Should pregnant women get married?

“My boyfriend told me that we were just practicing. I didn’t know very much about sex then,” she says. When she fell pregnant, Hawa not her true name started pressuring her fiancé to get married and sorry to say, Hawa was a committed minister at one of the evangelical churches of Kigali city suburbs. When the news fell in the ears of her senior pastor, he was outraged and refused to wed her in church describing her as immoral. Rogers Rukundo, a youth pastor at New Life Bible Church in Kicukiro, says he can’t wed someone pregnant before marriage. “My honest take on the matter is to avoid getting pregnant in the first place if you’re not married, even if you were planning to get married one day.” He reminds those intending to marry soon, that Christians are repeatedly told that the Bible is full of references about sexual sin. Sex before marriage goes against the teachings of God and that it is immoral. ‘We’ve all heard the teaching that says our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, so having sex before marriage means you’re straying away from God’s fellowship’ he said.Pastor Rukundo adds that these days’ people believe in having a ‘test run’, with any product before finally paying up, the same theory has and is still applied when it comes to marriage. Many times, when a couple realizes they are expecting a child, they rush into marriage, to make sure the child is not born outside wedlock. Even if that means having to wed a few weeks to the baby’s birth. Most of the evangelical churches take this issue as a serious matter, and can’t wed such a person since their church doctrines or policy doesn’t allow sexual immorality.Rukundo also said that after all, Christians are not expected to have sex before marriage. He quotes the Bible, the guide to the Christian faith, denounces numerous sex sins. The first is sex before marriage. The Bible describes the human body as a temple of God which should be pure at all times, meaning that those who have sex outside wedlock are disrespecting their bodies. If a woman gets pregnant before marriage does she have to wed in church?” George Kalisa, a student at Kigali Institute of Education says that there is no ruling that denounces pregnant women from getting married, although, “It is always better for a couple to wait until they get married.” In the modern world, sex before marriage has become so commonplace in our society, even to the point of being expected, that many professing Christians dont even consider it to be a sin. Many professing christians have forgotten that Gods Word does not change. Kalisa also notes that there are some cases in which getting married before the baby is born would be wise, if a committed couple who was already planning to get married commits fornication which results into pregnancy.While the Bible says that sex outside marriage is prohibited, nowhere does it say that the man and woman must marry. Getting married just because of a pregnancy will not right the wrong. By getting married, you would be committing a second folly. He again asks himself in surprise, should a pregnant woman be wed in church? For heavens sake, no! Unless, of course, the two of them are very much in love. And if you were planning to get married someday anyway, then that question is a non-issue. Patricia Uwase says ‘When I found out I was pregnant I freaked out too. I ended up telling my family and church elders that I was around three months, and cowardly I texted them... I couldn’t bear to hear the disappointment in their voices.” From then a lot was said about her, but she decided that it did not matter. And now she is married and loving her life and excited for her little baby. She believes that no one should let any person dampen this experience. Besides pregnancy is emotionally hard enough without being stressed out about not telling your family yet, or worrying about what they think of you after they know... Besides God, no one else has a right to judge anybody. Back in the good old days, a lady who suddenly got pregnant outside marriage was looked down upon. In drastic cases, her parents would either whisk her off to an abortion clinic or force her boyfriend to marry her. These days, much has changed. Getting pregnant outside marriage is merely viewed as an act of negligence or carelessness, and it really shouldn’t be the end of the world, not for the couple, and certainly not for the dotting parents. ntagu2005@yahoo.com