"Damaged goods" is a lie, but discernment is not a sin
We should not swing too far in the other direction in response to the misogyny of the Manosphere.
If a man has a history of intimate partner abuse, it is blasphemous to tell a woman she should not marry this man or that she should exercise caution. After all, he has repented of his sin and has been forgiven by Jesus, so we should not deny the power of the Cross. If the man falls back into what once was a besetting sin and severely beats his new wife, well, that was a reasonable risk. You cannot create a cheap grace omelette without breaking a few bones. Every “girl dad” reading this would be horrified by the sarcastic argument I just made, if I was making it seriously. So why is someone’s sexual history off limits in a way that previous violent conduct would never be?
For some reason, a bunch of Christians online have gotten a bee in their bonnet about the need for men to marry women who have been sexually promiscuous. If a man would prefer to marry a virgin, he is damned as “toxic” or “misogynistic.” In at least one case, he is condemned as a heretic. A pastor with nearly 80,000 followers on X (Twitter) posted this a while back:
If someone argues that a former promiscuous woman is “damaged goods” and questions whether a Christian young man should marry her, remember Rahab.
Much of the “manosphere” online, including the Christian manosphere, has indeed become a hotbed of misogyny and self-righteousness over the sexual past of “modern women.” Some of the pagans in this space are openly hypocritical, arguing they should be able to bed countless women while demanding the women they marry or take as concubines must be virgins. (Andrew Tate has had a large influence in this mindset.) There is absolutely no room for grace, redemption or forgiveness, and the blood of Christ is rendered meaningless by this self-righteous heresy. A woman who has sinned sexually and accepted Jesus as her Savior is seen with His righteousness every bit as much as the women and men who have kept themselves sexually pure.
But we should not swing too far in the other direction in response to the misogyny of the Manosphere. People who had multiple sexual partners before they were married are significantly more likely to commit adultery than people who had few or none. Adding children from previous relationships adds more stress factors to the marriage, especially if the newly-married couple wants to have biological children together. It is foolish to sweep these and other difficulties under the rug with the mantra of “grace, grace, grace.”
Of course a Christian man should have reservations about marrying a formerly promiscuous woman, and we should not allow Boomers who are carrying guilt about the sexual revolution to shame those men out of having wisdom and discernment. We don’t have to trash wisdom and discernment to embrace forgiveness and grace. This does not mean that a repentant Christian woman with sexual sin in her past cannot ever be happily joined in a faithful, monogamous marriage. Obviously, that position is heretical. However, there are risk factors that must be considered. It’s not “all or nothing.” We have got to rid ourselves of this simplistic “all or nothing” mindset in every single area of our lives, but that is especially true here. Lives and families are literally at stake.
Folks, if someone is offering a simple, one-size-fits-all solution to relationship problems, that person is almost certainly a huckster. If he is not a huckster, he is very foolish and uninformed about the world. Either way, his advice should be ignored. Moral standards are black and white, and there are times when a decision is clear. However, life with fallen, sinful human beings is a sea of gray and there are many, many judgment calls where the right answer is not at all clear. All we can do is seek counsel, pray for wisdom, and have faith that God will lead us into the right decision and protect us once that decision is made.