Gender Traits and Roles

This week in class, we talked a lot about the different roles of males and females.  I really enjoyed talking about this because it's interesting to to see how different men and women are.  For instance, women are more likely to be the nurturers and they have a better ability to do or think about several things at one time.  Men on the other hand are more focused on tasks rather then relationships and are very focused on one thing at a time and usually cannot multi-task.

The different traits of men and women can either be detramental or positive in a relationship.  Since men and women are opposites in many ways, it is sometimes difficult to make a relationship work.  It's important to understand and accept the different traits because we are all going to or have dealt with it at some point in our lives.

Sometimes it is hard for people to understand how a marriage is going to workout.  But Heavenly Father gave us different traits because he knew that the traits would balance each other out.  I think of marriage between a man and a woman is like a puzzle.  When we are single, independent and living our own lives, we have many traits of our own but are missing some very important ones that would make our lives a lot easier and more enjoyable if we had them.  When we get married, the spouse fills in the missing pieces of the puzzle and you fill in his missing pieces and together, you make a complete puzzle.  That's why marriage is so important because without one or the other, you can't be as successful in life.  I'm grateful for the perspective that I have on gender roles and for knowing that they are divine and of God.  Without the differences of the roles, it would be difficult to manage a family and I know that it's very important to accept and understand the differences in men and women.

Premarital Sex

This week in class, we learned about several different factors that cause unhealthy families.  Those factors included; a significant increase in cohabitation, delayed marriage, employed mothers with young children, unmarried mothers, an increase in divorce rates and premarital sex.  Out of those recent trends, the one that stands out to me the most is premarital sex and the effects it has on future marriage.

In our society today, it's normal to have intercourse with several different partners before marriage.  Even younger children are noticing this trend and becoming more accustomed to the idea of sex before marriage.  This trend has become very detrimental to families in our society and has lead to many different problems.

A major problem with premarital sex are the after effects of the act.  Many people, especially adolescents have unprotected sex before marriage which leads to pregnancy.  The problem with this, is that so many children are being raised in homes with only one parent.  Not only is this hard on the single parent but it is also  destructive for the child who is being raised in an unstable family.  Families are being destroyed from premarital sex because of the risk of pregnancy.  A child born out of wedlock will most likely struggle with emotional problems because of it and may keep the trend going and have a child of their own out of wedlock.  Another issue with premarital sex is that it can lead to infidelity within a marriage.  This often occurs because the spouse has had past sexual relationships with other people and it's hard for them to stick with having sex with just his or her spouse.  It also opens doors to past "lovers" and a spouse can easily go back to a past lover and start up sexual relationships with them again.  Premarital sex is becoming such a common thing in our society and unfortunately, people aren't thinking of the consequences that can come from it.  Sex before marriage is causing a destruction in the family and people need to become more aware of this so that families can be saved.