Fornication By Any Other Name
Growing up, I was told repeatedly that if I was a "good" girl, I would have a nice wedding. I don't remember ever being told what a "good" girl was, but instinctively I knew it meant that I wasn't to get pregnant.
Though we went to church, I'm not sure I was ever told that fornication is a sin. Our family didn't talk in those terms because the church we went to wasn't a "real" church. By that, I mean it didn't preach the gospel, and my parents weren't saved.
I think more than anything else it was about the shame connected with finding oneself in that situation. I'm sure my parents experienced that firsthand. They were married on Christmas Eve and I was born on July 1.
Whether my parents would have married otherwise, I'll never know, but when I was an adolescent my mother left my father. Shortly thereafter, her boss, a married man, came to live with us.
Now, the new mantra was, "If you're going to sleep around, get on the pill." The message was essentially the same, but it had a new face. Before, I think it was understood that not getting pregnant meant I didn't engage in behavior that would give the undesired result. Now, it was more about the end result than the behavior, and there were ways of getting around that.
Even though I eventually followed in my mother's footsteps and started living with my boyfriend, the "damage" of being told what a good girl doesn't do, stuck with me. I remember being 19 or so and not telling my employer I lived with my boyfriend. One day there was a call from "home" for me. When I was told to return the call, I was seized by panic. Should I call my mother or my boyfriend? After some quick thinking, I called my mother. I had made the right choice. Whew! If I had made the wrong choice, I suppose I could have pretended I got the wrong number, but I'm terrible at deception because I don't have much practice, so I hadn't even thought of that possibility.
Things have really changed since those days. Or have they? Remember when a fiance (fiancee) was someone engaged to be married? Not anymore. Often times it is a way of making fornication sound acceptable. Just the other week in WalMart, I heard a guy introduce his "fiancee" to someone else. They had an infant with them. Really? Do they really intend to marry? Then why didn't they do it before the baby was born? Oh, they may, eventually. But the name of fiancee legitamizes things in the meantime. Or so they think.
I'm tired of reading obituaries and discovering all of the creative ways they refer to a partner in sin - love of his life, companion, friend. Call it whatever you like. God hasn't changed his mind, or the name. Fornication by any other name is still fornication.
Though we went to church, I'm not sure I was ever told that fornication is a sin. Our family didn't talk in those terms because the church we went to wasn't a "real" church. By that, I mean it didn't preach the gospel, and my parents weren't saved.
I think more than anything else it was about the shame connected with finding oneself in that situation. I'm sure my parents experienced that firsthand. They were married on Christmas Eve and I was born on July 1.
Whether my parents would have married otherwise, I'll never know, but when I was an adolescent my mother left my father. Shortly thereafter, her boss, a married man, came to live with us.
Now, the new mantra was, "If you're going to sleep around, get on the pill." The message was essentially the same, but it had a new face. Before, I think it was understood that not getting pregnant meant I didn't engage in behavior that would give the undesired result. Now, it was more about the end result than the behavior, and there were ways of getting around that.
Even though I eventually followed in my mother's footsteps and started living with my boyfriend, the "damage" of being told what a good girl doesn't do, stuck with me. I remember being 19 or so and not telling my employer I lived with my boyfriend. One day there was a call from "home" for me. When I was told to return the call, I was seized by panic. Should I call my mother or my boyfriend? After some quick thinking, I called my mother. I had made the right choice. Whew! If I had made the wrong choice, I suppose I could have pretended I got the wrong number, but I'm terrible at deception because I don't have much practice, so I hadn't even thought of that possibility.
Things have really changed since those days. Or have they? Remember when a fiance (fiancee) was someone engaged to be married? Not anymore. Often times it is a way of making fornication sound acceptable. Just the other week in WalMart, I heard a guy introduce his "fiancee" to someone else. They had an infant with them. Really? Do they really intend to marry? Then why didn't they do it before the baby was born? Oh, they may, eventually. But the name of fiancee legitamizes things in the meantime. Or so they think.
I'm tired of reading obituaries and discovering all of the creative ways they refer to a partner in sin - love of his life, companion, friend. Call it whatever you like. God hasn't changed his mind, or the name. Fornication by any other name is still fornication.
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