Author’s Note: This blog post has been expanded and clarified in my book Courtship in Crisis.
I grew up as a member of the homeschool community back when we were hiding from the cops and getting our textbooks from public school dumpsters. When I was a teenager, my friends started reading this new book called I Kissed Dating Goodbye. For months we could talk of little else. After reading it myself, I grew into as big an opponent of dating as you could find. Dating was evil and Courtship, whatever it was, was godly, good and Biblical.
My grandparents would often ask why I wasn’t dating in high school. I explained what courtship was and quoted Joshua Harris, chapter and verse. Their response surprised me.
“I don’t think courtship is a smart idea,” my grandfather said.
“How can you tell who you want to marry if you aren’t going out on dates?” my grandmother wondered every time the topic came up. I tried to convince them but to no avail. They both obstinately held to the position that courtship was a foolish idea.
Well, what did they know? They were public schooled. I ignored their advice on relationships, preferring to listen to the young people around me who were passionate advocates of courtship.
As I grew older, I started to speak at homeschool conferences and events. I talked with homeschool parents, students and alumni all over the country and started to see some challenges with making courtship work.
Some of the specific challenges I identified were:
- Identification (Finding that other person)
- Interaction (Spending time with the other person)
- Initiation (Starting the relationship)
So I founded PracticalCourtship.com. Its purpose: to instigate a national conversation about how to make courtship more practical. Visits and comments poured in from all over the country about how to make courtship work and why it did not work.
Each year I waited for courtship to start working and for my homeschool friends to start getting married. It never happened. Most of them are still single. Some have grown bitter and jaded. Then couples who did get married through courtship started getting divorced. I’m talking the kind of couples who first kissed at their wedding were filing for divorce.
This was not the deal!
The deal was that if we put up with the rules and awkwardness of courtship now we could avoid the pain of divorce later. The whole point of courtship was to have a happy marriage, not a high divorce rate.
So I humbled myself and took my grandmother out for dinner to hear why she thought courtship was a bad idea all those years ago. She had predicted the failure of courtship back in the 90s and I wanted to understand how and why.
Now let me define what I mean by “courtship”.
So what is courtship anyway?
After 20 years there still is no general consensus as to what courtship is. But here are the elements most conservative communities have in common:
- The man must ask the woman’s father’s permission before pursuing the woman romantically.
- High accountability (chaperones, monitored correspondence, etc).
- Rules about physical contact and purity. (The specific rules vary from community to community).
- The purpose of the courtship is marriage
- High relational intentionality and intensity
- High parental involvement. Fathers typically hold a “permission and control” role rather than the traditional “advice and blessing” role held by their fathers.
The Case for Traditional Dating
My grandmother grew up in a marginally Christian community. People went to church on Sunday, but that was the extent of their religious activity. They were not the Bible-reading, small-grouping, mission-tripping Christian young people common in evangelical churches today.
And yet her community of friends all got married and then stayed married for decades and decades. So what on earth were they doing that worked so well? Over dinner, my grandmother shared her story about what dating was like back in the 30s and 40s.
When my grandmother dated in middle school (yes, middle school) her parents had one primary rule for her.
The Primary Dating Rule: Don’t go out with the same guy twice in a row.
So if she went out for soda with Bob on Tuesday, she had to go to a movie with Bill on Thursday before she could go to the school dance with Bob on Saturday.
That sounded crazy to me. So, I asked her the rationale behind it. She explained that the lack of exclusivity helped them guard their hearts and kept things from getting too serious too quickly. The lack of exclusivity kept the interactions fun and casual. “The guys wouldn’t even want to kiss you!” She said.
The lack of exclusivity helped the girls guard their hearts and kept the boys from feeling entitled to the girl. How could a boy have a claim to her time, heart or body if she was going out with someone else later that week?
She went on to explain that by the time she graduated from high school, she had gone out on dates with over 20 different guys. This meant that by the time she was 17 years old she knew which Bob she wanted to marry. They got married and stayed married till my grandfather passed away half a century later.
“If I had only gone out with 3 or 4 guys I wouldn’t have known what I wanted in a husband,” she said.
It is not that her parents were uninvolved; it is that they played an advisory role, particularly as she entered high school and they relaxed the rules about not going steady.
The Difference Between “Dating” and “Going Steady”
She went on to explain that there used to be a linguistic differentiation between “dating” and “going steady”. “Going steady” meant you were going out with the same person multiple times in a row. It often had symbols like the girl wearing the guy’s letter jacket. This telegraphed to everyone at school that she was “off the market” and that she had a “steady beau”.
It seems that my great grandparents’ rule forbidding my grandmother from going out with the same guy twice in a row was a common rule in those days.
The Greatest Generation was encouraged to date and discouraged from going steady while in middle school.
This is different from my generation, which is encouraged to “wait until you are ready to get married” before pursuing a romantic relationship. This advice, when combined with the fact that “the purpose of courtship is marriage”, makes asking a girl out for dinner the emotional equivalent of asking for her hand in marriage.
I am not convinced that anyone is ever truly ready to get married. Readiness can become a carrot on a stick, an ideal that can never be achieved. Marriage will always be a bit like jumping into a pool of cold water. A humble realization that you are not ready and in need of God’s help may be the more healthy way to start a marriage.
As the decades moved on, our language and behavior changed. We stopped using the phrase “going steady” and changed “dating” to mean “going steady”. For example, we would now say “John and Sarah have been dating for 3 months.” when the Greatest Generation would have said “John and Sarah have been going steady for 3 months.”
We then started using new pejoratives like “dating around” and “playing the field” to describe what used to just be called “dating”. Each decade added more exclusivity, intensity, and commitment to dating and saw a subsequent rise in temptation and promiscuity.
It is easier to justify promiscuity when you are exclusively committed to just one person, even if that commitment is only a week old.
In the late 80s and early 90s this promiscuous culture reached its peak. People would “go steady” for just a few weeks and then move on to the next relationship. It was this “hookup and breakup” culture that the founders of courtship were reacting to.
But their proposed solution involved adding even more commitment, exclusivity and intensity, the very things that lead to the problem in the first place. This is why courtship is fundamentally flawed.
The courtship movement eliminated dating and replaced it with nothing.
Or, put another way, they replaced dating with engagement. The only tangible difference between an engagement and a courtship is the ring and the date.
Similarities between Courtship & Engagement:
- They both require the permission of the father.
- They both are intended for marriage.
- They are not “broken up” but are instead “called off”.
- When they are called off there is an inevitable rending of a community as one of the couple no longer feel comfortable spending time with the community of their ex-future spouse.
Young people are expected to jump from interacting with each other in groups straight into “pseudo-engagement”. This is a jump very few are prepared to make. The result is that a commitment to courtship is often a commitment to lifelong singleness.
Why the Courtship Divorce Rate is So High
Recently I have seen a spike in divorces amongst couples who courted. I have a few theories as to why this is. Young people whose parents often maintain veto power on all of their decisions are then expected to make this most important decision without any experience in good decision making. They have no context of who they are, past decision making or an idea of what they are looking for in a spouse.
How can you know what personality you fit well with if you only go out with one other person? The result can be a mismatched couple and a marriage that is difficult to sustain.
Right now all we have little research to go on in terms of the courtship divorce rate. In my observations, some homeschool communities have a much higher divorce rate than others. I would be very interested in seeing some research on this phenomenon. This blog post is my call for more research on the divorce rate amongst couples who “courted” before getting married.
Advantages of Traditional Dating
Less Temptation – It is hard to fall in love with Bob on Tuesday when you know you are going out for coffee with Bill on Thursday. This lack of emotional commitment leads to less physical temptation. Less temptation leads to less compromise. I have no idea how women are supposed to guard their hearts while in an exclusive relationship with the purpose of marriage.
More Interaction – I know many homeschool girls who are frustrated that they never get asked out on a date. It is not uncommon to find a 21 year old stay at home daughter who has never been asked out on a date. The reason for this is not because the girl is unattractive (although that may be the story she convinces herself of over time).
The real reason is that few guys are willing to ask permission from a woman’s father to marry her before being able to ask her out on a date to get to know her. Even when this permission is requested, it is unlikely to be given.
I know several godly, hardworking and attractive homeschool guys who have been rejected by as many as a dozen fathers. I respect their tenacity. Getting turned down by courtship fathers is tough on guys because the fathers are rarely gentle or kind. So if you are a courtship-minded girl wondering why the guys are not calling, you may want to ask your dad how many guys he has run off.
With Traditional Dating, asking a girl out on a date is no big deal. All the guy is asking to do is to get to know the girl better. Maybe this leads to a deeper relationship, maybe it doesn’t. Either way, the interaction is easier and more fun when it is not so intense.
Less Heartbreak – One of the promises of courtship is that it can lead to less heartbreak than dating. I laugh at this to keep myself from crying. This could not be further from the truth. Calling off a courtship can be as emotionally wrenching as calling off an engagement. It can take years to recover from a “failed courtship.” Also let’s not also forget the emotional cost for girls of not being asked out year after year and the emotional cost for guys of being rejected by father after father.
More Marriage – Let’s face it, most married people got married because they dated first. I would even submit that most homeschoolers who do get married supplemented with dating at some point in their journey. Courtship is not resulting in many marriages despite having been advocated by (sometimes unmarried) conservative leaders for nearly 20 years.
More Fun – The institution of marriage is crumbling. Of the last two generations, one won’t get married and the other won’t stay married. A smaller percentage of people are married in America than at any other time. Part of what helps perpetuate the institution of marriage is making the process of getting married fun. My grandmother made dating in her day sound really fun. Courtship on the other hand can be awkward and emotionally heartwrenching.
Dating also trains people to continue dating their spouse after they get married. It is important for married couples to be able to have fun with each other. The kind of parents who are the strongest advocates of courtship are often the ones who go on the fewest dates with each other.
More Matchmaking – Modern Courtship doesn’t really have a mechanism for matchmaking. How can there be blind dates if the man must first get permission from a father? Courtship relationships are so intense that even introductions can be awkward. I know many happily married couples who met through a blind date or an online matchmaking service like eHarmony. Matchmaking is a time-tested practice that Traditional Dating is fully compatible with. Courtship? Not so much.
More League Awareness – Not everyone has the same level of attractiveness, character, intelligence and wealth. Parents tend to see their own children through rose-colored glasses. Homeschool communities can be a bit like Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average. It is easy for “no guy to be good enough for daddy’s little princess”. The sad result of enforcing this mindset is a daughter who becomes a spinster. With traditional dating guys learn their league by finding out what girls say “yes” to that second date. Girls learn their league by seeing what kind of guys ask them out.
Responding to Common Questions & Objections to Traditional Dating
Why Not Just Spend Time in Groups?
If you talk with advocates of modern courtship they speak highly of single people spending time in groups. Group settings reduce the intensity, commitment and exclusivity and thus protect the hearts of single people.
The problem with group settings is that not all personality types open up in group settings. Many married couples include one spouse who is more comfortable in group settings than the other. These couples may have never found each other if they were limited to “group dating.”
In group activities, it can be hard for the wallflowers to be discovered for the flowers that they really are. They need a less intense 1-on-1 setting in which to bloom. Group settings are particularly rough on women who grew up in communities where they were trained to value submissiveness, meekness and quietness.
The other challenge with group settings is that they are logistically complex. The more people you add to the group, the harder coordination becomes. Where is a stay-at-home daughter who attends a small family integrated church supposed to find groups of young people to hang out with? The result of limiting interaction to group settings is many lonely nights interacting with no one.
But Isn’t Courtship Biblical?
When applying Scripture, particularly the Old Testament, to our lives, it is important to differentiate between Biblical precedent, principle and precept. Just because Jacob had two wives and a seven-year engagement does not mean that God wants all men to have two wives and seven-year engagements.
What we have in the Old Testament is a lot of precedent: each story is different from the last.
For precedents we have:
- the woman as the protagonist in the romance (Ruth & Boaz)
- the man as the protagonist in the romance (Jacob & Rachel)
- the romance arranged by a third party (Isaac & Rebekah)
- the woman entering the man’s harem (David & Abigail, Micah, Bathsheba etc.)
There are some good Scriptural precepts about sexual purity in the New Testament, and there are some principles about the benefits of marrying young and that sort of thing.
But the Bible is surprisingly quiet when it comes to laying out a system of courtship. Courtship Systems are cultural, and the Bible rarely advocates one cultural approach over another. God’s heart is that every tribe and tongue come worship him without having to surrender their food, language or other cultural distinctives in the process.
Most of the moral arguments for courtship are actually arguments for arranged marriage. The arguments for the strong involvement of parents fit arranged marriage much better than they fit courtship.
When I started PracticalCourtship.com, one of my goals was to never use the site to criticize arranged marriage. In countries like India, that have both arranged marriages and “love marriages,” the arranged marriages have the lower divorce rate. Arranged marriage has been used by many cultures for many years with good results.
The problem is that arranged marriage is not a good fit for western culture. Many Americans value individual liberty more than life itself. Giving this most important decision to someone else is not something many of us are comfortable with. Also, parents are often hesitant to arrange marriages lest their child resent them if the marriage turns out to be an unhappy one.
I don’t see Arranged Marriage taking off in Western Culture.
We need a system to help young people make good decisions. Fortunately, we have one: Traditional Dating.
Traditional Dating fits our culture like a glove. Most of Americans already intuitively know how it works because it is part of who we are as a people. If you don’t know how it works, ask your grandparents and they will tell you of the glory days when men were free. Watch the twinkle in their eye when they tell you of a time when men and women could fall in love and pick their own spouses.
Hasn’t Our Sexualized Culture Ruined Dating?
There is no denying that the media is far more sexually charged than it was when my grandparents were dating in junior high. Now while some of that is the media following culture (The Beatles sang about hand holding while hippies swapped STDs in the 60s), I do believe that media affects the culture. The question is how do we best respond to that culture.
The commitment, exclusivity and intensity of dating is what lead to temptation and compromise in the first place. Courtship makes the problem worse by increasing the commitment which intensifies the temptation. The advocates of courtship know this, which is why chaperones are so critical to the system.
The other problem with courtship is that it often delays marriage. Courtship communities expect young people to live celibate lives in a sexually charged culture for a decade or more before they get married. The Bible instructs us to flee temptation and to marry lest you burn with lust. Courtship teaches instead to delay marriage until you are ready.
I recently heard a local pastor complaining about a rash of older 20 something women in his church who had given up on finding prince charming. They started making physical compromises in an effort to attract a man. Once they gave up on courtship they just grabbed whatever the world was offering.
The benefit of traditional dating is that the lack of exclusivity reduces temptation. It also helps young people find out who they are and who they are looking for faster. Early marriage reduces the number of years a young person must resist sexual temptation through celibacy.
Finally, I should say this: Where sin abounds, grace abounds more. I understand Grace to be the power of God to do the will of God. The power of God is greater than the power of our sexualized culture. There is nothing new under the sun and no new temptation that is not already common to man. This is not the first time Christians have lived in a sexualized culture.
If you study history, you will find that this actually happens often. In each of those generations God provided a way out. I believe that for our generation that way is Traditional Dating.
Now Let’s Talk Some Specifics
Suggestions For Single Women
If you are a single woman, realize that the reason guys are not asking you out is NOT because you are unattractive. It is because you live in a system where he must want to marry you before he can get to know you. It is the system that is broken, not you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Somewhere out there is a guy who will see you as the most beautiful woman in the world. The more guys you meet, the faster you will find him.
- If a Christian guy asks you out for dinner, say “yes”. You don’t need to love him to say yes to a first date.
- Be friendly. Give the guy hope that he has a chance with you. Coyness is not as attractive as the media makes it out to be.
- Don’t make him run a gauntlet before he can get to know you. Realize he is not asking to marry you when he asks if he can buy you dinner.
- Some guys are hidden gems and are more than meets the eye. Give him a chance to win your attention and to earn that second date.
- If you are not interested in a guy, let him down gently. There is a way to give a firm “no” to a guy without making him feel like a worm.
- Don’t call in your dad to scare him off unless he won’t take the hint. Your dad and his shotgun should be the last resort.
- Let the guy pay for dinner.
Suggestions for Single Men
- Start asking girls out. Most girls would love to be asked out and will say “yes” if you would just ask them.
- Realize that asking a girl out for dinner is not the same as proposing marriage.
- If she says you need to talk to her dad first, take the “no” for what it is and move on to the next woman. For a better explanation of this point see 7 Reasons I Recommend Avoiding Dragon Guarded Women.
- If you have been browbeaten by harsh courtship fathers, I feel your pain. Ask God to heal your heart and to give you the courage to try again. The tide is shifting. The leaders that those men used to justify their actions are quickly fading into the past. We are entering a kinder, gentler age. Who knows. Maybe the next girl you ask out could be the one.
- Get a job. Money makes you more attractive.
- Pay for dinner.
Suggestions for Both Single Men and Single Women
- Do what your grandparents did and go out on dates with lots of different people before going steady with any of them.
- Don’t marry the first person you have feelings for.
- Keep an eye out for public places where you can have private conversations.
- Find a church with lots of single people. There are still churches out there with a healthy culture of traditional dating. If no one in your church got married last year, don’t expect to break that trend. You can always move back to your parent’s church after you find your sweetheart.
- Have fun.
- Fear God.
Suggestions For Parents
- Try to make marriage attractive to your children by loving and respecting your spouse the best you can. One reason that your children may not be getting married is because they don’t want what you have in your marriage.
- Start dating your spouse again. Do whatever you can to make your marriage a happy one.
- Encourage your sons to ask girls out on dates.
- Allow your daughters to say yes to first dates from Christian guys you don’t know.
- As your children become adults, give advice instead of commands. Being a parent does not make you a Pope for another adult.
- The gentler you are in giving advice, the more it will be sought.
- Take a step back and trust God to guide your child directly.
- Pray earnestly and persistently for your child.
- Encourage your children to find their way to places where they can meet other single people.
- Don’t force your daughters to stay at home. Let them get out into the world where they can meet godly men. If you want to catch a fish you must first walk to the pond.
- Remember that gentleness and kindness are fruits of the Spirit.
- Treat the person interested in your child as a fellow brother or sister in Christ.
How to Talk With Your Folks About Courtship
Share this post with your parents and talk to with them about why courtship is flawed and why you are going to start going out on dates.
The older you are, the easier this conversation will be. I find that even the most controlling parents start to mellow out as their single daughters start entering their 30s. That biological clock waits for no man, even Prince Charming. It will help when their friends start bragging about their grandchildren.
Listen to them as they share the mistakes they made while dating. Listen to their story of how they fell in love. Just remember that every romance is different and your story will be different. Just because your parents got divorced or live in an unhappy marriage does not doom you to their fate.
Realize that many of their rules were created out of fear. They are afraid that you will suffer the same way they did when they were your age.
Don’t forget that they love you. Explain to them that you all want the same thing: for you to be happily married.
Explain that courtship is not helping you become happily married. Courtship leads to singleness more often than it leads to marriage.
If all else fails, play the grandchildren card. Most parents want grandchildren. Try to explain that if they want grandchildren you need to get married and courtship is not helping you do that.
Where do we go from here?
Share this post with your community on Facebook and Google+ to continue the conversation. My hope is that as single people start embracing traditional dating we can restore the fun first date to our culture. The more people who read this post the more guys that will start asking girls out and the more girls who will say “yes” to that first date.
Tweetables:
- The Greatest Generation was encouraged to date and discouraged from going steady in middle school. (Click to Tweet)
- The courtship movement eliminated dating and replaced it with nothing. (Click to Tweet)
- The only tangible difference between an engagement and a courtship is the ring and the date. (Click to Tweet)
- A commitment to courtship is often a commitment to lifelong singleness. (Click to Tweet)
- Most of the moral arguments for courtship are actually arguments for arranged marriage. (Click to Tweet)
- Being a parent does not make you a Pope for another adult. (Click to Tweet)
- The benefit of traditional dating is that the lack of exclusivity reduces temptation. (Click to Tweet)
- When applying Scripture, it is important to differentiate between precedent, principle and precept. (Click to Tweet)
What do you think?
If I have learned one thing running PracticalCourtship.com, it is that courtship is very controversial. Even the definition of the word sparks a debate. That is fine. I am happy to see your thoughts and opinions in the comments. A few requests for the comments:
- Keep the conversation civil. No name calling. Just because you were hurt in the past is no excuse to hurt others in the future.
- Keep the conversation humble. Bragging about how this is not a problem in your family is not very helpful.
- Please read the follow up article before posting comments. I may have already addressed your question in the Q&A post.
- I reserve the right to delete comments. It is not censorship to take your comment off of my personal blog. Remember you can say whatever you want about me or this post on your own blog or Facebook page.
If you think that this post should be expanded into a book to respond to some of the concerns posted below, click here, to get book updates.
This post has turned into a book!
Thank you to everyone who backed Courtship in Crisis on Kickstarter. You can now find the book on Amazon.
Let me first say that I am not a strong advocate for extreme courtship. However, I do not believe recreational dating is a biblical option. There were statements in your article I found to be unwise. God designed and called fathers to be the leader and protectors of their daughters. Discouragement of this is dangerous. I am aware many young men and women do not have godly parents with wisdom. I did not. Nevertheless, the Bible is clear. Parents are put in place by God to love and guide their children. We must be very careful we do not promote the disregard of wisdom and protection parents provide. I was concerned as I read your encouragement of dating Christians unknown to the parents. Once again, parents are God’s primary vehicle of wisdom in the life of their children. I could be wrong, but this article seems to be another reactive pendulum swing against a bad personal experience. It saddens me so many “Christian” parents have raised their children in fear rather than in joy driven pursuit of honoring Christ with their relationships.
problem with this is it makes getting dates sound so easy, I’m 26 yrs old I have asked every girl I’ve ever been interested in out on a date, since high school, and I have yet to get a single yes. I’m tired of hearing all the cliche’s I’ve heard em all. I’ve tried online dating to no avail. I just hate when people act like its an easy thing. I’m probably gonna just end up a bitter, lonely man.
A moment of silence for our brother in the friend zone.
To say that dating Bob on one day and Bill a few days later is less temptation for sin is naive to me… maybe because you didn’t do that type of dating that seems logical to you. Temptation to sin is not linked to commitment but to lust and in today’s society especially, but even in the 80s when I dated, it can rear its ugly head even on a first date. Boundaries and caution are wise and should be encouraged not discouraged. I appreciate your Grandma’s perspective but times have changed since the 30s and 40s. My guess is the divorce rate isn’t about not dating enough but other issues. In biblical times people didn’t date and the divorce rate was nearly non-existent (not that I believe in arrange marriages). But I believe culture has more affect on divorce than dating. If dating were the issue then we would see a lower divorce rate in sectors where courtship isn’t practiced, and we don’t….the rates are higher.
I agree. I would venture the divorce rate is so high, among Christians and non-Christians, because of a lack of willingness to submit to each other -selfishness -not whether you dated or courted!
I respect your motive (I think), but I think you go to far the other way. I was encouraged to date early and often, with no restraints. I regret it. I wish I had been introduced to the concept of courtship by loving, careful parents when I was young. You err in placing too much importance on a particular method – just like the people you are criticizing.
I think the PRINCIPLE your grandmother shared – don’t invest your heart into something too much too soon – is the key. People – especially young, single people – tend to idolize marriage. Treating marriage as the end all, be all key to happiness is the problem – whether dating or courting.
People should have a goal to get married – and seek marriage. But they need to have the right motive: to serve God and bless the world through having a family – and yes, for their own enjoyment and blessing too. But NOT to try to satisfy the ultimate need for security, identity and happiness that ONLY God can provide.
Are you kidding me? Young people don’t idolize marriage. We hate, fear and disdain marriage. All we see in the church and in the media is talk about all the problems in marriage. The struggles, the sins the pain, the responsibility, the hardship. Marriage is pursued out of a sense of duty. Not out of a sense of desire. The church and the world seem to be in lock step in spewing anti marriage propaganda. I have seen almost no arguments or treatises on why marriage is awesome, great or should be pursued. And of the ones I have seen even fewer were any good.
For what it’s worth at this point, I found tjis article interesting yet flawed itself.
I am not sure how accurate the vague claims of “a spike in the divorce rate among those who courted” are.
Off the top of my head, I can think of 15 couples who successfully met and married through some form of courtship. All are happily married and raising godly families. The oldest girl to get married of all these was 23.
At the same time, I cannot think of one single unhappily-married, let alone divorced, couple who courted.
I suggest you just peruse the comments if you want examples of courtships that ended in divorce. There are countless.
A couple things about the perspective of this article that I feel could be skewing some of the advice:
There seems to be a double-standard in regards to trusting the adult Christian individual. We don’t need to have a parent decide things for us, we can be trusted to make good decisions on our own. Yet, there is also implied a frightening lack of self-control: “Courtship communities expect young people to live celibate lives in a sexually charged culture for a decade or more before they get married. ” Oh no! That’s just too hard – better get married so you don’t have to fight lust any more. (Except from what I have heard from married couples, you still have to struggle with that kind of sin after marriage).
Then there is the assumption that God’s plan for everyone is marriage. One plan, one best way of life – find that husband and start having grandchildren for your parents. Too bad that Mother Theresa wasted her life and never found that man who would have completed her. This assumption could block off the possibility that some men and women may be called by God to live the single life, to serve, love and follow in the vocational footsteps of Jesus, celibate and single His whole life (and yes, I think He did make it past 30 that way).
Just some thoughts, which don’t necessarily mean that either courting or dating is better, but that maybe it is good to widen our view and be able to accept where we are at the moment may be where we should be, even if that is not married, or dating, or courting.
This is a very interesting article, but the line “being a parent does not make you a Pope” strikes me as rather anti-Catholic. I think it is based on a misunderstanding of the true role of the Pope. I hope you will be writing a book on this topic, Thomas, but please be careful not to exclude or offend Catholics in this way.
I entirely agree with your overall premise. But there was a point where I wanted to offer a bit of pushback (really, more on the language than the concept).
You wrote, “Some guys are hidden gems and are more than meets the eye. Give him a chance to win your attention and to earn that second date.” I think your point here is to encourage women to lighten up a bit, and realize that they don’t have to be actively “in like with” a man before agreeing to have dinner with him. To that effect, I absolutely agree. But there is a pretty toxic narrative in our culture–not just among conservative, marriage-minded Christians, but at large–which says, implicitly or explicitly, that women are obliged to give men a chance at dating them, so long as man in question is nice.
However, that’s simply not true, and I don’t believe it’s healthy. A woman may have any number of reasons for declining the attention of a good man. She may have a massive crush on someone else. She may be overwhelmed with stuff in her personal life and be disinterested in dating for the time being. She may feel awkward and uneasy around this man in particular, for reasons she can’t quite identify (sometimes through no fault of his own, and sometimes through real discernment). She may be hurting from a past bad relationship and reluctant to start a new one. She may have, through prior acquaintance with this man, already noticed definitive qualities that she doesn’t gel with, whether those are serious character flaws or simple personality mismatches. She may be uninterested for now, and she may be uninterested forever. She may have really shallow reasons for it, or she may have really wise reasons for it. But whatever her motivation, it is her right to say “No thanks”. Just like men don’t have to ask out any and every woman they see, women don’t have to agree to go out with any and every man who asks.
When women are expected to agree to a date with any man who isn’t obviously a creep, they get punished for even a polite declination of interest. Women are expected to produce a good reason for not dating someone–and “I just don’t want to” is never considered an acceptable reason. They have to defend WHY they don’t want to. Then their reasoning is criticized and questioned. They get decried as being cold or cruel. If they do hope to find a husband one day, they get called hypocritical or picky. This is where a lot of embittered “NiceGuy(TM)” and “Friend Zone” whining comes from.
Again, I don’t think this attitude is necessitated by what you wrote, but I do worry that it can be read into what you wrote. It is awesome for women to know that they have the freedom to go on a date with someone they’re not already madly in love with. It is a problem if they feel like they have to.
Courtship vs dating has been a convoluted and controversial topic for as long as I have been of aware of the existence of either. I think both systems tend to be a reaction to what people find objectionable in the “other” system (whichever one you do not personally prefer) and I think there are good things and bad things with both systems.
I will talk about this article first and then I will get into my experiences as a single and my opinions on it as a 40 year old adult with teenagers in the house.
Mr. Umstaddt made some points I agree with, some I am ambiguous about, and some that I hardily disagree with. As I have seen often over the past couple of years, people of my generation are having a heated reaction to the legalism of the patriarchal movement that was so prominent in the 90’s. I think that while he makes some great points, he is being reactionary in some ways.
Where I agree:
1. “The deal was that if we put up with the rules and awkwardness of courtship now we could avoid the pain of divorce later. The whole point of courtship was to have a happy marriage, not a high divorce rate.” YES! As has been stated by others on this thread, there most certainly WAS a “do A,B,& C at this stage in life and X,Y, & Z will happen”. No…..If your motives in doing the “right thing” are just to avoid trouble or to avoid making God mad then your motives are from a humanistic viewpoint. If you are operating from a humanistic view point, then the outcome will be undesirable. The heart MUST be dealt with in order for God to be glorified. Two sinners following a formula as they embark on a life long commitment are setting themselves up for a life of heart ache.
2. “After 20 years there still is no general consensus as to what courtship is.” I agree! This was a messy thing to define. What means “dating” to one family can mean “Allowing your children to run around and skinny dip for a first date”, while to another family “courting” can mean “All the living relatives within a few hours drive will sit on the porch while the courting couple sits on the porch steps and attempts to get to know one another”. Neither of these scenarios were what I experienced or witnessed from those who practiced either method, but that WAS the level of legalism I found to be attached to it in people’s minds.
3. “Where sin abounds, grace abounds more. I understand Grace to be the power of God to do the will of God. The power of God is greater than the power of our sexualized culture. There is nothing new under the sun and no new temptation that is not already common to man. This is not the first time Christians have lived in a sexualized culture.” Absolutely! This idea of finding a mate while maintaining your value system is NOT new. There has always been temptation and there always will be because Total Depravity is not going away. A system written out by people like Bill Gothard will not change us from totally depraved sinners into pure specimens any more than I can turn a lump of granite into a diamond. It just won’t happen.
Where I disagree:
1. “If I had only gone out with 3 or 4 guys I wouldn’t have known what I wanted in a husband,” No, I disagree. You do not learn what you want in a spouse by dating around. Those people you are dating are NOT spouses. What they act like as a spouse is still an unknown component. You discover what you want in a spouse by observing people who ARE spouses and by honing in on the character traits that make them act the way they act. You look for a spouse with those character traits. You will not find those character traits by going out just a few times with a person who is doing their best to impress you.
2. “The lack of exclusivity helped the girls guard their hearts and kept the boys from feeling entitled to the girl. How could a boy have a claim to her time, heart or body if she was going out with someone else later that week?” My observations of both my peers and the peers of my children tell me that this is terrible advice. I am speaking from a female perspective but here is the real deal. When a girl has this mindset in middle school and high school then she is learning WHO to be by the way MEN define her. She is focusing on the opposite sex rather than algebra. She is learning that her self-worth is determined by a teenage guy thinks of her. Ladies, if you allow a TEENAGE BOY to define your self-worth then you are being silly.
3. Less Temptation. No, there is not less temptation with dating than courting. In this day and age, if you are NOT giving careful consideration and time into choosing who you will go on a date with then you are asking for trouble. A good girl is now the type that doesn’t give it all up by the 3rd date.
4. Less Heartbreak. Oh.MY.WORD do I disagree. I have lost count of the amount of girls I have find crying in the bathrooms of Camp Moriah, Harmony Hill, Harmony “whatever”, at church meetings, at schools where I have subbed……the heartbreak from dating around is most CERTAINLY part and parcel of the whole dating around mindset.
5. “If she says you need to talk to her dad first, just move on to the next girl. Don’t let the fact that some women have controlling fathers keep you from dating the girls with more normal families.” I will get into this one in more detail later, but Dad’s, even if they are less than great at the job of a dad, have a MUCH better BS radar than an 18 year old girl. MUCH better.
6. “Allow your daughters to say yes to first dates from Christian guys you don’t know.” Ummm, no. I’ve known too many “nice” boys from good, Christian families, that were NOT good boys. Again, parents have the life experience to have a much better BS radar than their children.
Now I will get into my experiences with this. I want to say on the outset that some of things I will say will be things that my parents did wrong. I want to make this CLEAR as bell…..I do NOT fault them for this as it was a learning experience. They had just been introduced to a formula driven theology that was WRONG but they were doing the best they could with the best intentions possible.
The concept of courtship was introduced to my group when I was around 15. Over the next few years, I had quit a few issues with the concept and here is why. I had believed for a long time that there are only 2 ways any relationship will end: you will either break up or you will marry (yes, I understand that widowhood is another way but that was not in my mindset as a teenager). Since this is what I believed, I had always been rather serious about the topic, to the point that people thought I was either a cold fish or a feminist because I DID refuse to define myself by what the male population of the world thought of me. I had a set of standard in my mind that I expected both of myself AND my future mate and I did not see where compromise on that would in any way benefit me.
My problems with the concept of courtship where varied:
1. It sounded to me like we were painting a horse a different color and then just calling it by a new name.
2. It was inherently sexist. There was a much greater emphasis on purity given to the girls side of the equation than the boys. I saw way to many boys chasing around after the “not so nice” girls while we “good” girls were suppose to sit around, act pure, and wait for the left-overs from the “bad girls” to come to their senses and “court” us. My position then and now was/is “Ummm, yeah. No thanks”.
3. It was a system, as it was taught at the time to me, that the girls went directly from the dad running everything to the Dude running everything and the GIRL was treated as a “precious commodity” with no coherent thought of her own. AGAIN, I want to make this VERY clear…..I think the patriarchal movement was a bit of bad theology that swept through my group as a reactionary doctrine to real problems in society. I do not fault those who I love for buying into it for a time. The proof is in the pudding and in my family that rotten theology drifted off.
4. The sole of a girl’s life was to prepare to be a wife and mother. I AM a wife and mother. That IS my most important calling, but I am MORE than that. There is MUCH MORE to me than fulfilling those roles. I felt that courtship and the women staying forever under the roof of a man was terribly stifling.
My experiences:
I had one true “courtship”. I will be very ambiguous in the particulars as causing pain to anyone is not my goal here. This Dude, without ever meeting me, decided I was good wife material. He had seen a picture and heard that my family was involved with Bill Gothard in a small way. He knew someone who knew my family well. He attended an event that I would be at. He came DETERMINED to make me his bride. He made it clear from the moment he introduced himself to me that he was there for ME. I was NOT impressed……not even a twinge of agreeability to this. He WAS the empitamy of every bad thing I had ever believed about courtship. He asked my dad’s permission to court, it was granted despite my protestations, and the game was on. He wrote LONG and BORING letters that I did not read. I responded with the dumbest letters I could come up with. I worked hard to come across as vain, stupid, not very spiritual…..all to make him go away. He did NOT go away. He did not care that I was not interested b/c he and my “authority” were the only opinions that truly mattered. He again showed up, unannounced, at a place where I was. My dear sister is the one who told me he was there. She and I concocted a plan that involved me having a secret boyfriend and being in a rebellious state with the idea that it would turn him off and he would GO AWAY. Nope, not dude. He was the man (que the Tarzan chest beating) and that was that. Finally, my dad and I had an uncomfortable talk and “meeting of the minds”…..it included some loud conversing and the throwing of a sandwich but the point was made and the “courtship” was off.
Now to my “dating” experiences. I went out with a few guys in college, had a long term (5 months) boyfriend, then dated my current husband. With ALL of these guys, they HAD to ask my dad or I would not go out with them. A few guys refused to ask him and they lost any chance they had with me. Here is why I did that. My dad loves me, no strings attached. When it came to either my dad or the guy who thought I was interesting and cute….hands DOWN my dad was the one who loved me the most. I knew that his life experience was far vaster than mine which meant his ability to read people was greater than mine. I trusted that. Now girls, here is why I believe to this day that the input of a father is SOOOO important. There were 2 guys who wanted to “get together with a group of friends” except after I got in their car and ended up at the place…..there were no friends there to meet us. One incident ended awkwardly but fine, the other incident did not end without a kick in the groin, a resounding slap across the face, and a rather loud scene that ended up with me not riding back home with HIM. Had either of these guys asked my DAD before taking me out then I think the outcome would have been MUCH better.
With my long term boyfriend, he was with my family a lot, my dad HELPED me to figure that relationship out, set up standards and accountability, helped me navigate the issues, and when that relationship ended I was sad but had no regrets that I have to deal with to this day.
Mr. Awesome (Jeff Petersen) came after that. Now, the girl that argued with Jeff at camp and the woman he married years later were NOT the same person. I had changed drastically between the ages of 18 and 21. THAT is why I am not a proponent of young marriages. I know it works for some people and I am not knocking that but I am basing my opinions on my children dating on my own experiences. This is a big reason there is no casual dating in highschool for my kids. Jeff asked my d=Dad’s permission to both date and then later to marry me. We were very purposeful in our dating. It WAS fun, we had a GREAT time, but we also asked the HARD questions before we got engaged. It was not a “Oh, let’s just see what happens” kind of thing. And THAT is my opinion of dating……it should be purposeful, it should be with a Godly marriage as the end goal, but it does NOT mean that every time you go on a date you give away a piece of your soul that you can never get back. Parents SHOULD be involved for the reasons I have already stated.
I have seen a few, and I do mean only a FEW marriages that were handled the uber legalistic way this article described. In all of those that I have PERSONALLY seen (so, yes, this is by no means a scientific poll that was done) there is a power dynamic in those marriages that I did not want for myself and I do not want for my children.”
I have seen courtship marriages that were great, horrible, and everywhere in between. I have seen dating marriages that were great, horrible, and anywhere in between. The issue is not in the method you choose; the issue, as Laura stated, is a HEART issue. Two sinners come together and then have to learn to work out this lifelong commitment. Keep the focus on Christ rather than self, seek to honor Him rather than fit a formula, esteem one another better than yourself rather than focusing on what YOUR needs are…….that is the key a working marriage. Courtship and/or dating is not what dooms a marriage. SIN is what dooms a marriage.
This was probably way longer than most people wanted to read, but there it is…..my opinion. Take it or leave it, your call 😉
All these claims that courtship leads to divorce more often than dating. Where are the stats on this? I’d love to see some real numbers given before making such a bold statement.
I’ve always been so hesitant to ask girls out because I had this stuff ground into me in youth group. Asking a girl out was too much of a commitment. I figured out that casual dating is a much better system during college, partially thanks to my mom (“You need to go on dates” “just ask girls out, don’t make a big deal out of it” “I went on lots of dates in college, it was fine” “you need to take one girl on a date every month. That’s my challenge for you mister”). But I still struggle with commitment issues and I think its that I still haven’t outgrown all that stuff.
Totally agree with your perspective! Excellent thoughts for young people.
I don’t know what to make of this. Generally I’d recommend courting rather than dating as a good idea to younger people, but I hadn’t realised you guys had developed the idea so much further than I’d imagined. (I’m English.)
I’d understood ‘the purpose of courtship is marriage’, but I’d always assumed that meant (i) getting to know someone better as a friend before you started dating / courting and then (ii) spending less time dating / courting before proposing / marrying or moving on. The idea of a ten year courtship seems to totally defeat the whole point of courting as I understood it. Doesn’t that just get you into the same five-year-marriage-that-isn’t-a-marriage situation as everyone else, only without the sex?
I realise you can’t always achieve the ideal (I know I didn’t). Culture varies: for example at my school if a boy and girl spent time together alone they were an item; at my university it was reasonably easy to get to know girls as friends without anyone assuming you were dating (so long as you didn’t try to spend too much time with one girl). This on the whole seems seems easier today as young men and women do seem to socialise much more without dating each other than in my day. I’m not sure why the ‘traditional dating’ idea is better than just aiming for multiple long friendships? (The switching partners idea is quite a clever rule – but haven’t you had enough of too clever rules?)
Is that really what you all meant by courting? Perhaps I shouldn’t recommend it then. It’s funny how you can get hold of half of an idea.
While I can’t say that I agree with everything in here, I can definitely agree with you that courtship is fundamentally flawed and screwy. My first relationship was a courtship in 2012 with a girl that I had met and worked with at a Christian camp. When she later “called it off”, it took me nearly a year to recover emotionally and spiritually, not only in part because I genuinely loved her but because she had bought into the whole courtship-idea as well because I led her into it.
This post is definitely needed. Thank you for the courage and the boldness in writing it.
There are only two things I would clarify/add:
1. You hint at it in your suggestions, but “dating” should occur in a public setting. If it’s non-committal and about getting to know someone better, there are few reasons why it would be appropriate in private.
2. For parents, I would add a suggestion to get to know your child’s peer group by having group activities at your home. It gives you a better understanding of your child’s “league” so that you can provide good advice, and it would make it way less awkward if you wanted to ignore the advice of the author and make the boy ask to take your daughter out (but frankly, if your daughter is sensible, you could get a better grasp of the situation from her, than from him since he will be awkward if he’s a normal kid or deceptively suave if he’s overly experienced/pathological).
I am glad you gave us your definition of “courtship”. I would have defined it differently though. I always thought of courtship as the act of pursuing a wife, but not done the way you see it.
I have always thought that the attitude shown in “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart, by the two young men vying for the affection of the girl – is the model for courtship. And it happens to be more along the lines of what your grandmother called “dating”.
Everyone wants to know the answer to the question “How will you know who you want to marry?” Some say to date lots of girls (I’m a man), some say you have to make it more intense, some say you have to make it less intense, some say you have to live together first…. and the list goes on.
God gives basically three instructions for marriage: Husbands love your wives… Wives respect your husbands… and Do not be unequally yoked. The third instruction requires that you know who you are before you can know who would match up with you. Your grandmother’s method both helped them to find out who they were and who they could match up with – while NOT allowing the problems you point out in modern day “dating”.
People who get married off dating sites have a lower divorce rate than the general public. That is simply because they cause the person enrolling to do at least SOME searching of themselves and who they are. Arranged marriages in the USA have the lowest divorce rate. I believe that is partly due to the submissive attitudes developed within that family unit, but also because a 45 year old parent can see more clearly what their 19 year old child will grow up to be (and need in a spouse) than can a 19 year old with raging hormones.
(though my marriage personally was arranged by God, I do not advise people to either go to dating sites or to have their parents arrange their marriages)
An equally yoked couple has the same #1 goal. In scripture this is simply defined as not yoking an unbeliever with a believer. Two people who have given themselves 100% over to Christ, to be used as He says – will find happiness together. In today’s complex society, I think it’s good to find and match up some other things as well (sports? travel? hobbies? etc) but really, those things will fade and change with time anyhow, so make sure the PERMANENT #1 is a match.
While I respect the intent, and agree with much, I do find that this proposition to be very binary, and, as your post heavily relies on personal experience with the matter, so will mine, and as such, my comment is not intended to be inflammatory in anyway, but rather an expose of my own experience and opinion.
Courting is flawed. Diving into a relationship, believing that it is “to be,” is very dangerous. And I will trust your statistic that shows the high divorce rate. But “dating around,” going out with different people, I have found to be bad as well, in some cases destructive. In all the people I have seen date casually, and chastely, very few have I seen that romance doesn’t become in some ways cheap. Both my parents had a similar method as your grandmother, and yet they had an opposite experience. Romance became cheap. I refused to listen to them, as I wanted to just date like all my friends, in a similar manner to what you are proposing, until I saw the effects of it first hand in almost all my friends who did this once they entered marrying age: A lack of commitment. Now that was before I dated, so, seeing this fault, I tried to jump in with someone I hadn’t known for long, but had become fast friends with, and knew was very strong in their faith, and knew would be a good spouse to anyone they married. Even though that remains true still of that person, it didn’t work out, miserably, and for similar reasons to those you gave in your post. What I have seen work, far better than “traditional dating” or “courting” is groups for guys and girls being together, doing service, and giving themselves to the Lord and his church together, in which activities, one can get to know the traits worth considering in deciding whether or not to marry them far better than over drinks and dinner.
So, drawing from my own experience, Courting is bad because, as you said, your first “love” is most likely not the one you will marry. On the other hand, dating around potentially cheapens romance. I believe that the best way is to date one person, and marry that one person. Obviously that can’t always happen. But part of the problem is that both options throw the children in the deep end before they can swim. In a group, one can meet any person and get to know them really well without any dating or anything, and, when they are nearing the ability to get a job, they are, presumably, at the point in maturity where they can pick that one person with reasonable assurity to start dating with the hope that they will be the first and last. As my good friend once wisely said, “If it is not meant to be, then it is worth waiting. If it is meant to be, then it is worth waiting on. Either way, don’t fear, scoot on over to the passengers seat, and let God be God. Because he always is, without fail.” Those are my thoughts. God Bless.
In Christ,
Cory
Well stated. I agree. Being in a group that is doing the Lord’s service.. you get to actually know people.
In “dating” – the guy shaves, brushes his teeth, holds the door, washes the car…. and the girl is being just as deceiving about who she is at the same time. (this is an exageration of course, but what you describe allows people to know who others REALLY are)
Nope,
Courtship is where the lies are. When you’re with a chaperone you are on your best behavior, you put on a mask and are not your true self. It is only when you are alone with someone that you can really see that part of them. When pressure is put on people they become something they are not.
*sigh* – Yet another lengthy article from a “Christian” perspective without one single reference from the Bible. There was just one section that mentions the Bible, only to convince us that the Bible does not have the answers. 2 Peter 1:3 says, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” The Bible is sufficient (does anybody really believe in sola scriptura anymore?) to provide us the principles to guide us in this area. The Bible is the standard and the source, not grandma, not “The Greatest Generation”, not Joshua Harris, not Thomas Umstaddt Jr’s experiences, and certainly not culture. I’m not saying there aren’t some good points here. I’m saying, I’m not really interested if it is not coming from a biblical perspective.
WELL SAID Matt and I totally agree with you!
Thank you so much for this! I’ve read ‘I kissed dating goodbye’, and I didn’t agree with it but I couldn’t figure out exactly why in a way that made sense. Now understand the flaws in conservative courtship. My parents don’t believe in it either but I will defiantly share this with them. Courtship has good intensions sometimes, but the end product is flawed.
I’m glad the homeschooling community in Australia is nothing like the homeschooling community in America. In Australia it’s almost always literally about another way of schooling your kids, not another lifestyle/religion.
Thanks again mate
P.S. I’d love a book!
I think what he meant was more that the bible doesn’t specify about what God intended for dating or courtship. I do respect and agree with you, that all to many articles don’t back up what they’re saying with the bible. But, the writer even admits that he cannot back up his opinion with the bible, because it’s not in the bible and he’s not advertising this as the way God wants us to date. He’s simply giving his opinion and not hiding the fact that he is also a Christian.
In your common elements in courtship, I would suggest that 5 of the 6 (only the element that courtship would lead to marriage) should be elements of both positions (courtship or dating) and not singling out courtship only. Thank you for this thought provoking article.
Thomas,
Thank you for your comments and thoughts. As a father of four daughters 10 and under you have given me a lot to think about.
At the same time, there are a LOT of reasons why this kind of dating & going steady system worked in your grandparents age but would likely have VERY different results in our age. There are also many reasons for divorce other than not having “played the field” before getting married. The very idea that people are getting divorced because they did not get to know other people ahead of time is VERY telling about our culture, church views, and expectations of marriage. To say that these marriages are failing BECAUSE of courtship rather than dating is a very dangerous viewpoint to be plying your name to.
Again, thank you for your thoughts, just be careful where they take the reader.
Love is like faith. It often cannot be understood or quantified, like faith is of substances unseen. Where there is a will, there is a way. Character plays into what works and what doesn’t. I just do not see how putting love into a boxed category of what works and what doesn’t does anybody any good. The bible itself does not give an exact code for the perfect marriage/courtship/dating scenario, other than to fall back on a closer walk with God positively influencing a better outcome in all areas of life. I know statistically speaking the likelihood of a positive outcome can be achieved by following a certain accepted protocal as to the best way to make a relationship ( relationships) work. However, in my life experience I have found that God is a God of miracles, unexplained wonders, mercies, and a God who works outside the box, often times with success stories that do not follow statistical data. Most people I know did not meet & fall in love the same way. Personally, I feel your confidence & understanding of yourself & your needs & your walk with God & character are far more important than the process you use to achieve a recommended outcome. No arranged marriage in the world or seven years of dating before marriage is going to make a relationship work if 2 people do not share similar belief systems and commitement levels. My parents were married their whole life and I used to long for the day they would divorce they were so miserable together. Other people I know from my church have long lasting years of married bliss. I know of people who stay unmarried but live together for years and do fine, & others who split up as soon as they turn that live together status into an official marriage. Then there are those who stay single, miserably, & those who are perfectly content being single. Do we have kids, do we not have kids? What works for one, doesn’t work for another, but when you find that person or process that works for you it is like a well oiled machine, a wholesome, healthy body. It thrives, it flourishes, it grows, & you know you have found your mini paradise. That’s not to say it is easy. I find my greatest security & peace knowing that even though my husband & I have been through the storms of life, we get through the eye of the storm together, side by side. I do not fall in the statistical columns of what works. Neither does my husband. His first marriage was to a person of like faith from a good home. They get along in friendly terms for the most part now for the sake of dealing with the children but still can clearly see how even now they never would be compatable. My ex husband and I split on volatile terms & still have no interaction/connection at all, despite having a child together. We were not of the same faith but did date years before marriage & were high school sweethearts. My current husband and I met on an internet dating site. We do share the same faith. Although our personalities and interests are very different, our goals & beliefs about life are right on with one another. We had a long distance relationship for 4 months before we married. Talk about scary!!! Marrying someone you just met on line after 4 months, both having come from previous marriages. Crazy! I would never recommend this method to young people….but….it worked for us, and we are both convinced God has been with us in our marriage every step of the way. You see…God’s timing may not fit into a box of where we have placed our timing. I still get comments sometimes from people. Comments of concern as to how my husband & I are doing. He is an over-the-road truck driver and our physical time together on average is 1-2 days a week. People assume we are in trouble because we don’t fit the norm. Yes, statistically speaking, military couples, truck driver families, other couples who have distance circumstances, are more likely to struggle. But again, we don’t fit the statistics. Harry & I have been happily married 14 years now, with zero infidelity issues. As we see others divorce and cheat on one another we are in awe of the blessing of our commitement to one another. Where 14 years ago we got the sorrowful looks from others as if we were doomed before we even got started, we now get the looks of confusion and some admiration as to how we do so well. I believe another 10 years & we will be the poster couple of, “what worked for you”, but reality is everyone’s story is different. It is part of what is so beautiful about love. You must follow your heart, your mind, your soul & be true to yourself & your unique walk with God. Love & marriage, like every other aspect in life, has the potential for good or evil. Every day is a decision, a choice, & your small choices and character flaws do affect your big choices. But, with God all things are possible. Christine Horton
Re: “The whole point of courtship was to have a happy marriage, not a high divorce rate.”
Not so. The main reason people embrace courtship is to honor God and their parents’ wisdom in choosing their mate, while maintaining a high level of integrity and accountability in regards to sexual purity and respect within the courtship period. Also, marriage is not meant primarily to make us happy, but holy. If we marry thinking otherwise, we will surely be disappointed, and divorce follows easily. Happiness is a by-product of two people growing together in Chist-likeness through intimacy with The Lord and each other.
Speaking from experience, my husband and I both read Joshua Harris’ book, hoping to start over in a biblical manner, having both suffered from secular style relationships, him being divorced. The bottom line is this…from OUR perspective…pray about it. Ask God and then fully trust Him to introduce you to your future mate. Be patient, be obedient to scripture. As for staying pure during courtship (both of us have children from previous relationships), it is NEVER too late to do things the better way, to protect your heart and the other person’s heart. We had to ask God for this strength. If you BELIEVE and TRUST God He WILL provide. We did not kiss until our wedding day, we did hug and hold hands further along in the courtship, we did have accountability partners (a Godly and long-married couple). We didn’t kiss because we knew we were physically attracted to one another and didn’t want to tempt ourselves (God given wisdom) to a point that we would spoil what God has created for marriage. I am not saying that kissing is unbiblical, it was a choice we made for us. We are approaching our first wedding anniversary. We have, like other couples had our disagreements and especially growing pains. Here in lies the secret that courtship prepares you for….we learned to work together as an intentionally committed couple before we had sex. Marriage takes daily effort. It takes intention. It takes commitment. It’s not just about the physical. The grass is NOT greener on the other side. Love is an ACTION, a DECISION to COMMIT, NO MATTER WHAT! Some days are harder than others, we are living in a secular world trying to uphold Christian values. God gave us this wisdom via experience and devotionals together. We knew that we were in a war against marriage, that the enemy, Satan, hates marriage. We decided to do everything we could to protect our marriage. We have taken three courses. We still have an accountability couple (I am sure they get just as much out of if as we do) and in the fall we are reconvening our married couples’ Bible study. We do devotions and pray together every day. We are in this for the long haul and we know it takes effort. We know that the world caters to temptation, that secular society finds having affairs as normal, expected even. It is easy to get a divorce. An adulterer is not held accountable for breaching a contract with their spouse. That is why the book, “50 Shades of Grey” is a best seller, has a movie and a sequel coming out. In our opinion, marriage is a gift and God created sex for married people to create a bond and to have fun. I am only sorry that I did not have a relationship with Christ and know this sooner. But..regret is the doing of the enemy so we choose to move forward and walk as closely as we can with Christ. So far, so good. Be intentional, always…pray before you do anything, especially when it comes to your future spouse. “Let God write your love life”, let Him pick your spouse, He knows what He is doing. Once you get there, invite God into your relationship. I am so confident about this that I should challenge other people out there to do it. Try it…you’ll see what I mean. When people found out what we were doing…especially secular people, they all thought it was a good idea and commended us…I wonder why. We were honest and said it was hard and that we really wanted to kiss but we knew it would be all the sweeter come our honeymoon. A couple of people even went so far to ask, “If you don’t have sex before you get married, how will you know that you are sexually compatible?” My response, “I know God would not do that to us”. Courtship is just as intentional as marriage. It is a commitment to get to know one another and respect each other. To talk a lot and learn about the other person. We support courtship, recommend it. But courtship looks different to each couple. For instance, we didn’t have parents in the picture. My father passed away several years ago and my husband’s live out of the province. Our courtship is a great story, one I will share with you, another day; but here is what I will say, it was worth it and our marriage is the better for it. Thanks God!
So are you saying the date should happen without the parents even meeting the young man or woman? I’m not talking about approval per se but the idea of letting my daughter ride off on a date who won’t even come to the door is not gonna happen.
Amen!!