SEX: WHY WAIT FOR MARRIAGE?

Why wait, if you're in love? Is marriage just a permit to make love? Is getting married like passing your driver's test? Does that not over-value sex and its place in marriage? Is it not just a rule decreed by spoilsport celibate priests and Religious with a sour-grapes attitude? Can't the Church catch up with the times for once?

I've been asked those questions umpteen times. I also know many religion teachers and catechists who feel at a loss before such interrogations.

But there are, of course, many answers to such questions. We might try a neat, short, and sweet answer: "Before marriage, saying yes to love means saying no to sex." But young people are not satisfied with that. "Why?" they will inevitably ask.

"For the same reason," I tell them, "that you don't attach a trailer to the front of a car; for the same reason a seminarian does not hear your confession or celebrate Mass before getting ordained." But that still does not convince everybody.

And I've certainly lost them if I argue from scriptural texts or the magisterium of the Church.

Then there's always one persistent interrogator who will bring the topic back into focus. "But why," he or she will ask, "are we not allowed even one test drive just in case... I mean, if there's a problem, it's better to find out beforehand."

"You know," I'll tell such inquisitors, "the fact is, for those who are in love, compatibility is easily reached. It's only when people are not able to love, because they are too immature or selfish, that incompatibility becomes a problem." How do I know? My married friends have told me all about it. Usually, though, I still have not won.

Sooner or later, we get back to the basic question. And at this point I try a bit of reasoning: "Because," I tell my audience, "sex is about commitment. It's like making a very serious promise. And so, unless you've made that promise before witnesses, so you can't easily break it, then you shouldn't make it privately through sex, because private promises are too easily abandoned." OK, they finally concede, that makes sense. But still, why is it wrong if you are officially engaged and going to be married and therefore committed and people know about this commitment?

This is the ultimate question about premarital sex. Not only teenagers, but engaged couples also ask this question. Even mature engaged couples who consider themselves serious Christians are troubled by it.

It is not, after all, easy to undergo the torments of the desert before reaching the promised land, especially when the world is telling you that you don't really need to be tormented at all.

Meanwhile, for the majority who precociously have entered into sexual intimacy, bypassing the necessary stages of courtship, the question is just as perturbing. And when they notice it, that inevitable uneasiness creeps into their relationship as they try to come to grips with the new dimension sex has engendered in their friendship. They suffer regrets and qualms of conscience, the cause of which they can't explain. If they do not agree with the teachings of Scripture or the Church regarding this matter, then how can they explain their qualms of conscience?

In time, such individuals experience a sort of involuntary alienation from the Church and become afraid of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. They try to justify themselves. But I've yet to come across a Christian couple who really feels totally at ease with an unmarried sexual relationship. The reason? The answer brings us to the essence of the original question.

Sex is not wrong before marriage because it's bad, but because it is good, important; it means so much. Sex, in body language, means: "I am giving You all that I am, all that I have to give, and through this act we declare our exclusive commitment to each other for life."

Through the first act of sexual intercourse between two people in love, a pledge of fidelity and everlasting love is consummated. That is not a nice Judeo-Christian interpretation superimposed onto sex. That is what happens, just as other bodily actions also have built-in meanings, from a smile to a menacing fist. So, to promise everything with my body when I have not confirmed this publicly through marriage is not being true to myself or to my beloved. And if a couple considers sex just a bit of fun together and nothing more, then that is probably all they'll be attributing to marriage when they exchange their vows. They thereby devalue both marriage and sex.

Furthermore, at that sacred moment when a couple pronounces their vows, they need to be able to do so in perfect freedom; so much so that they should still feel free until they speak their vows to call it off. But if they have engaged in pre-marital sex, then they are not really free. From my own experience of officiating at weddings, there is something extra special present at the marriage of those couples who have not slept or lived together previously.

That quality stems precisely from the sense of freedom the couple still possesses. Because of this, I really believe the level of intimacy and the level of commitment must match each other in courtship, and that until one's commitment is absolute and is made so by the vows of matrimony, then neither should one's intimacy be total. In other words, until we are ready for all that marriage entails, we are not ready for all that sex means, and we certainly cannot adequately express it in sexual intercourse.

Finally, the essence of marriage preparation is premarital love! There is hardly a poorer preparation than premarital sex--not because of what it is in itself, but for what it says about the relationship. Those who cannot wait for sex are unable to wait for anything else.

In a loving relationship, patience is an essential component. Without patience, communication is impossible. And marriage, we know, is impossible without communication. Premature sex will usually indicate an immature commitment--definitely not a good foundation for a lifelong covenant of love.