An answer to a young Ukrainian woman’s question about relationships, such as how to go from courtship to marriage, especially arranged marriage, in 2025.

By Mark D. Harris

I traveled to Ukraine earlier this month to teach World Religions to students at the Ukraine Baptist Theological Seminary in Lviv. My 16 students were undergraduates, about half male and half female. Less than 50% were married, and all were Christian. While we studied the Unification Church, the “Moonies,” the discussion moved to their practice of arranged marriages. One young woman asked what I thought of arranged marriages. This article is in answer to her concerns.

The Problem

Much like in Western nations, marriage rates have declined in Ukraine.[1] Fertility rates, the number of children each woman will have during her reproductive lifetime, have also dropped.[2] Ukraine was losing people before the Russians invaded in February 2022, and the demographic situation is far worse after three years of war. As in most of the West, relations between men and women are marked by mistrust and antipathy.[3] Women can suffer abuse, men can lose their livelihoods on the flimsiest of accusations, and both are the enemy of each other. Progressives have no idea what men and women actually are, and push singleness or relationships that can never produce children. In such an environment, one can conclude that, intentionally or not, Ukraine, all of the West, and much of the world are committing demographic suicide.

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