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All too often people think God made the list of do's and don't simply to regulate us and keep us from doing "fun" things. What is important to understand is WHY God gave us these rules, in this case, saving sex for marriage.
1. As others have said, sex is the ultimate bonding action. The physical union of man and woman serves many purposes, some obvious ones such as reproduction and pleasure, and some less obvious such as emotionally bonding and memory implantation. Many people do not understand the physiological reactions that take place during the sex act, chemical reactions that God created in order to "bond" a married couple in a deeply emotional way. This effect has especially been demonstrated in women, who actually produce a hormone during the act that causes her to feel emotionally attached to the man, which is why women often have so much mental anguish after committing the act with someone they just met or who has no meaning to them. The Bible says a man and woman are to cleave unto one another, that is, to become as one, and this particularly refers to emotional oneness as well as physical unity.
2. Saving sex for marriage prevents women from being left unsupported in the event that she gets pregnant. Yes, there are plenty of ways to avoid that now and yes, being married doesn't guarantee a man is going to support his wife and children or he may even die afterwards and she be left unsupported. In general, however, being married before having sex provides the best chance for a woman having that support she needs for raising children, as well as to provide the child(ren) a more stable and ideal home life, assuming the man and woman do their God-given roles in the family.
3. Saving sex until after marriage also establishes clear paternity. This has two aspects: right to inheritance, and paternal interaction and responsibility. The first aspect is somewhat less important today as it was in Biblical times as back then it was vital for a child to know who its father was in order to receive recognition, acceptance, blessings, support, and inheritance of familial goods and services. This is evident in many instances in the Bible where many children received much less if anything at all if they were not established paternally and in other instances, like with the Levites returning to Israel who were not allowed to join the priesthood due to paternity issues. The second aspect, paternal interaction and responsibility, is seen today in many families (though there are exceptions) where the father plays much less of a role in the lives of children that are not his. Part of this is biological in that a man feels less inclined (generally) to care for children that are not his own. Part of it is societal, where general attitude is that he has less say or importance to a child that is not his. I can affirm that from my own experiences with several stepfathers, all of which were much less concerned with my sister and I then their own children. You can't really fault them for that; it's in their nature. There are many other examples of this, but this is already long enough as it is. Haha.
4. I'll end this discussion with this most obvious point, which is simply saving sex for after marriage is important health-wise. We all know about the slough of diseases, infections, etc. that can all result from even 1 time having sex. The statistics are quite scary on diseases for sexually active unmarried people. Just to name one: "Among sexually active females (i.e., 57% of females aged 14--19 years and 97% of those aged 20--59 years), the prevalence of HPV infection was highest for those in the youngest age groups (i.e., approximately 40% in those aged 14--19 years and 50% in those aged 20--24 years). Prevalence declined substantially after age 24 years." (source: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5633a5.htm?s_cid=mm5633a5_e)
Scary.....
So, simply put, God had a reason for saying that sex was reserved for married couples. Why not listen to God?
I hope this very long response didn't bore anyone, LOL.
---Timothy
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'Come on in to the house and let's praise the Lord!'
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