The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony by Pamela Paul (2002)
I recently encountered a new “thing” that struck me as very funny, Relationship Education (RE) proposed as a high school class covering dating, marriage, and things to “help prepare” young people for the reality of what being married means. I still think it is absurd, but upon reflection have to think, maybe there is a bit of a need there. As something else I read put it, we are now experiencing the first massive amount of kids who were more likely to have grown up in a divorced household than my baby boom generation did. This may well skew beliefs or attitudes. Rampant domestic violence has also now been revealed, along with date rape, and AIDs, and useless abstinence only education. Back when I was a young child, the sex education I recall was when they took the boys in one room and the girls in the other room, and showed a cartoon about menstruation. It didn’t even really make any sense to me at the time. Bleeding monthly? How stupid was that! For FORTY YEARS OR MORE, no thank you. Alas, biology is what it is. But no, no one ever talked about sex in a positive way, at least for girls. It was always DON’T HAVE SEX UNTIL MARRIAGE. Personally, I believe that is something men like to push as a virtue so their sexual inadequacies are not recognized by their virgin brides! (ha ha)