Alfred Hili, Xagħra
Pre-marital sex may lead to broken marriages
Your ‘Quotes of the Week’ (May 8) included this: “Call me old-fashioned but I’m against sex before marriage”.
Enough has been said about marriage and divorce but hardly enough about the causes of broken marriages. Premarital sex, in my opinion, is one of these causes.
The decline in traditional values: the increased acceptance of pre-marital sex, contraception, separation, cohabitation, the morning-after pill and abortion (though illegal) and rampant extramarital affairs are a reflection of the changing moral norms of our society. And pornography is now so easily available.
Although these are welcomed by many as a sign of emancipation, these ‘progressive’ changes are having a devastating impact on the integrity and stability of long-term relationships. They are all working together to tear marriages apart and put the family institution in crisis.
As one woman once said: “Why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free!” She said the biggest change in society was the pill. People no longer had to control themselves and wait till marriage. Young adults are less fearful as they have more access to information and men expect women to be on the pill and available for sex.
A human being is an intelligent, wonderful creature and not an object or an alternative to masturbation. If your boyfriend/girl friend leaves you because you won’t have sex until you are married, then that is not the type of person you want to be with as a future spouse.
Pre-marital sex may be accompanied with excitement, thrill, the pleasure of it, but there is no happiness. After you are done with it, you feel empty and seek the next experience, which thus becomes an addiction.
Pre-marital sex will only break your heart and cause pain and all too often people get too caught up to even realise it. Pre-marital relations hardly ever work.
Sex before marriage creates self-centred gratification – using a person to satisfy one’s selfish desires. If we do not learn to control our sex urges before marriage, there will be no reason to expect that they will be controlled after marriage.
Many end up marrying the wrong person because they are blinded by sexual activity, never learning what their partner is like before marriage. They marry wrongly because they marry with a ‘what’s in it for me!’ attitude, and when the relationship grows tired or weary, they bail out for another partner.
Chastity helps people make better marriage choices. Romance without regret does exist but if you want the real thing be prepared to sacrifice. Only then will you see the peace and joy that comes from chastity is worth more than all the pleasures of the world.
A relationship that is appropriate and God-centred has a much better chance of succeeding. Wait till you are married, whether you are deeply religious or a non-believer. Remember, sex is easy; relationships and true commitments are difficult.
Popular Stories
In Discussion
13 Comments
Post comment
Please sign in or create your Account to post comments.
Mr Joe Xuereb
Jun 6th 2011, 22:07
I was going to respond to a particular commenter but thought otherwise.
There's this expression which goes (about a new acquisition) so: 'a nine-day wonder'. Meaning, once tasted, the lustre starts to wear thin in no time at all. People with sexual experience know and recognise this. Those who advocate abstinence until after tying the know are hoping (saying?) that the relationship will be longer-lasting (but forever?) because of the abstinence. Once married the 'passion' of the couple that waited may last a bit longer. Especially if it was not that long before that they fell in love (as in passionate, effortless. Beyond that, and the 'nine-day-wonder' having lapsed and then some, and love-making becomes mechanical, a duty and a chore. Of course many choose to stay together (indeed, it never enters their head to do anything other than stay together) and go through life in 'chore mode' with the occasional child thrown in. Our drives are central to us humans but we don't have to live them centrally, every waking hour of every day. There's more stuff to deal with to run a household after all. But the drives are never far away; they show up in petty suspicions, petty jealousies, nervous ticks, insecurities one cannot describe.
Mr Joe Xuereb
Jun 6th 2011, 13:31
Apologies for a few typos. That is the hallmark of strong convictions - type and submit, all in the space of a couple of minutes. But it's a small price to pay, typos!
Oh! OK then! pure cotton wall should be pure cotton wool (as in, 'if I give you the wool, will you make me one? [talking of homosexuals]).
And 'a fa.' further up should read, 'a favour'. There may be others but intelligent readers will get the gist, no sweat!
Mr Joe Xuereb
Jun 6th 2011, 10:16
We FALL in love and we experience strong feelings of love for the partner. We make 'love' - come on! we are using our partner as a sex machine. Self-gratification is the name of the game. Nature set up the chemistry entrapment to get us going. But there is nothing altruistic about sex. If it were we could bed anybody 'to do the unattractive, the maimed and handicapped, the old, a fa. But we don't. We are choosey. So the favour is only to the self. Fact. Get over it.
Nature, clever things, set up the 'uniting and doubling system', be it humans having a kid or two and blades of grass. Nature did not, I repeat, DID Not, set up marriage till death us do part. That is Man's configuration of the whole messy business. We fall in love. We fall pregnant. I wonder why we use 'fall', a negative word, for what should be joyous events?
The priests would advise us about marriage, sex, etc. Paradoxically, they are the least qualified to do this. Other religions allow their priests to marrya and indeed divorce. But not the RC religion. It has such a jaded view of marriage, and sex that it does not allow its priest to marry. But they are set up to be marriage counsellors. And this is precisely the reason why they talk of strengthening marriage but leave it at that (too hot to handle, maybe?!. Crafty fellows, priests! So give me a break, pray do!
Celibacy, and priestly celibacy in particular, plays havoc with a person's - let's call them moods. And the fallout of these moods are often obvious when the results of some of the darker moods float to the surface to surprise and disgust us all. But not me. I am a bit too worldly to be surprised or disgusted. You see, living in a cocoon of pure cotton wall, one pays a hefty price tagged 'infantile ignorance'. Rather you than me.
Quite a turbulent scenario when we think about it. Many ascribe it to god and struggle to play by his rules. I find it easier to to 'blame' Nature and try to understand it through books. I find this more practical and it produces some tangible results. It's still a struggle of course. We can't get away from that bit.
Mr Joe Xuereb
Jun 6th 2011, 10:10
We FALL in love and we experience strong feelings of love for the partner. We make 'love' - come on! we are using our partner as a sex machine. Self-gratification is the name of the game. Nature set up the chemistry entrapment to get us going. But there is nothing altruistic about sex. If it were we could bed anybody 'to do the unattractive, the maimed and handicapped, the old, a fa. But we don't. We are choosey. So the favour is only to the self. Fact. Get over it.
Nature, clever things, set up the 'uniting and doubling system', be it humans having a kid or two and blades of grass. Nature did not, I repeat, DID Not, set up marriage till death us do part. That is Man's configuration of the whole messy business. We fall in love. We fall pregnant. I wonder why we use 'fall', a negative word, for what should be joyous events?
The priests would advise us about marriage, sex, etc. Paradoxically, they are the least qualified to do this. Other religions allow their priests to marrya and indeed divorce. But not the RC religion. It has such a jaded view of marriage, and sex that it does not allow its priest to marry. But they are set up to be marriage counsellors. And this is precisely the reason why they talk of strengthening marriage but leave it at that (too hot to handle, maybe?!. Crafty fellows, priests! So give me a break, pray do!
Celibacy, and priestly celibacy in particular, plays havoc with a person's - let's call them moods. And the fallout of these moods are often obvious when the results of some of the darker moods float to the surface to surprise and disgust us all. But not me. I am a bit too worldly to be surprised or disgusted. You see, living in a cocoon of pure cotton wall, one pays a hefty price tagged 'infantile ignorance'. Rather you than me.
Mr Joe Xuereb
Jun 6th 2011, 01:39
@Mr.Hili. You seem to be blaming the pill and by inference, women. Oh dear!
Time was when a woman only gave herself after a ring was put on her finger. Talk about a con trick (but social mores came into it too, naturally).
We're sold a romantic ideal - two people, virgins, getting married and staying together forever. Maybe, but I doubt it. What is almost certain is that total inexperience (and not only of the mechanics of sex but more so, the emotional baggage) is a recipe for disaster.
Chastity and abstaining from a god-given urge to procreate are mutually exclusive. Play chaste and surely, one risks coming out in spots. It's variously called sexual neurosis, catholic guilt.
The problem with promiscuity is the high incidence of infection - two living organisms in close proximity - dangerous especially when passed onto an innocent partner at home. All this is how nature intended, it is all biology writ large. Bring god into it and the whole issue is shrouded in mystery and myth and serves no one much.
One could blame market pressures, sexualisation of anything, etc. The fact is our god-given drives are stronger than us - and so they should be - and to buffer these with chastity vows is counter-productive and dishonest in any case.
god/Nature/Whatever made the procreative process pleasureable for a purpose - to give us motivation. It is highly addictive. Plus monogamy is NOT a fact of life (the species would have died out long ago if it were); it is a mere aspiration for practical purposes. It needs a commitment and a commitment needs a payoff (otherwise, why bother?).
Selling chastity as some sort of guarantee of permanence is pushing it. Selling whimsical ideals of purity so that a marriage will last is ignorant , (Romeo and Juliet were a bit like that - although I'm not sure about Romeo, hence the telltale label - and see how they ended up..
No, what is needed is people being told that the sexual act IS pleasureable but there are pitfalls. Teach them to love with their heads rather than their loins. Then, and only then, we may get somewhere.
And blaming women (typical, woman, the perennial scapegoat of biblical stories) is unfair. We're in this together, transcending general and sexual orientation. The 'problem' is god-given, we have freewill and we have a brain we can use. But blind chastity is so not an option. We're saddled with something much bigger than us because god-given (well, Nature anyhow!). Let's deal with it, practically and sensibly, and not promise non-existent solutions; as transparent and unworkable as threadbare gossamer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vfGceRtkbk
Mr Carmel Pule'
Jun 5th 2011, 20:22
To reaffirm my belief on the purity of relations between mammals I just saw the video on YouTube: “Mating Power Gorilla Rututu And Sonja At Munich's Hellabrunn Zoo”, and now I have to make up my mind how that a so very natural instinctive action have been interpreted and processed and repeated by educated humans who have been developed in city surroundings where the intimacy seem to have conditional issues and people are no longer free to behave so freely as Rututu and Sonja.
Now let us see which of the following is Rututu and Sonia are practicing?
Sex, Making Love. Fornication, Mating, Stuffing her, Fucking, Copulating and a few other euphemistic words we have invented to hide what monsters we really are.
Sex is being male and female or hermaphrodite, so they are not having sex are they? Making love, well I cannot see how two mammals can make love, you cannot manufacture love, so they are not making love, their action may originate from some sort of loving or emotions related to it. Fornication, now that is a voluntary sexual intercourse between man and woman normally of the unmarried type. Let is try mating. As far as I remember, working class companions have mates on the work floor and mammals mating cannot be compared to the relations in an industrial workshop. To stuff her as in hexa, in Maltese, well I suppose for self gratification before marriage, this seems to be more appropriate as there is nothing holy in self gratification using other people before marriage using our reproductive organs. That leaves us with Fucking and copulation. Fucking for self gratification before marriage seems so appropriate as the term is applied in actions concerning prostitutes. So I believe what describes the innocent mentality of the instinctive natural actions of Gorillas Rututu and Sonia in a zoo is copulation as what they are doing is not for self gratification but they are conducting a natural union between male and female as mammals in the act of natural procreation.
Now if people do the same but they adulterate this natural evolved action by using some type of artificial contraception , what they are doing can be defined by all I said above except copulation in the most natural fashion as it is supposed to be conducted in all its holiness.
Gerry Cowie
Jun 5th 2011, 18:47
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit as one may read in some cases below. Some have nothing constructive to add to the debate and so just wade in with puerile sarcasm! What a pity! And the only people they let down are themselves!
Mr Robert Callus
Jun 5th 2011, 17:46
I will not highlight every flaw in this letter since it would take hours. Thus only the worst one:
"Sex before marriage creates self-centred gratification – using a person to satisfy one’s selfish desires"
This is based on the false and dangerous assumption that people enter into relationships only for sex, and get married to get a license to have sex. I think it is THIS MENTALITY that leads to broken marriages.
So, if get married on say 19th June having sex on the 18th, it's self-gratification.
Hopefully not. If having sex on the 18th is only self-gratification (rather than a mixture of things the most predominant being love), do you honestly expect that person's attitude is going to change in 24 hrs?
Simon Oosterman
Jun 5th 2011, 15:58
It pains me to find that Alfred Hili has had such bad experiences with pre-marital sex. What are the main arguments in favor of and against pre-marital sex in this day and age when extra-marital pregnancy does not need to be a concern? As sex is such a powerful urge, quite a few will get married just to have sex even with partners that are incompatible. This leads to unhappiness, separation and divorce. A pre-marital relationship, which lasts long enough to find out if character compatibility also exists, should avoid this problem to a large extent. Pre-marital relations, especially with more experienced partners, should teach one something and make one a better sex partner after marriage. The main argument against pre-marital sex is ...eh ...eh .. I really don't know. Having said that, I believe there is one very important condition and that is being honest. Don't tell or imply to your partner that it is love if it is only sex. And, of course, sex with someone you love is much better than with someone you don't love (yet) but sex without love is still great.
Mr Wally Vella-Zarb
Jun 5th 2011, 15:08
Bring back the chastity belt! Special deals are now available! Very favourable rates for our 'custom-built' bespoke models! (Terms & Conditions apply).
Victor Pulis
Jun 5th 2011, 14:35
King David had pre marital sex with Bathsheeba and they lived happily ever after with God's blessing!
Victor Rodenas
Jun 5th 2011, 10:29
It`s 2011.Past are the days when a woman had to be a virgin up to her wedding day,nowadays nobody cares if the girlfriend is a virgin or not.Nobody asked if the boyfriend was a virgin before,...`ragel bandiera bajda`,is the saying.Beleive me if a woman had to be a virgin before her wedding,.......I wonder how many women would marry to-day..Still,ha,ha........most women get married in a white traditional dress,that resembles purity,ha,ha.In most cases it`s just an act .....
Mrs jane camillleri haber
Jun 5th 2011, 18:07
yes and that is why so much std's are going round causing widespread desease and infertility. I distaste the idea that just because self control is not fashonable anymore than it should be mocked at. it only shows what a decadent society we have become! but oh I forgot we are now in europe and what before was virtue now has to be replaced by the european progressive mentality. I congratulate Alfred Hili for taking time to write on the subject. had our institutions spoken our loudly and in unison about it in this way thirty years ago when it was evident that promiscuity was getting on the rise and provisioned laws and barriers to stemm our youngsters' youth from being exploited by the paceville mentality of one night stands and no strings attached, I believe there would not have been one third of all maltese babies born out of any form of responsible household, to one parent very often teenage mother and start off life at such a disadvantaged position today. how can we mock such an initiative as the mentality expressed by this gentleman !yes past are the days when women went up the aisle with a sense of dignity matching her white dress but are we better off for it or not? and who can contradict this gentleman when he rightly says that promiscuity results in unfaithful marriages? i for one believe that to be the number one reason for forging relationships based solely on the natural urge to satisfy one's sex drive allienating the couple from the real issues of what they should tackle during their courtship, that is of getting to know each other, talk and find out what is the essense of each other's frame of mind about all the important matters. what other reason can you suggest for having so many breakups and many of them very early on in the married life? the couple simply drift from one day to another having a sexual relationship thus satisfying their needs in the most easy way without giving themselves the hard work of gradually discovering each other through a slow communication process which obviously includes some form of emotive expression but which leaves room for looking ahead at a moment of oneness unique and befitting the tying of the knot.