There is a WAY to make each year of marriage happier than the last.
You need to understand the KEYS to this vital problem.
FAMILY breakdown is fast reaching epidemic proportions," warns the Family Service Association of America.
The Association cited as evidence of the SERIOUSNESS of family deterioration these important facts:
1) One in every four new marriages today ends in divorce.
2) The illegitimacy rate has TRIPLED since 1938. Each year, there are more than two hundred thousand illegitimate births.
3) The delinquency rate has nearly TRIPLED since 1940.
What does it all mean?
Happy Families are VITAL
Reasonably happy, stable families are the very BASIS of any culture or civilization which is to endure. The breakdown of the family is listed as one of the five great CAUSES of the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Yet, unhappy marriages and BROKEN HOMES are now among America's greatest national problems. As LIFE magazine stated in a series of articles on marriage: "Whatever the reactions, whatever the cause of the trouble, the fifteen million Americans who have been through the divorce courts are a large and increasingly important part of our society. They already constitute the largest group of divorced people ever gathered together in one nation, and their ranks are being joined by two thousand recruits everyday of every month."
Think of it. Over fifteen MILLION Americans who have personally been through the divorce courts — plus additional MILLIONS of little children who also reap the bitter fruit of these statistics!
But as the article in LIFE states: "Yet when it comes to prescribing a better method which might result in fewer divorces than now plague the U.S., the experts are at a loss. . . ."
WHY have they no solution? What is the BASIS for their theories about marriage and divorce?
Have a BASIS for Your Ideas and Information
Is there a real, genuine AUTHORITY to which we can turn for correct and unimpeachable information on how to have a truly SUCCESSFUL marriage? Very frankly, there are as many "ideas" and "theories" about what kind of marriage is best, what sort of rules should be followed in marriage, and under what circumstances divorce and remarriage should be considered as there are religions, philosophies and men and women who write such ideas.
However, you long-time readers of The PLAIN TRUTH will notice that the servants of God who write in the pages of this magazine have a unanimity of opinion on every major issue of life. This is because we go to the SAME AUTHORITY for our information!
We have PROVED — as thousands of you have also — that there is a real GOD. We have proved that His Word — the Holy Bible — is literally inspired. We have seen and experienced that the laws and principles of God really WORK. They are living and moving things — like the law of gravity. They automatically OPERATE — and don't require divine intervention to take their effect. They reveal the mind, the attitude, the viewpoint and the revealed WILL of Almighty God who made us in His image.
If you have not studied and really PROVED this matter, then you should certainly do so immediately! Write now for Mr. Armstrong's attractive free 28-page booklet entitled: The Proof of the Bible.
This will give you definite, factual PROOF of God's existence and of His direct inspiration of the pages of the Holy Bible — the book which so many people possess but so few people really believe in and apply as their rule of life.
Nearly all of you reading this undoubtedly consider yourselves as Christians — followers of Jesus of Nazareth. But Jesus said: "It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD OF GOD" (Luke 4:4).
If you are tired of hearing the contradictory ideas and theories of little men who are here today and dead and buried tomorrow, if you are willing to take the directly inspired Word of Almighty GOD for your authority, then you can learn the real WAY to achieve a happy marriage by directly applying and living by His inspired instructions on this extremely important part of human life.
For some, this knowledge may come too late to save a marriage that is already virtually on the rocks. But in nearly every other case, these inspired KEYS to marital happiness should greatly improve the joys of any marriage — especially where both man and wife are applying them together in love as a "team."
WHY We Are Male and Female
Today's supposedly learned psychiatrists and marriage counselors theorize that the institution of marriage "evolved" just like they also theorize that man evolved from the dumb ape or from an amoeba in the warm ocean slime. They guess that we just "happened" to become male and female, that men and women just "happened" to begin living together as man and wife, and therefore we are free to invent our own HUMAN ideas and solutions regarding the problems of the marriage state.
Built on such shaky foundations, it is no wonder that so many modern marriages end up in utter chaos!
However, Jesus Christ of Nazareth gave a very different explanation: "But from the beginning of the creation GOD made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be ONE FLESH. So then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore GOD hath joined together let no man put asunder" (Mark 10:6-9).
Jesus said it is GOD who made us male and female — we didn't just "happen" to get that way. Jesus stated that it is GOD who binds a man and woman together in marriage as one flesh.
Now, WHY did God make us male and female and what were HIS PURPOSES in instituting the marriage state in the first place? To find God's answers to these questions, we need to turn back to the beginning of His Word and read them.
After creating Adam and putting him in the Garden of Eden, God said: "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet (suitable) for him" (Gen. 2:18). First of all, then, before ever creating woman, God revealed that the man was INCOMPLETE of and by himself. Physically, man is not "all there" unless he has a mate, a life partner.
But notice carefully that woman was not made as man's competitor or potential enemy, but as a "suitable" help for him.
Finding that none of the animals had the characteristics necessary for a life partner with whom man could share his love, his plans, his hopes and dreams, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. He took one of his ribs, and from it formed a woman and brought her to the man. And Adam said: "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (Verse 23).
Woman's PURPOSE for Being
This simple but beautiful account shows WHY every little baby girl inherits life and breath! This shows woman her real GOAL — her REASON for being!
If every little boy could be taught from babyhood up to love and RESPECT all girls and women because they were directly put here by God to SHARE his life and love — and to enrich it!
If every little girl could be taught from birth that her real GOAL in life is not to compete with men or with other women; but to help and inspire all men and women by her warmth, love and femininity — and prepare some day to completely share in the life of a husband whom she should love, respect and OBEY as her human leader, protector, provider and life companion!
Then there simply WOULD NOT EXIST all the perverted ideas and theories of modern, divorce-ridden men and women about "fifty-fifty marriages," part-time wives and divorce and remarriage. Men and women would then prepare to do their part in fulfilling GOD'S purpose in creating us male and female — and by HIS authority establishing the marriage state as what should be a great BLESSING to mankind.
This may sound trite or old-fashioned to some who apparently think they have "progressed" far beyond the wisdom of their Creator. But the application of these principles would save millions of homes from the state of WRETCHEDNESS in which they now exist!
Who Is the HEAD of the House?
A nation divided against itself CANNOT stand! In like manner, a home that is divided — a home without a head, will NOT endure!
In our modern homes, one of several things takes place. In many instances both parents simply submit to their rebellious children and let their whims and he is the savior of the body" (Eph. 5:22-23).
Speaking of the qualifications for ministers, the apostle Paul said that such a man must be: "One that RULETH well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity" (I Timothy 3:4).
IF he will only use it, man has been given the potential of wisdom, understanding, determination, self-control, physical strength and many other qualities which best fit him to act as the provider, the protector, the leader and the HEAD of the family.
The Right Estimation of Wifehood
and fancies dictate family policy. In a prophecy which in a dual sense refers to our English-speaking peoples today, God said: "And I will give children to be their princes and babes shall rule over them . . . the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient . . . children are their oppressors and women rule over them" (Isaiah 3:4-5, 12).
We can SEE this prophecy taking place all about us today!
As the prophecy indicates, when parents let the children have a free hand, it usually involves mother doing any other ruling that she thinks necessary. And, of course, another wide-spread practice is for the wife to just take over and act as the head of the family herself. In this case, the husband is usually squelched and humbled like a whipped dog, and the children are usually rowdy and impudent because of this topsy-turvy state of affairs.
Any of these situations is sure to bring unhappiness and TROUBLE because they are in direct defiance of the Divinely ordained pattern of authority which God set in the home.
It is God who made us male and female. It is GOD who instituted the home and family.
Whether it appeals to human reason and desires or not, here is what God says about who is to be the head of the house: "Wives, SUBMIT yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the HEAD of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church:
Although many women won't admit it because of their own VANITY and because of the perverted teachings of modern psychology, every normal woman secretly wants her husband to rule her, in love, and to take his rightful place as the head of the house. She can find her greatest HAPPINESS only as a wife and mother who can rely on the protective leadership of a loving husband who is STRONG in character and in purpose.
If marriages are ever going to be successful, young women need to be TAUGHT and schooled in these God-given principles of marriage. Instead of learning to compete with men in business, industry and society, they need to train to become a real HELP to their future husbands, and an efficient mother to their children.
Discussing the reasons for the terrible divorce problem, a prominent jurist recently declared that American women just don't know how to be wives.
"Why do so many American GIs marry German and Japanese girls?" he asks. Then answers, "Because these women are taught to be wives. They perform the historic function of a wife. And they don't try to wear the pants!"
Most modern women have an entirely FALSE concept of what constitutes a "success" in life for a woman. By training and example, they are either taught to become a "career woman" and compete with men in the business world, or else they are encouraged to become "dominating" wives who argue loud and long that marriage is a "50-50 proposition," but who in actual fact always end up in bossing their husbands. And women of this group nearly always have many "outside interests" — women's clubs, bridge clubs and innumerable contacts with other women like themselves — partly to smooth over the inevitable doubts and frustrations that arise as a result of this unnatural situation.
In either case, the woman is taken outside the home a good deal of the time. The husband has only a "part-time" wife who wants to wear the pants. And the children end up with a part-time mother who undermines the father's authority in front of their very eyes and who cannot — by her very nature — replace him as the strong, wise guiding hand which every home MUST have to be completely happy and successful.
Instead of the false modern concept, God COMMANDS older Christian women: "That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, KEEPERS AT HOME, good, OBEDIENT to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed" (Titus 2:4-5).
Is that CLEAR? That is GOD speaking! The only question is — are we going to argue and "reason," or are we going to OBEY?