Eric Zorn

About the author: Eric Zorn is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

A survey by a bridal magazine found that most men and women were not virgins when they married. Abstinence-only sex education programs maintain that premarital sex is immoral and unhealthy, but in reality, most married couples have engaged in premarital sex and do not regret it. Although trying to persuade teens to wait until marriage before they have sex, or at least delay it until they are older, is a worthy goal, premarital sex is standard, normal behavior.

Readers of Bride's may be an unusually randy bunch, so we must use some caution in approaching the results of the magazine's weddingnight survey published in its August/September 1998 issue.

Out of 3,000 engaged couples who responded, just 4 percent of the women and 1 percent of the men...