Too Late to Marry?

“Don’t do it.”

That’s the kind of advice being given more frequently to couples considering marriage later in life. Whatever happened to “Congratulations!” or “Good luck!”? It turns out that those advising older couples to avoid marriage (mostly legal professionals and legislators) are thinking primarily of one thing: the bottom line — never mind the moral implications.

Stephen J. Silverberg, an elder law attorney, discourages older couples from walking the wedding aisle because he says he’s seen many situations when couples marry later then face illness and subsequent financial difficulties. Lawyer Alice Reiter Feld discourages late-in-life marriage because she doesn’t think it wise for people in their 70s and 80s to take on new financial responsibilities.

Federal and state laws also create financial hurdles. For example, the marriage penalty tax — which couples pay if they’re in a tax bracket over 15 percent — has received a lot of attention from legislators and organizations that would like to eliminate it. Other reasons are used to discourage marriage at midlife:

• Those with adult children have to balance taking care of a new spouse with their desire to leave an inheritance.
• New Medicaid qualification rules for nursing home care make it more difficult to preserve wealth for heirs if a person remarries.
• A new marriage complicates decisions about when to take Social Security benefits.

Couples might feel intimidated or overwhelmed by the financial hassles related to late-in-life marriage. As a way around these burdens, midlife couples aren’t giving up romantic love. Rather, they are choosing cohabitation.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that as of 2000, there were more than 266,000 unmarried couples over age 65. Though that number may seem low, it’s a significant increase from the previous decade. As the trend becomes more acceptable, how will Christian couples face the new pressure and complexities without compromising biblical values?

On the rocks

The rise in cohabitation comes from a combination of laws that make marriage more difficult and a society that has made living together outside of marriage much easier. Cohabitation in general has all but lost the stigma it once bore. For those who are older and have no risk of pregnancy, cohabitation may seem to carry less risk. Despite having been raised in a different time with different values, some couples are going along with the new trend.

Ruth Nippe and Jim McDaniel told The Olympian that they’re happy to be cohabitating. “We grew up in a different generation,” Nippe, then 79, said. “I came from a small town in Nebraska. I would have been ostracized for sure for living this way. I guess I used to care more what people said.”

Unfortunately, every cohabiting couple makes its own small contribution to the anti-marriage culture, which urges us to take the easy way out, put our own desires above the welfare of others and ignore family values for the sake of practicality.

A moral stand

So as the law increases the pressure on the married and society decreases the pressure on those who live together, older Christians find themselves in a peculiar position. The trend among midlifers to cohabitate is just one more element that contributes to a “my needs first” attitude.

The good news is that there are still many couples like Marion Smith and Charles Robinson, who refuse to cohabit before marriage because of personal and religious convictions.

Mature-adult cohabitation is an indication that the laws — especially the tax code — need to be revised. But the change is also an opportunity for mature Christians to set an example for younger ones. Role models of purity are few and far between in our sex-obsessed culture. Don’t let the example fade: Be someone who stands strong even when you appear to have every reason to give in and no good reason to hold out.

While we work for the laws to change, older Christians can make the difficult decision to live counter-culturally for Christ and send a strong message that there are Christians who will stand by what they believe.

The rarity of such determined obedience to God’s Word makes it all the more powerful and precious. Just one person who holds up a standard against the trend of culture’s immorality can prompt others to do the same.