The first institution God founded was the family. When a society disregards its families, it suffers great loss, and may wither away, as did many civilizations of the past. The home molds character. Inherited traits make significant contributions, but the direction in which traits take us is dependent upon a person’s home life and upbringing.

God instituted the family with marriage first, and then children, not vice versa. Marriage is a prerequisite for a good home, so if we mistakenly sacrifice the marriage for the children, both will be destroyed. Children’s status is transitory in nature. In the West, after dating for a prolonged period of time to ascertain compatibility, young people enter into relationships. Although a young couple may consider themselves compatible, they may soon discover the truth that no two sinners are fundamentally compatible. It is a myth to assume that compatibility in a socio-economic sphere, similar likes and dislikes, would lead to a harmonious relationship. Husbands and wives must grow as individuals in conformity to Christ in order to be compatible with each other.

The basic cause of marriage problems is sin. Sin manifests itself in two ways: erroneous concepts and in sinful attitudes or practices. In all cases, error must be replaced by truth. To call sin sickness, immaturity, ignorance or use any other psychological or sociological jargon would be a distortion of the real problem, sin.

Once, psychologists categorized many sins as illness; for example, drunkenness and homosexuality. Today, homosexuality has even received higher status because people who practice it, claim that they are born that way. The Bible says that the source of these problems lay in the depravity of man’s fallen human nature. Modern day society blames someone else for crimes and other evils, so criminals do not have to accept responsibility for their actions. Modern psychotherapy becomes a search into the past to find others – parents, uncles, the church, society, grandparents – on whom to place the blame.

People no longer consider themselves responsible for what they do wrong. They claim that their problems are allogenic, which is other engendered, rather than autogenic, self engendered. Society is easy to blame since what is everyone’s responsibility is no one’s responsibility. It is similar to Socialism. Under Socialism, all things belong to everybody, and no one has any responsibility. Jay E. Adams says, in "Competent to Counsel," page 6, "Freudian psychoanalysis turns out to be an archeological expedition back into the past in which a search is made for others on whom to pin the blame for the patient’s behavior. The fundamental idea is to find out how others have wronged him."

Most unwed mothers are victims of their parents’ problems. This strange, unbiblical assumption leads to conclude that the sexual involvement on the part of the girl is incidental. There is a widespread notion that romantic love is necessary to form a strong biblical marriage. The Bible nowhere makes romantic love a ground or basis for marriage. In fact, like most of the marriages in the history of mankind, it allows for marriage arranged by family. Furthermore, romantic love, common to the western culture, has far less evidence of stability than those not based in romantic love. Although romantic love is not a condition necessary to the making of a marriage, the act of love toward one’s spouse becomes a permanent obligation from the very moment of covenantal commitment. The love, which is an essential part of the marriage covenant, is deeper than romantic love and involves the giving of one’s self toward another. It seems that what many have called romantic love has not been anything more than temporary infatuation. There is a saying that "love is blind." For some people, marriage may be the institution for the blind, but after the marriage, their eyes will be opened.

Certainly puppy love would most likely lead to a dog’s life. Modern day dating has led to premarital sex. It is the training ground for divorce. Most of the young people break up many times. Their hearts are broken many times, even before marriage. A broken dish, even after rejoining with glue, may not be the same. Lust controls the relationship.

This writer attributes the reason for the collapse of our moral foundation on the transformation of excess individualism. Individualism has eclipsed family values in America. A new doctrine is growing in America, which exalts the individual. It impels us to reach more into ourselves and to rely on ourselves. It urges us to withdraw from dependence on others, to avoid entanglements, and to keep our relationships temporary and tentative. Our struggle is to free ourselves from involvement with all others, including the family. Tensions between individual gratification and commitment to others create ambivalence about marriage and families. Material poverty is caused by moral poverty. A majority of economic problems in America is caused by family disunity. The backwardness in the black community can be directly attributed to divorce and family disunity. Blaming past injustices such as slavery and blaming present discrimination in society is not going to solve the problems. Teaching children negative things is not going to help them. Discrimination is a fact of life in the world. We have to try to defeat it by spiritual means. When a family is divorced, lawsuits, division of property, and children drain the resources. The husband and wife have to maintain two separate households and expenses double overnight. Usually mothers end up with the children. It is a struggle for single mothers to raise a family, so the fathers have to give child support, and consequently both the husband and wife plunge in the poor category. It may be beneficial to observe and study the lifestyle of a typical Asian family. Some immigrants came without any money and knew very little English. All the family members would stay in a two-bedroom apartment and everyone would probably earn a minimum wage salary, but they pooled their money and worked hard day and night. Their motive is not individual pleasure but family welfare. With selfless sacrifice, within a few years they may buy their own apartment complex or start a small business, and all the family members become affluent. The social system in America must change to eradicate material and moral poverty.

Today, marriage life is on the rocks from India to the USA. A superfluous and artificial peace pervades in most of the families across the globe. When conflict arises, one spouse usually keeps silence in order to preserve peace. In the West, especially in the USA, couples get divorced in cases of continued conflicts. Conversely, in India, which is a male-dominated society, women do not have much freedom to initiate divorce, so marriage is not easily dissolved. The history of man tells a story where, by superior physical strength, men kept women under their control, denying them many rights. In modern times, the women’s liberation movement has gone to the other extreme and shown rebellion against God ordained institutions.

Because of the economic liberalization in India, many women are freed from the control of men. In India, the feminist movement fights for the legitimate rights of women. They fight against social evils such as prostitution, bride burning, dowry, rape, wife beating, and child labor. Divorce, virtually unheard of in the past, has become a common feature of life.

Economic self-sufficiency among women has made some progress towards removing the stigma attached to divorce. Premarital and extramarital relations are on the rise in the present Indian society. In India, many people citing the latest statistics clamor that the Indian society is on the road to ruin, and it may best be partially true. This writer sees another side of the issue. I don’t attribute the higher moral values of the past for being the reason for less divorce in Indian society. For centuries, women were kept under social and economic servitude by a male dominated society, so the women’s plight was pathetic and wretched. If a society maintains a moral standard under perfect freedom, that society would be an ideal society, but since mankind is depraved, only the rule of Christ on earth can change the situation. In the state of Kerala, the southern part of India, most Hindu castes practiced the matriarchal system where property is inherited through the female side of the family. This has given Nair women an exalted position in Keralean society. Kerala woman had the freedom to divorce her husband with out any fear. These historical facts prove that men in most societies ruthlessly kept some superfluous morality. The same facts also apply to United States of America. Many including this writer explain that America had higher moral standards, but did they have higher morals? The words of Thomas Jefferson in the declaration of independence are very noble. Those principles are precious and second only to the Holy Bible. Thomas Jefferson said in the American Declaration of Independence that men are free and equal by nature, and that government serves only to guarantee those natural rights. Compare his statement and his actions. He was a slave master and most of that puritan Christians practiced slave trade. Until recently, white South Africa practiced apartheid and those Bible believing Christians never thought it was wrong to practice racism. In early White America, they did not consider Blacks and American Indians as humans. So we can see beautiful, but shallow and meaningless statements about equality. When standing at the Judgment Seat of Christ all those people practiced racism will be accountable. The Bible clearly states the equality of man. Galatians.3.28 " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ," So it is strange that Christians in those days were unable to comprehend this simple statement from Bible. Much has been written in recent years about the crisis of the family. Today, families are under great stress and turbulent cultural, political, and economic forces threaten the ‘family’ as the most basic social institution. Self centered individualism, changing moral values, permissive sexuality, divorce, child abuse, urban decay, violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, and socialism have contributed to the universal maladies for families.

In an essay, William Bennett, director of drug control policy under Ronald Reagan and Bush, evaluates the social and cultural condition of American society. What he finds is that America is in a "social regression" that has been induced by a spiritual crisis. For hundreds of years, people of the world saw America as a "shining city on a hill." That is why everybody in the world wants to come to the United States. Many immigrants, in an ungrateful way, criticize the states, but they never go back; there is something special about this country.

Premarital sex is a norm in the USA. On October 18, 1999, The Houston Chronicle published an article on section C, page1 and 3, by Louise D. Palmer of Newhouse News Service. Palmer quoted a Henry Kaiser foundation study about teen sex. "This study is particularly alarming because most of those surveyed will be sexually active by the time they graduate from high school, and one in two will say they don’t have the basic facts on birth control or HIV or sexually transmitted diseases." All these researchers and writers stress sex education for "safe sex" to prevent pregnancy and disease. Only a very few see this as a vice and a sin.

There is yet another group in society; married couples who are not interested in sex, especially women. Some women face medical problems such as frigidity, which is understandable. Some women who think they are religious and very close to God shun sex and think that less sex is a sign of Godliness. If a spouse, without consent of the other, withheld sex due to any reason, he/she is committing gross sin and needs to repent and pray.

Let us examine the history of marriage and sex. Marriage and sex was established in the Garden of Eden, before the fall of man. Although Adam and Eve were banished from Eden, the first couple was not banished from their marriage bed. Marriage permits a couple to make pure, and clean, and holy again that which had been trampled in the mud of shame. When Adam and Eve committed sin, the immediate reaction was that they felt shame in their nakedness and had to cover their nakedness with sewed fig leaves.

Ever since sin entered the world, human beings wear cloth to cover their nakedness. But animals and nature do not have to wear a covering. A married couple does not feel shame in their nakedness between them. It is the union of the man and woman together that produces a new image for the glory of God. Sexual union was part of the original pattern that God prepared when he made man.

Why did Satan attack the institution of marriage? The free and loving exchange of gratification, derived from the physical union that takes place with nakedness between a husband and wife, is one of the ways that the divine ordinance of marriage can actually bring about the reverse of the curse of the original sin. Marriage is a direct attack on the original sin. It defeats and heals the shame of nakedness. Nakedness between a husband and wife brings back the original condition of Eden. So, sex between husband and wife is the closest thing touching creation. Throughout the history of the church, some have expounded the notion that sex within marriage is merely tolerated by God for the sake of procreation. However, those false interpretations radically distort the biblical view of sex. Many improper ideas about sex came from pagan influences.

Old age is a frightening phenomenon in the western countries. Most of the senior citizens are confined in nursing homes and spend most of their time in loneliness. One good thing about the eastern culture is the unity and love of the family. The behavior patterns of the people in both cultures, west and east, are diametrically opposite. Even families in the west who spend time with children, expressing love, are still showing much independence, but in the east, usually many members in a family are born without much time delay. As soon as a child reaches age two, another child is born. And then parents have no time for the older children. They may not spend much time together because utter poverty keeps them away. Fathers and male members have to toil to bring food to the family. Still, some elusive relationships bind the family members. Usually, children take care of their parents in their old age. Children, by seeing the struggle to stay alive, discover a purpose in life. In a survival mode, they learn responsibility from early childhood. They have a desire to succeed and share their fortune with other family members. So, affluence and comfort might have played a role in the west to become less family oriented.

As a Christian, a husband, and father, it is my conviction that people need to develop a Christian perspective on marriage and family. Most of the writers on this subject lead a happy married life. I have seldom seen a book written by someone who is facing constant struggle in family life. So a view from both sides will help the reader to understand the complex problem and find out a better solution. I constantly face struggle, but the Lord has enabled us to sustain so far. On a scale of 0-100, I would rate my marriage around 15. Strangely, we both are dedicated Christians from childhood. It may be hard to believe. My wife is a committed Christian who is kind, gentle, and very helpful to all.

As a husband and father, I have made many mistakes. But I believe Christ can change my situation as long as both parties understand their mistakes. The Holy Spirit’s filling is the key to happy family living. The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit’s filling is primarily for family living. Filling of the Holy Spirit is secondary in our assembly life. May the Holy Spirit help who read this book to surrender their life to Christ and live for His glory.