Marriage Partners

For some time my two boys have struggled with the fact that they don't know who they will marry. Being that they are 6 & 5, I can see their concern to solve this issue is very pressing. I've assured them that if they can't find anyone, arranged marriages can work and I'll be happy to pick for them.

Sometime back they both argued over which of them would get to marry me, mom! Their sister made sure they understood this wasn't going to happen. I told them that I already had a husband and they'd have to find their own wives. After they realized that would leave their dad without a wife they started to let go of that dream. We then went to arguing over which one would marry their sister, Bethany. This made us giggle and kind of grossed her out. We showed them in the Bible that you don't marry your sister. We told them it was the LAW, when the authority of that didn't stop the arguments. Next they moved to arguing over their two female cousins, we told them they couldn't marry them either .. same reasons.

This was exasperating. This was the extent of almost every female they thought would make a possible wife. In various conversations I got responses like:

Josiah: "Well you don't expect me to marry a stranger, do you?"
Micaiah: " How will I marry her if I never met her?"
not sure which one: "You only kiss your family people, so I can't marry anyone else."
"How will I know who she is?"

One night after listening to a Bible story about how Esau had chosen badly and picked a pagan wife so Issac sent Jacob to find a wife from his relatives (this totally confuses my sons theology about spouse choices), Josiah came to me with a very serious face.

J: "Mom? Can you just pick a wife for me?"
Y; "Honey, you don't need to worry about that. When you're old enough you'll want to pick your own wife."
J: "But I don't want to make a mistake and pick a pagan wife."
Y: "I'm glad you don't want to pick a pagan wife, I'm sure you'll use wisdom when you choose your wife and you can always talk to me about it when the time comes. "
J: "Are you sure I can't just marry you, it will be so much easier. This world has so many pagan wives." Totally serious face and he was very concerned.

He's SIX .... what are the teen years going to be like? I feel like a character from "Fiddler on the Roof" .
. "match maker, match maker make me a match. Find me a find. Catch me a Catch. "

Fortunately, things in the matchmaking department seem to have slowed down lately. Phew!! I'm going to need a little time to figure out what makes these boys tick.... the hormones haven't even kicked in yet.