Over the years, I have found an interesting contradiction in views of morality and degrees of morality. I have known young ladies and young men who feel that their first kiss should be bestowed upon their newly married spouse on their wedding day. Although many young people tend to differ on this, most of them are in awe of someone who has the fortitude to save themselves so totally for the one person with whom they plan to spend the rest of their life. In a society that has disintergrated into a moral mess where people indulge in premarital sex as a 'gift' they give to their friends, it is wonderful to find a couple who wants this kept totally within the bounds of a mutual vow.
So, while young people wonder about this, they don't always dismiss a person's goal. I have found it to be an entirely different response from older to elderly people which I find surprising. From the day my own children became teens, most of the 'cute' remarks about having a boyfriend, kissing their 'steady', etc. has come from senior citizens who should know better. They didn't live in a world that was so free and easy about physical contact yet they tease and cajole young people into thinking it would be odd if the young person went full force towards maintaining a strict moral stance. One eighty year old about fainted when a young teen mentioned she wasn't interested in kissing anyone for the sake of kissing. The old lady's reaction? "But, how will you know if you like kissing him?" Seems to me that getting to know the person, first, would be more important than testing the kissable people that come one's way. Another one told the dad of a young miss that she would certainly put a word in the girl's ear on the subject. Uh, why?
I worked with a young girl in my career years as a single woman. She shared with me that she had always dreamed of finding the perfect man, who was physically perfect, kissed perfectly, and would look like a prince charming at the perfect wedding she had dreamed of since she was a little girl. I didn't meet her in her prowling years but a few months after she had had her perfect day. Whenever she talked about her marriage, she spoke of the wedding, reliving every minute. She told me that she, personally, tied every sash on her bride's maids dresses to make sure they were all perfect. The kiss they exchanged at the altar was perfect as she had done her testing before the proposal. She said her new husband hadn't been all that anxious to get married so soon but she assured him it was the perfect time. She told me that they were perfectly compatible physically and (with a wink on her part) she made sure of that before she let herself fall in love with him.
The young girl was actually pretty pathetic because she never seemed to grow past the perfect wedding that began her marriage. Her husband demanded that she always wear full make up and wear the highest heeled shoes even when she wrenched her ankle and was on doctor's orders to not do so. She would ask my advice on making perfect meals and often reported that her husband ate out with friends and didn't come home in time to enjoy her efforts. She would often sigh and say, "I just don't understand him." This is two months into the marriage!
I understood him. He was rushed into a relationship based on the physical. Neither one them them had ever thought to talk about their personal interests, likes, dislikes. He showed up for her perfect wedding with only a physical knowleged of his bride and it got old really fast as it was all based on a childish dream. It was sad. She had given in to him on every level and he was tired of it all before they even walked down the aisle. If they had mentally challenged each other before they started in on the physical, she might have discovered that perfect is often only on the surface.
Me, I'm all for purity before marriage. As with anything in life, there are degrees of where you want to go in a relationship way short of sin. When a young person desires to wait on everything before marriage, shouldn't he/she be praised and not treated like some weird virtue freak?
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