certainly doesn’t mean that it will happen. But we can, at the very least, stop talking about getting married young as a mistake.

We could even talk about it like a sweet blessing.

Lately, my wife’s ice breaker question in conversations has been: Would you rather your child get married at 18 years old, or 45 years old?

It gives pretty fascinating results. It usually reveals what the parent believes the greatest danger to be: ruining your life with a bad marriage when you’re young or ruining your life with prolonged isolation? Risks abound in both directions, but the shape of the Bible seems to lean us towards more, not less marriage.

(If I had to choose, it would be 18, by a long shot.)

1. Thus, the barren woman can rejoice at the number of “children” that she will have (Isa 54:1).

2. In Wilcox’s book, he argues that if you could consolidate all of the emotional, psychological, physical, financial, social, and familial benefits of marriage into a pill and sell it, you would be the richest person alive. Married people live longer, have less debilitating health problems, earn more money, report more (and better) sex, feel more purposeful about life, and generally feel happier than their unmarried counterparts. For instance, those who report that they are in “very happy marriages” are “a staggering 545 percent” more likely to report that they are “very happy” with life in general, compared to their peers who are not married. And if your first thought is: Well, there must be very few people then who are in “very happy marriages,” you would be wrong. The majority of marriages—about 60 percent—describe their unions as “very happy,” and 36 percent as “pretty happy.”