set up

Using "settled down" to describe a married person is a misnomer. On one hand, it damagingly implies that a single person cannot be stable, and on the other, creates a false expectation of marriage and a married person. Singles have been prevented from taking up greater responsibilities (especially in church, sadly) because of their status (crippled further by an acontextual reading of a passage in 2 Timothy). Married people are mistaken for maturity and misplaced into important roles, further causing rifts in their family life. It gets worse when families are left to themselves to settle their own business, since the assumption is that parents "are matured enough to know what to do". 

We must stop using a person's marital status as a yardstick for maturity, so that the individual also removes false expectations from oneself and embraces communal accountability. We must instead offer love and support that each person needs in their various stages of life.

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