GO THROUGH BETROTHAL, THE PREPARATION PERIOD BEFORE MARRIAGE.

Prerequisite No. 3:  Go through betrothal, the preparation period before marriage

Use the betrothal to secure God’s imprimatur. If no imprimatur is given, cut clean and say goodbye to your ex-future spouse.

Use the betrothal to make the necessary adjustments. The practice nowadays is to marry first and do the adjustments later. More and more marriages end up in separation and divorce because “irreconcilable differences” are found out after the wedding. Separation and divorce (even marital disagreements and personal hurts) could be avoided if personality conflicts are dealt with before the wedding. 

Use the betrothal in loving your future in-laws. This is especially important in countries like the Philippines, where you have to marry a spouse along with his or her parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews (not to mention his or her friends, household helpers, churchmates and office mates). Unless you as a couple would live far from them, know this early that accepting them is part and parcel of the marriage. You would have to deal with their good sides and bad sides too, more or less on a daily basis. Be practical early on and see for yourself whether you could.

Use the betrothal to make a church announcement of your plan to get married. Declare that, from that moment on, you will eye no other lover and entertain no other suitor. Ask the church to bless the union, pray for it and help nurture it… to guide you about marriage and parenting… and to help you keep the union pure and holy...       

Use the betrothal to save money. Borrowing money to pay for your wedding expenses is a bad way to start. That means you married even though you can’t afford it. Save money (consider it a mahr or dowry) for the wedding celebration, matrimony bed, household necessities, and imminent contingencies like pregnancy and child birth.  

Use the betrothal to prove both of you have the discipline to refrain from doing the forbidden. In this age of permissiveness, lust is not covered with shame anymore but shed openly. People are given to immodest dressing, nudity, sinful desires, impulsiveness, pornography, ecstasy drugs, aphrodisiacs, premarital sex, promiscuity, whoring… The temptation to indulge in them is pronounced. But do not follow suit. Esteem your chastity. In the sight of God holiness and purity (virginity included) are the best wedding gift you can give to your spouse. It speaks well of your virtue, self-control and good breeding. God prefers that you gift your spouse with a marriage partner who is undefiled.

About sexual intimacy. There is nothing sinful, wicked or filthy in going through sexual intimacy. It is a decent, healthy expression of the married couple’s love, tenderness and care for one another. It is a God-ordained way of satisfying their mutual need for companionship, affection, re-assurance and sensual gratification. But until you are married, sexual intimacy is not for you.

¹⁸ Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 1 CORINTHIANS 6 kjv

Take control of your sexual drive, for if your sexual drive is in control of you, your marriage and family life would end up troubled and messed up. Resist sexual suggestions and advances even from your spouse-to-be. How he or she honors your decision to be chaste can be your measurement of his or her maturity, self-management and God-centeredness.  

³ It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, ⁵ not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; ⁶ and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. ⁷ For God did not call us to live in immorality, but in holiness. 1 THESSALONIANS 4

Take cue from Blaine Bartel:

The proof of love isn’t physical: it’s obeying God’s Word and keeping Him at the center of your relationship. You [might] feel like you have to give in to the other person’s pressure because you are afraid he or she won’t love you if you don’t. Perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:8). If your love is based on God’s Word, you won’t fear a human being. You will be more concerned about what God thinks than what anybody else thinks.[1] 

Take cue from Mike and Harriet McManus:

About 67 percent of cohabitating couples who marry eventually divorce. About 45 percent of cohabitations break up before marriage. Men and women cohabitate for different reasons. Women see it as a step toward marriage. They think they can audition for the job. Men do it because they like to have the ready availability of sex and having someone to share their living expenses. Cohabitation has a high failure rate because it's based on selfishness. Women should heed their mother's advice—if you give away the milk, he won't buy the cow. (Living Together: Myths, Risks & Answers, Howard Books)      

Get sex education so that when you get to your marriage bed, the two of you may enjoy the fun of satisfying your sexual curiosity and passion. Get it immediately before you get married, however, not at a sooner time, lest your curiosity overcome you. It should be explained to you that self-gratification is not the object of sex. Ungodly men experiment with sexual deviations and with different partners (and at times they wander into hetero-sexual relations) but are never satisfied. That is because they are self-absorbed and not focused in expressing love, tenderness and care for their partners. They lack in sensitivity to their partners’ needs. Do not imitate them. Focus on what you can give to your spouse more than what you can get from him or her.

Prerequisite No.  4:  Do not intermarry.

³⁹ A woman is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. 1 CORINTHIANS 7

Do not marry a false worshiper. His or her heart and mind are Lucifer-driven, with gods (messy vices and addictions, for example) that no man in his right mind would want to be entangled with. Solomon was a true worshiper and full of faith-knowledge yet the Lord got angry with him (1 Kings 11:9) because he could not stop his false-worshipping wives from turning his heart after their gods (1 Kings 11:4). Mixing true worship with false worship leads to serious disorientation, confusion and conflict.

¹⁵ For when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. ¹⁶ And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same. EXODUS 34   

² You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods. 1 KINGS 11

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[1] Blaine Bartel, Every Teenager’s Little Black Book on Sex and Dating (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Harrison House, 2002), p. 42.