A Plea for Morality:
Good Reasons to Wait until Marriage

It does not take pregnancy or disease to harm unmarried young people who are sexually active. Sexual immorality itself tends to bring easily measured evidences of psychological or emotional damage to the participants. In 2003, the Heritage Foundation released a study entitled, " The Harmful Effects of Early Sexual Activity and Multiple Sexual Partners Among Women: A Book of Charts," by Robert E. Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., Lauren R. Noyes, and Shannan Martin (WebMemo #303, June 26, 2003, available at https://www.heritage.org/education/report/harmful-effects-early-sexual-activity-and-multiple-sexual-partners-among-women. According to the authors' findings,

Early initiation of sexual activity and higher numbers of non-marital sex partners are linked in turn to a wide variety of negative life outcomes, including increased rates of infection with sexually transmitted diseases, increased rates of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and birth, increased single parenthood, decreased marital stability, increased maternal and child poverty, increased abortion, increased depression, and decreased happiness. This report examines the linkages between early initiation of sexual activity, number of nonmarital sex partners, and human well-being. In general, the earlier a woman begins sexual activity, the greater the number of non-marital sex partners she is likely to have over the course of her life.

The data show that sexually active teenage boys were over 8 times more likely to attempt suicide that those who were not sexually active. (Sexually active young women were nearly 3 times as likely to attempt suicide.) The study also highlights the increased depression of those who were engaged in immorality, and documents that the majority of sexually active teens wish they had waited longer. Immorality, regret, and depression are linked. And this is in addition to the tragedy of sexually transmitted disease (affecting about one-fourth of America's sexually active teens) and teenage pregnancy.

But there are others who suffer from our lax standards on marriage and sexuality. Children of parents who are lax about moral standards often pay a heavy price. First, there the specter of child abuse that is more likely to occur in such families. Second, there is a near certainty that these children will not be given the moral teachings they need to escape the ravages of disease and broken relationships that come from immoral sexual behavior when they are older. The bad examples of the parents (or single parent) is likely to be propagated by the children. And third, it is an empirically measurable fact that children born and raised outside of wedlock are disadvantaged in many ways. We all know how difficult it is for a single parent to raise a child, but what is often missed is that children raised by two parents living together outside of marriage are not given the same level of care as when the parents are married.

A new study from the University of Chicago by Thomas DeLeire and Ariel Kalil of the Harris School of Public Policy is summarized in the report, "How Do Cohabiting Couples With Children Spend Their Money?" (Working Paper Series 02.04), then published in Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 67, No. 2, May 2005. According to the abstract:

Cohabitation is an increasingly prevalent living arrangement in the United States. Although the effects of living in a cohabiting arrangement on child well-being are not fully understood, the literature on children growing up in cohabiting families suggests that they have poorer developmental outcomes than do those growing up in married-parent families or in single-parent families. We use the Consumer Expenditure Survey to see if cohabiting couples with children spend their income on a different set of goods (i.e., have a different distribution of expenditure) than either married parents or single parents. Using a variety of analytical methods, we find that cohabiting couples spend a substantially larger share of their total expenditure on alcohol and tobacco than do either married-parent families or single parents. Cohabiting couples with children also spend less on health care and less on education than do married parents.

Lack of self-control, especially in the area of morality, is so often at the heart of broken families and wretched relationships.

It's time we cast of the burden of illicit sexual behavior that has destroyed so many lives, wrecked so many families, and left so many children with a poorer quality of life. The vile influence of Hollywood, Planned Parenthood, and many in the educational establishment needs to be shaken off and replaced with healthy attitudes about the sacred gift of sexuality, which is reserved for the bonds of marriage alone.