How, then, may one know how to choose a mate? There are only two absolutely essential requirements: first, that the other person is also a Christian; second, that the two of you not only desire to but growingly give evidence of an ability to face, talk over, and solve problems together from God’s Word in God’s way. While socio-economic, ethnic, chronological, and other factors may rightly enter the picture as minor matters of preference, they are in no sense essentials. Indeed, they are icing on the cake.