I love Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the newly-married Pitsenbargers so embody this quote from my favorite Emerson poem: "This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays." //
Avatar for Rogue Rose
Rogue Rose
11 hours ago
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life,
For which the first was made.
Our times are in his hand
Who saith: "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half, Trust God: see all, nor be afraid!
-- Ralph Waldo Emmerson
Patrick MarkusB
an hour ago
It is perfectly reasonable to be a non‑believer, (Judge not lest ye be judged) but making “hating religion” a core identity is usually foolish because it treats a vast, varied human phenomenon as one undifferentiated evil and blinds you to understanding why billions of people find meaning, solidarity, and ethical motivation there. It also risks turning into the same dogmatic, us‑versus‑them mindset you rightly criticize in religious and political institutions, just with different symbols and slogans.
But moving on. There are, however, entirely non‑biblical reasons to be skeptical of plural marriage, even in secular, consensual forms, and those reasons stand regardless of anyone’s view of God or scripture. A growing body of comparative research suggests that women in polygamous unions experience significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, and marital distress than women in monogamous marriages, and that children in such families show more emotional and behavioral problems on average, which points to structural stress in the arrangement itself rather than just “a few bad actors.”
At a structural level, most real‑world polygyny (one man, multiple wives) tends to entrench inequality rather than partnership. Wives usually marry younger, have less bargaining power, and are more exposed to jealousy, competition, and intra‑household conflict, which correlates with higher rates of abuse and lower life satisfaction. Critics working from secular moral and political theory argue that this turns spouses—especially women—into more replaceable, rank‑ordered positions, undermining the ideal of two partners as roughly equal and mutually irreplaceable.
Plural marriage also has population‑level effects that are hard to ignore if one cares about social stability. When high‑status men take multiple wives, lower‑status men are left single in larger numbers, and cross‑cultural work links large pools of “surplus men” with higher crime, violence, and political volatility. By spreading partnership opportunities more evenly, monogamy functions as a quiet stabilizer, something secular legal and economic arguments take seriously when considering what kinds of family forms the state should formally endorse.
Finally, the legal and administrative complications of recognizing plural marriage are enormous in modern states whose institutions assume a single spouse as default: one legal next‑of‑kin, one default heir, one primary beneficiary, one co‑parent for custody presumptions. With multiple spouses, everything from medical decision‑making to inheritance, pensions, immigration, and tax filing becomes a tangle: who has priority in an emergency, how survivor benefits are divided, which consents are needed to add a new spouse, and how exit and custody work if things go bad. Because real‑world polygamous systems also show recurring patterns of coercion, social pressure, and difficulty exiting, many secular legal theorists conclude that a liberal state can tolerate private multi‑partner relationships while still having good, non‑religious reasons not to recognize plural marriage as a legal status.
Political-Paige
2 hours ago
I'll jump in as the non-Christian in the room, having been raised Buddhist. Let's divorce (no pun intended) the theology from the legality here.
Frankly? It's none of the business of any government to define marriage. Marriage licenses were once handled by the churches marrying the couples, but they were usurped by state governments for the nefarious purpose of preventing miscegenation... interracial marriages. There were other excuses like blood tests for syphilis. Both rationales are long since abandoned.
There's nothing in the Constitution that lets governments decide whether you can marry, or whom. That's a religious and personal choice. We don't have to like it, but then again, we also don't have to like our in laws. It's not our choice, not our lives, not our circus and not our monkeys.
The only interest government could possibly have in that decision -- which should be between individuals and their church -- is in passing regulations that define tax and divorce rules in marriage and its dissolution. Protect those who lack the ability to consent, as we do in any situation. Then get out of it.
We have laws based on Judeo-Christian ethics, but there's a line between that moral base and codifying this or that rule from the Old Testament.
Patrick Political-Paige
33 minutes ago
It is understandable to want the state as far away as possible from intimate choices, but there are clear, non‑theological reasons why modern states both define and encourage marriage as a civil institution. That concern is not (at its best) about policing virtue; it is about managing predictable problems in property, care, and vulnerability that arise when adults form long‑term unions and have children.
First, children create obligations that someone must legally carry, and the state cannot ignore that. A liberal state does not care whether two people are in love or blessed by a church; it does care that any child has financially responsible adults, clear decision‑makers for medical and educational choices, and a default framework if those adults separate or die. Marriage as a legal status is basically a pre‑packaged set of rules: if you two take on a shared life, then you are presumptively each responsible for the children you bring into it, for their support, and for each other’s basic support. Without such a default scheme, every breakup or death becomes a bespoke legal nightmare, which is precisely when children are least able to protect themselves.
Second, long‑term coupledom generates property, debts, and dependencies that private agreements cannot reliably handle on their own. Most couples do not and cannot afford to draft detailed contracts about every asset, liability, medical contingency, and inheritance scenario. A civil marriage statute gives third parties—hospitals, courts, insurers, employers, pension administrators—a simple, publicly knowable answer to questions like: who can consent to surgery; who gets survivor benefits; who inherits without a will; who is liable for household debts. Without a state‑defined status, those questions would have to be litigated or contracted every time, which would be vastly more intrusive and expensive than a standardized legal framework.
Third, the state has an interest in reducing free‑riding and externalized costs. If two adults share a household and one becomes disabled, society prefers that the other adult has a clear, enforceable duty of support before the costs are shifted to public welfare. If someone dies, it is better that there is a predictable heir to manage assets and obligations than that the estate sits in limbo or the state must step in as guardian of last resort. Marriage law assigns these duties by default, thereby lowering the administrative and financial burden on everyone else.
Fourth, state involvement in defining civil marriage is precisely what makes equal treatment enforceable. If marriage were purely private or ecclesiastical, then access to the associated protections—hospital visitation, inheritance, tax treatment, immigration sponsorship—would depend entirely on private gatekeepers who are not bound by constitutional norms of equality. By defining a civil status that is independent of any church and open (in principle) on neutral terms, the state both creates and can police a sphere where citizens must be treated alike, regardless of religion or lack of it.
Finally, recognizing a legitimate civil interest in marriage does not mean sacralizing any particular religious ethic or banning all alternative arrangements. Adults remain free to structure their intimate lives as they see fit; the question is which arrangements the state will treat as the default template for allocating rights and duties when things go wrong. There, it is neither arbitrary nor theocratic to say: stable, two‑adult unions that take on mutual responsibility and child‑rearing are given a special legal form, because they reliably solve problems the state would otherwise have to solve awkwardly and expensively. In that sense, defining and encouraging civil marriage is less about virtue policing than about risk management and the orderly protection of children, dependents, and property across generations.
For decades, marriage debates centered on who could marry. The next debate centers on what marriage is.
“Whether people like it or not, marriage is going to be reexamined,” Tidwell told Holloway.
“This is happening,” Kowalski said. “The question is who frames it.”
Anderson emphasized institutional stability. “The relationship the state cares about is the one that makes new citizens,” he said. //
If marriage law continues shifting toward individual autonomy and equal protection, plural marriage challenges will follow — whether from TikTok polycules, biblical polygynists, or both.
If the state retreats from marriage regulation, the question becomes which institutions — churches, communities, or new cultural movements — will fill the vacuum.
Either way, the next marriage battle isn’t coming.
It may be in its earliest stages — but it’s here. //
Patrick
3 hours ago edited
Let me start off by saying that a minister who cherry‑picks a few Old Testament narratives to justify taking multiple wives while ignoring Christ’s clear teaching that marriage is one man and one woman in “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4–6) is not being biblical, he is being self‑serving. By discarding passages that call leaders to be “the husband of one wife” and commanding believers to submit to lawful civil authority (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6; Romans 13:1–2), he twists Scripture to bless what remains both sinful and illegal, turning the gospel into a cover for his own appetites rather than a call to holiness and obedience.
Further, Marriage, in Christian ethics and in natural law, is not infinitely elastic; it has a God‑given form: one man and one woman, covenanted for life. Any other “configuration” – whether same‑sex unions, polyamory, or so‑called “biblical polygyny” – steps outside that form and is both morally disordered and, in our system, rightly unlawful.
Genesis presents the pattern not as one option among many, but as the creational norm: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Jesus does not broaden that; He doubles down on it. When asked about marriage, He goes back to Eden: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female… and the two shall become one flesh… What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
One man. One woman. “The two… one flesh” – not three, not a rotating cast, not a harem. Paul applies the same logic pastorally: “Because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” The grammar is as tight as the ethics: each man, his own wife (singular); each woman, her own husband (singular).
Polygamy, in Scripture, is recorded, regulated, and relentlessly shown to be spiritually and socially destructive. Lamech is the first polygamist and is paired with violence and arrogance. Abraham’s union with Hagar produces jealousy and division rather than a new sacrament. Jacob’s household is a running case study in misery, rivalry, and pain. Solomon’s multiplied wives turn his heart away from the Lord. When God lays down rules for kings, He explicitly forbids “multiplying wives” lest their hearts be led astray.
To rip a handful of descriptive Old Testament episodes out of that context and sell them as a prescriptive model for Christians is not “rediscovering biblical marriage”; it is the very thing Scripture warns about when it speaks of people who “twist” the writings to their own destruction. Jesus calls such religious manipulators a “brood of vipers,” outwardly pious but inwardly predatory. Paul warns of “fierce wolves” who will arise “from among your own selves” to draw disciples after themselves, and of those who “by smooth talk and flattery” deceive the hearts of the naïve. A minister who uses the pulpit to sacralize his desire for multiple sexual partners is not bravely reforming the church; he is dressing lust up in Bible verses and leading the flock into a ditch.
Nor can “biblical polygyny” be rescued by pretending that the state has no say. Christian marriage has always had a public, legal face as well as a private, covenantal heart. Paul commands, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God… Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed.” Peter echoes him: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution… for this is the will of God.” When the civil law defines marriage as the union of two spouses and criminalizes bigamy and polygamy, the default Christian posture is obedience unless the state orders us to sin. Refusing lawful marriage regulations, or constructing shadow “marriages” to skirt bigamy statutes, is not a higher spirituality; it is rebellion dressed in religious rhetoric.
The GOP’s 19th‑century opposition to both slavery and Mormon polygamy was not accidental; both practices treated human beings – especially women – as property to be owned, traded, or accumulated, and the party’s founding moral vision rightly saw that as incompatible with ordered liberty and Christian‑inflected republicanism.
Once the definition of marriage is detached from male–female complementarity and the “two in one flesh” structure, the slide into any consenting configuration is not a scare tactic; it is a matter of simple logic, as even critics of polygamy admit. That is precisely why Christians cannot affirm same‑sex “marriage,” polyamorous “domestic partnerships,” or “plural covenants” of any kind: they all reject the creational givens Christ Himself ratified. The call in this moment is not to improvise new sexual arrangements in the name of strategy or demographics, but to hold the line where Scripture and sound law already drew it: one man, one woman, one flesh, under God and under just civil authority. Anything else is, in the end, a counterfeit sacrament – and faithful Christians are obligated to say so.
anon-9s7n
19 hours ago
God has given her everything she needs for today. And by the time tomorrow is here, she’ll have everything she needs for tomorrow. And when she’s able to look ahead more than one day at a time, he’ll have prepared the way with everything she needs for then.
We are seeing a significant transition begin. Not just in the US, but around the world. Charlie talked a lot about how young men should follow Jesus, get married, become fathers, and lead their families. God couldn’t start with young women. He needed the young men to have an opportunity to get squared away.
But what if His plan is that now He will use Erika to reach the young women in a way Charlie couldn’t? They really need it. They are being deceived by feminism and so many other voices.
And if that is His plan, then she’s got this, because He’s got her.
I want you all to know, while Charlie died far too early, he was also ready to die. There was nothing - nothing - he was putting off. There was nothing that was too hard or too painful, nothing that he just felt like he didn't want to do it. He left this world without regrets. He did 100 percent of what he could every day.
But I want you to know something. Charlie died with incomplete work, but not with unfinished business. //
She shared that one secret to a strong marriage while Charlie was traveling so frequently was their tradition of love notes. Every Saturday, he wrote one for her, she said, "and he never missed a Saturday. And in every single one of them, he'd tell me what his highlight was for the week, how grateful he was for me & our babies. He’d always ended by asking the most beautiful question. He ended by asking, 'Please let me know how I can better serve you as a husband.'"
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@VP get's emotional talking about the kind of Husband and Father Charlie Kirk was.
He is going to honor Charlie by being the "best husband he can be."
"The best way that I can honor my dear friend, is to...be the kind of husband to my wife that he was to his." 🙏
4:37 PM · Sep 15, 2025. //
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Charlie Kirk said The MOST important thing you could do, if you’re a young man, is to become a husband & father.
"He talked about the joy that came from fatherhood, the joy that came from raising a family and being part of their growth."
Charlie Kirk was a very wise man.
4:39 PM · Sep 15, 2025
And so, after a long wander looking for an “ism” to explain what’s wrong with her love life, in the final paragraph, she turns to the words of a friend: “’The old way of mating is dead,’ said my friend at our colloquy of female complaint over dinner, ‘and the new one has yet to be born.'”
Garnett and her friend believe this may give some comfort in their relational wasteland, but in truth, the old ways are alive. Plenty of people still get married and remain happily and faithfully married. But she is right that the old ways are not alive for everyone — not for as many people as they should be. And that’s the big picture explanation that Garnett struggled to identify.
Garnett’s present unhappiness is a result of the ideology and behaviors she has promoted. The immediate cause of her unhappiness is that she’s a middle-aged woman hooking up with noncommittal men. The more comprehensive cause is the culture she has marinated in and furthered. She obviously yearns for the “old-fashioned man-woman stuff” she wants to dismiss. And she should — she was made for it. But our culture encourages people to give their bodies quickly and their hearts slowly, if at all. This divides the person and precludes genuine love, which requires the gift of the whole self. This is why Christian sexual morality — and the marital sexual exclusivity it requires — is not a killjoy. Rather, it is a protector and promoter of human well-being. It directs us toward our good and the good of others.
Marriage is never fair deal -- you are building something eternal
“Our advice is: Never give up [because] nothing is perfect, don’t sweat the small stuff, never stop communicating, and never go to bed mad,” wrote a pair of high school sweethearts married 40 years.
“Keep God at the center of your marriage and have fun together. Don’t forget to be best friends [and] laugh at the little things,” another kindly couple advised. “Stick together through the hard times [and] good times will eventually come again.”
“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments,” a well-wisher warned. “Be nice, communicate wants and needs.”
“Be quick to forgive and say, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” suggested longtime lovers of 43 years.
“Always respond to your partner’s bids for attention,” another urged. “If they say the sunset is pretty, drop everything and enjoy it together. If they ask if they look nice, truly take a moment to take them all in and give them a compliment. If they give you a quick hug, hold them longer. These small moments matter for intimacy.”
Wife's note, Husband's personalities and how to speak to the King
There's a king (queen) and a fool in every person. The one you address is the one you will see emerge.
Do not address him (her) until you see him (her) as I see him (her)
The U.S. marriage rate is near its lowest point in history, but it’s even worse among black Americans.
The black marriage rate has collapsed by half, from a 1960 high of 61 percent to today’s low of 31 percent, the lowest for any demographic group in America.
Almost 70 percent of black children are born to unwed mothers. These fatherless black children are three to four times more likely to be poor than their counterparts raised by married black parents. The outlook is particularly bleak for young black men who are far more likely to become incarcerated and suspended from school. Over the last several decades, the problem has become generational: Fewer black men with good jobs leads to fewer marriageable men and, in turn, fewer black marriages.
But add a married biological father to the home and what happens? As Conn Carroll writes in his new book, Sex and the Citizen: How the Assault on Marriage is Destroying Democracy, “There is nothing wrong with black boys in America today that can’t be solved by more married black fathers.” //
In the aftermath of Reconstruction, for the first time in our nation’s history, blacks had the legal right to marry and stabilize their families. And they did in droves. From the late 1800s until about 1960, young black men and women were more likely to be married than young white couples.
But government programs came along that “effectively eviscerated the black family and made fatherhood absence the norm,” Jamil says. In turn, black mothers became dependent on a government check to sustain their “impoverished lifestyle.”. //
Earlier on, she’d been juggling two small children, a part-time job, and college classes. Even with her husband’s full-time job, the couple barely made ends meet. When she sought financial assistance, a college administrator told her help was only available if she ditched her husband. “My peers were on assistance and seemed to be making more money,” she says. So why be married?
Why indeed? But that was America’s prevailing cultural message to black mothers and fathers. These welfare “man in the house” exclusions supposedly ended with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Smith; however, the ruling only held that the state had too broadly defined father to include cohabitating men, whether or not they were the child’s father.
Two centenarians broke the Guinness World Record for longest marriage of a living couple, as reported by Jam Press and confirmed by LongeviQuest, a database on the life and times of the world’s oldest people.
Manoel Angelim Dino, 105, first met Maria de Sousa Dino, 101, while collecting sweets in Brazil in 1936. They remained acquaintances until they met again in 1940.
When the couple reunited, Manoel said he fell in love at first sight. He declared his sentiments to Maria, who felt the same. The couple has now been happily married for 84 years and 86 days.
The Obergefell ruling rode rough-shod over religions and dozens of state constitutions on the bases of a moral — not legal — opinion.
Cliff-Hanger
9 minutes ago
No matter how popular marriage is, it will always be the number one cause of divorce.
But this one woman has men figured out down to their core.
As TikTok user "Brennatalkstoomuch" says in her video, women need to understand that men love "quests." What does she mean by that? She explains that this might not apply to all men, but all the men she wants in her life love quests.
She notes, however, that men hate "puzzles," and she explains what she means.
"Most men don't want you to be coy, and confusing, and elusive," she says. "They want you to have very clear quests that you tell them 'this is exactly what I want, I want you to do this, and I will be happy when you do it.'" //
Brenna compared it to a video game, saying that she could offer him a hot cup of coffee the moment he gets in from the job, as this will trigger the reward centers in men's brains. He completes a quest, and she gives him resources for his trouble. "He's leveled up" Brenna says, "he's winning now!"
Brenna notes that when a man loves a woman, nothing makes him happier than making her happier by accomplishing quests.
She adds that women tend to minimize themselves in this regard out of a fear of being an inconvenience, but notes this isn't how men's brains work. It's not an inconvenience to make our women happy through completing tasks and requests. All a woman has to do in return is be appreciative and express thankfulness.
Her final tip to ladies is "don't say sorry," say "thank you." In other words, women tend to be apologetic for their belief they're being an inconvenience or complication, when in reality they're the reason he wants to quest in the first place.
A committed, mutually sacrificial marriage is far less scary than intentionally going through life alone for fear of narrowing your options. //
Entered with the right perspective, marriage matures you and enables you to grow alongside your spouse, being used for each other’s sanctification and recognizing your need for grace — rather than postponing marriage until you have everything “figured out,” only to realize you never will. It’s a weighty and holy covenant that should not be entered into lightly, but it’s also a covenant designed for imperfect, unfinished people. If you expect to be done maturing by the time you say, “I do,” your marriage won’t be a happy one.
A large percentage of Americans don’t know or outright disagree that marriage builds stronger families and is linked to better well-being for children, according to the annual American Family Survey. This is despite the fact that such benefits have been proven time and again. These attitudes may be due in part to nearly half of all U.S. children today spending at least part of their childhood in a non-intact family.
Overall, the majority of U.S. adults have a positive view of marriage, agreeing it has benefits for individuals and society. Still, a significant portion of respondents seem unclear about the value of marriage. For example, 54% of people didn’t agree that society is better off when more people are married, with 19% disagreeing and 35% being unsure. As to the questions about family stability, 48% didn’t agree that marriage is needed to create stronger families and 46% didn’t agree that marriage makes families and children better off financially.
Nick Freitas
My wife and I came from broken homes and married at 19/20. We were poor, in a profession with a divorce rate much higher than the national average, which forced us to live away from family, move often, and spend half of our first ten years married apart. We literally had people at our wedding betting on how quickly we’d get divorced, and now, 25 years later, we are happily married, have raised 3 kids, and are still in love. Here’s why.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:56 - #1 Shared Values
05:22 - #2 Shared Goals & Expectations
10:53 - #3 Shared Interests
13:42 - #4 Effective Communication
20:41 - #5 Attractiveness
@arrowb.8438
2 weeks ago
In terms of women venting to men, one thing I implemented in my relationships that has drastically improved communication is this. If they are upset and start venting, ask whether they want solutions, or companionship. That helps them to also get used to clarifying for me "Hey I need solutions" or "Hey I need to just talk". Super huge boost in my dating life.
‘In many ways, my life is what I always dreamed it would be, except for one glaring difference: I am not a mother. I wish I was.’ //
If most women knew they were sacrificing the freedom, provision, and safety of full-time mothering to be a gypped gas station attendant or “Office Space”-style paper-pusher, far more would choose full-time motherhood. To make it easier for themselves to reach the C-suite and the Oval Office, elite women sell their lower-class sisters glamorous false promises of “Boss Babe.” This is another reason we should reject feminism: it damages women. //
Another part of Cheng’s situation besides the lack of broad social networking opportunities is also now common to all women. It’s the no-win outcome of the Sexual Revolution: women must either have sex with men before marriage or the men can easily find other women who will.
The post-Pill expectation that women will make sex an infertile act obviously eliminates a major motivation for men to pop the question. If the men Cheng dated in her 20s and 30s couldn’t get sex aside from accepting the responsibilities of husbandry — which include fatherhood — I’d bet $10,000 she would have secured a man before her fertility window closed. //
Of course, men also get economic and familial security from marriage, as married men earn more, reach higher career zeniths, are happier, and live longer. But those benefits are less obvious and require a longer timeframe than the benefits women and children get from marriage, which usually begin accruing much earlier.
This is one major negative effect of America’s leaders deciding to kill Christianity as a social norm. It’s also another way in which people who participate in the life of a local church dramatically increase their chances of finding a spouse while they still are physically capable of procreation. Pastors, congregations, denominations, and Holy Scripture itself all stand behind women who say, “I’d love to have sex with you, but I can’t unless we’re married.”