LOVE Is Not Blind, But LUST Is!

The lawyer paused, his pen still on the paper, and raised his eyes to look squarely into mine. "No," he said. "Love is not blind. Lust is blind."

I was there to testify on behalf of a friend in a child custody suit. Finally, I had mustered the nerve to ask the question that had puzzled me through the years of my friend‘s troubled marriage: Why had he married her? They had seemed so ill-suited for each other. His friends and family had all plainly seen that, and were dumbfounded at their engagement announcement. In answer to my own question I, observed, "I guess the old saying is true: ‘Love Is Blind.’ "

Though more than twenty years have passed, the lawyer’s rebuttal, and my friend’s sad-eyed confirmation, remain etched in my memory. Yes, he sheepishly admitted, his pre-marital sexual involvement had indeed blinded him to the obvious signs that this would be a troubled marriage.

Could that be a reason why God’s word warns us against sexual involvement before marriage – because it keeps us from seeing clearly? Is there a cause and effect relationship between premarital sexual involvement and marital unhappiness? Are couples who have sex before marriage more likely to divorce? Those questions intrigued me.

Over the next twenty years, as I counseled couples in distress, this became increasingly clear: couples with the greatest incompatibilities, the least basis on which to build a marriage, were those who had premarital sex. Still, the number of couples I counseled was relatively small. Would this theory be borne out by a more scientific study, with a larger sample? Indeed it was. Consider the following studies.

"Couples not involved before marriage and faithful during marriage are more satisfied with their current sex life than those who were involved sexually before marriage."
Larson, B. David, MD, NM.S.P.H., et al., The Costly Consequences of Divorce: Assessing the Clinical, Economic, and Public Health Impact of Marital Disruption in the United States - A Research-Based Seminar, National Institute for Healthcare Research, Rockville, Maryland.

"Cohabiting unions are much less stable than (unions) that begin as marriages.'" Forty percent (of cohabitational relationships) will disrupt before marriage and marriages that are preceded by living together have 50% higher disruption rates than marriages without premarital cohabitation.
Bumpass, Sweet and Cherlin, The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates Marriage , Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 53, 1991, pp. 913-927.

"A 1992 Wisconsin study of more than 13,000 adults found that couples who had cohabited prior to marriage reported ‘greater marital conflict and poorer communication’ than marrieds who had never cohabited."
Elizabeth Thomson and Ugo Colella, Cohabitation and Marital Stability: Quality or Commitment? Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 54, 1992, pp. 259-267.

A 1992 review of ten cohabitation studies reported, "Those who cohabit prior to marriage have been shown to be significantly lower on measures of marital quality and to have significantly higher risk of marital dissolution at any given marital duration."
Alfred DeMarris and K. Vaninadha Rao, Premarital Cohabitation and Subsequent Marital Stability in the United States: A Reassessment, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 54, 1992, p. 178.

"Recent national studies in Canada, Sweden and the United States found that cohabitation increased rather than decreased the risk of marital dissolution."
Elizabeth Thomson and Ugo Colella, Cohabitation and Marital Stability: Quality or Commitment? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1992, p.259.

"Overall association exists between premarital cohabitation and subsequent marital instability. The (marriage)dissolution rates of women who cohabit premaritally with their future spouse are, on average, nearly 80 percent higher than the rates of those who do not.
Neil G. Bennett, Ann Blanc Klimas and David E. Bloom, Commitment and the Modern Union: Assessing the Link Between Premarital Cohabitation and Subsequent Marital Stability, American Sociological Review, 1988, p.132.

As it turns out, THE father really does know best!

Paul White

Paul White - (325) 677-5446 email: paul@pwhitemail.com

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