Is it good to marry before you graduate from the college?

The question received today is the following:

I am 20 years, I study at the college, and I date a girl for 2 years and we want to get married. Can this be an obstacle in the future, I mean, can it prevent me graduating from the college?

You have to take into account everything

When the Lord Jesus was telling people about the price that must be paid by those who want to become his disciples, the Savior said:

Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. (Gospel of Luke 14:27-33)(NASB)

It is the same if you want to marry, you must do your accounts how you will take care of your wife and children that you will have from God. Take into account all these things and see if now, as a student, you will be able to provide for your wife and children. I managed to do that, even if it was difficult. On the other hand, I noticed that now, guys are afraid to marry and, in some way, they would like to have everything when they marry, which is very difficult. And it was not so with our parents. They got married and together built the family and the household. Then, I know cases when someone was in love with a girl and was convinced that he must propose her marriage, but had not done it a long time, thinking that he had to acquire property, a car, everything and only then to ask her to marry him. One day he realized that the girl was asked by another one and she accepted the marriage proposal. The boy remained with ruined dreams.

You can not marry if you do not have the ability to support a family

When I say this, I do not mean great accounts of money, or that you need a house or other wealth. I refer primarily to have a specialty, no matter what it is and to know how to work to support you and others. As I said, when I got married I was a student, but I had already been a trainer for two years and then, it was a time when I went to school and worked as a History teacher, so I was able to face the needs. It is sad to look at how some young people today are concerned with making money, but they don’t think to develop their capacity to maintain. There are many who study at college just to be “a par with the others” and to “not be ashamed that they don’t have higher education.” I think that they have to be ashamed with such higher education, when they can not and do not want to work to support them and others.

Today, I had to go somewhere with a taxi and the driver was a young person who is a student at the Technical University. He told me that he goes to lessons, and then comes to work and in this way, he earns money so as not to bother his parents, but to help them. Here’s a young man who has a correct attitude and develop his ability to maintain. I think this young man can marry now, being a student, if God will bring him the woman He has prepared for him.

Why do you study at the college?

As I have written, some study just to be “a par with others”, because it is fashionable nowadays to have higher education diploma. Why do you study at the college? If you do this because you want to have a job to be useful to others, to contribute to the good of the country and to maintain your wife and children, you must finish college. But if you went only to be “a par with others” and to be supported by your parents, without thinking about how you can contribute with something, stop and do not deceive yourself. There are some who do not learn anything, just have fun, without shame, and when the session comes, they come to ask money from parents to pay bribes and to take good grades. This is an insolence. Some people from the city of Thessaloniki, showed themselves as good and faithful after having such a life style. Apostle Paul wrote them as follows:

For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busy bodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. (The IInd Epistle of Paul to Thessalonians 3:11-12)(NASB)

It doesn’t matter if you study or not in college, if you do not have the capacity to earn money to maintain the family, you can not get married now. If you can deal with the faculty and at the same time to support the family, you can marry. Or, maybe parents are ready to help you financially until you finish school and start working. But even so, look for a service and don’t be care-free since the parents want to help you. Develop your ability to support the family, because the time comes when you have to do your duty towards your parents and to support them in old age.

Worse than leaving the college is to not be able to maintain the family you have founded. This can bring serious consequences and many misunderstandings in the family.

Translated by Felicia Djugostran