Abstinence Pledges and British Folk--Yes, They're All in the Same Blog Post
I read Pam Spaulding's piece on virginity pledges while listening to "The Trees They Do Grow High," a traditional English folk song about child marriage. The song exists in many forms and has been recorded by Joan Baez, Pentangle, and Martin Carthy. Steeleye Span (one of my favorite folk groups) recorded a verion titled "Long A-Growing."
The storyline is as follows: A nobleman marries his daughter off to a much younger bridegroom. By "much younger," I mean mid-teens: most versions place the husband's age at fourteen or sixteen, and in one version of the song, he's twelve. The bride isn't too happy about the arrangement, but the father assures her that her husband, with some education, will become a proper young man. Alas, it's not to be: the husband marries one year, sires the next year, and expires the next.
More information on the song and its many variations can be found here.
So, what's this got to do with virginity pledges? Well, all this "wait 'till you're married for Jesus" rhetoric gets me to thinking that 500 years ago, these kids wouldn't be thinking about abstinence unless they were in a convent or monastery. They would likely be married by their mid- to late teens. All you Shakespeare fans should keep in mind that the Bard's tragic lovers--Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Ophelia--would be considered lovesick puppies on the schoolyard today. Desdemona? She would've been a sixteen-year-old girl married to a much older man. Today, the thought of a grown woman marrying a thirteen-year-old kid a la Mary Kay Letourneau turns our stomachs--as it should.
Part of the reason our ancestors were considered sexually mature so early in was because life expectancy was lower. Not only that, but there was no birth control and no prenatal care. For royalty and noble classes, marriages were arranged early in life for political purposes. There were royal couples who married for convenience yet loathed each other with a passion. (King George IV and his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, are particularly infamous examples.)
So what's all this got to do with abstinence pledges and whether or not they work? Well, it's important to accept that teenagers are sexually curious. However, that doesn't mean they should be sexually active. I personally think they should wait until they're of legal age before having sex. The more mature, the better. Sometimes, teenagers have sex for all the wrong reasons.
There is so much talk about sexual activity and not enough talk about sexual responsibility. Abstinence-only education, it seems, is a pretty flimsy substitute for teaching responsibility.
The storyline is as follows: A nobleman marries his daughter off to a much younger bridegroom. By "much younger," I mean mid-teens: most versions place the husband's age at fourteen or sixteen, and in one version of the song, he's twelve. The bride isn't too happy about the arrangement, but the father assures her that her husband, with some education, will become a proper young man. Alas, it's not to be: the husband marries one year, sires the next year, and expires the next.
More information on the song and its many variations can be found here.
So, what's this got to do with virginity pledges? Well, all this "wait 'till you're married for Jesus" rhetoric gets me to thinking that 500 years ago, these kids wouldn't be thinking about abstinence unless they were in a convent or monastery. They would likely be married by their mid- to late teens. All you Shakespeare fans should keep in mind that the Bard's tragic lovers--Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Ophelia--would be considered lovesick puppies on the schoolyard today. Desdemona? She would've been a sixteen-year-old girl married to a much older man. Today, the thought of a grown woman marrying a thirteen-year-old kid a la Mary Kay Letourneau turns our stomachs--as it should.
Part of the reason our ancestors were considered sexually mature so early in was because life expectancy was lower. Not only that, but there was no birth control and no prenatal care. For royalty and noble classes, marriages were arranged early in life for political purposes. There were royal couples who married for convenience yet loathed each other with a passion. (King George IV and his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, are particularly infamous examples.)
So what's all this got to do with abstinence pledges and whether or not they work? Well, it's important to accept that teenagers are sexually curious. However, that doesn't mean they should be sexually active. I personally think they should wait until they're of legal age before having sex. The more mature, the better. Sometimes, teenagers have sex for all the wrong reasons.
There is so much talk about sexual activity and not enough talk about sexual responsibility. Abstinence-only education, it seems, is a pretty flimsy substitute for teaching responsibility.
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