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.
So glad this is in the open.
Had always thought the church’s role of just asking”have you prayed about it “or “Are you being lead of the Lord” was inadequate!What are the practical things to know about boys/girls, relationships&how does one cultivate health relationships in the church?
Yes you are right about many issues in your article.Many ladies get caught in singlehood and settle for anyone that comes around ….without doing the “checking”.
I like what someone said about interviewing the guys friends etc.Wish I had done that rather than believing God lead the guy to me !
I also want to add it is good to be friends,get to know likes and dislikes….at a safe distance.What is a safe distance without dating or “being owned by the guy?”
To those out there trying to recover from failed relationships and marriages,dont loose hope God is a God of second chance.Learn the lessons ,dont be bitter,become a better person,come out of the cocoon.
Circulate this article….
I disagree with many things in this article. I believe that the author is “throwing out the baby (courtship) with the bathwater” out of frustration. I think that a combination of the principles of courtship and less laws about dating may be a more reasonable solution. I understand the points that are being made, but there are some blanket statements made in this article that are disturbing.
I would say that any “laws” about dating are inherently harmful, because they prevent the people who are trying to find a partner for life from learning to make the sort of decisions and compromises necessary for a successful marriage. This does not mean there are no rules, but it means that the rules must be arrived at with at least a good amount of prayerful self-evaluation, values clarification, and input from the person who will be doing the dating, with the understanding that the rules may be different for each child in a family and may need to changed as the single person grows and changes. The rules also need to be made with the understanding that the goal is to discover God’s will for a person regarding marriage, which is NOT the same thing as only dating people who are ready for marriage… after all, a dating experience may be the way God chooses to tell you WHETHER you are called to marriage.
This article brings some good discussion points but your suggestions for single men at the end project excluding the parents in the process (1 & 3). It seems that you are promoting dating apart from parental input (I do not recall reading anywhere where you suggest the boy or girl conversing with the parents about dating a certain person). Regardless of position (courtship or dating), ongoing conversation between the parent(s) & the young adult is necessary and needed. Also, you exclude the counsel of the individuals pastor/elders and other older men & women within their local church (again, this would be helpful for both positions).
Dear Thomas, thank you for this thoughtful article. I think in fact Josh Harris and you both seem to have the same contention that jumping straight into something that is equivalent to “going steady” is not a good way to guard one’s heart and avoid temptation. This has been very helpful to hear.
His alternative that Harris puts forth in the book “Boy Meets Girl” is defined “courtship” but different to what you call courtship here. I think both you and he suggest good alternatives that probably suit different contexts better. Either way it has been very good to be challenged to really think for myself rather than follow social trend brainlessly to make rules pharisee-style.
Wishing you all the best.
Very interesting. And good. My husband and I leaned heavily toward the courtship model. We have been married for 13 years. But it wasn’t with out some major difficulty and intense years. We chose to stay because of commitment and have finally found love.
Now we have a 12 year old and I will definitely discuss your Blog with my husband…. 🙂
Thanks for putting it all in words.
While I agree with much of what you said, it made me sad to read, “If she says you need to talk to her dad first, just move on to the next girl.” How very, very grateful I am to God that my husband didn’t just move on when I explained our family’s values to him. It was foreign to him, and it was embarrassing to me as a woman in my late 20’s, but it was simply the way things were. I prayed often that God would give me a guy who could understand and see past some of the restrictions. Someone who’d be willing to go through some inconvenience in order to build a life with me. Ryan did just that. He felt like I could possibly be worth it even though it seemed extreme to him. I’m super glad! 🙂 We’ve been married for nearly a year now, and my parents have been completely “hands off” and non invasive into our home. Not ALL dads who want to talk to the guy are domineering or controlling. Some of them have just heard those teachings and believed that it was the right way to do things in their daughter’s best interest.
Ryan and I will definitely do things a little differently in our home, with our kids. But how I praise God that this man saw past my family idiosyncrasies and was willing to be put out of his comfort zone a little to woo and marry me. Please… don’t tell guys to just give up when parental involvement seems extreme. That doesn’t solve anything.
I am so glad that someone if finally saying this!! I’ve been trying to raise my son to be a guy who dates instead of one who “hangs out.” I’ve found that the other problem with “hanging out” is that girls never really know where they stand with a guy. He’s flirty and conversational, but never calls her. This leaves them wondering how he really feels about her. I completely agree that the courtship movement ruined dating in our Christian communities. Thanks for saying it out loud!
@Jonathon Hill–at this point in the “conversation” of comments, there are too many to read all the way through, however I agree strongly with your response to the article and like what you have said, thanks for posting this.
I’ve been saying many of these things all along since my generation got ruined by such books as “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” and “When God Writes Your Love Story.” The trouble I found with Josh Harris’ book was that he defined his terms differently from what was widely understood as “dating” or “courtship,” and to some degree I think that led to a mass misunderstanding of his message. Harris even preached a sermon titled “Courtship Schmourtship: What Really Matters is Relationship” in response to a trend in his congregation when men and women wouldn’t eve talk to each other, thinking that they were guarding the other person’s heart. Actually, I thought dating was just a new word for courtship. Some elderly people I know often use the word “courting” when referring to traditional dating.
Now, in my area where I grew up, the rule about getting permission from the girl’s father (or pastor if the father was absent) was not pushed, but there was the expectation among Christian young people to refrain from any romantic relationship until they knew that God dropped Mr. or Miss Perfect right in front of them. The Number One reason for rejection that I got from Christian girls was that they already knew that it wasn’t God’s will for them to give me that first date. Many of my peers were simply not looking, expecting romance to just happen out of nowhere. I had one friend who rejected one guy after another, and then lament that God hadn’t sent her the right man yet.
I wish to gently warn you that you are potentially leading others astray. The Bible warns very seriously about causing others to stumble, and I believe you are doing this. You seem to be stating your opinion as fact, when in truth, it is only your thoughts which are, as a human, flawed. The only truth is from the Bible, which I’m quite sure does not ever suggest giving yourself away to many men. The Bible says that we are to be one with our marriage partner. It does not say we are to be one with many partners. God made Eve for Adam, He did not give Adam a few Eve’s and say, “here, hang out with them and pick which one you like the best”. God knows who is best for us, so if we let Him choose, there will be no divorce rate (unless we again, live life for ourselves and not for Him). When we are truly devoted to Him, He will lead us to the one He has chosen for us.
My daughter chose courting (we as parents did not even know what it was), spent a year learning about it. Subsequently so did I. God brought her a young man that at first would not have been what I thought God wanted for her, but God showed me why He picked this young man. They are now married with two absolutely beautiful boys and are leaning on God and His ways. It is a beautiful union – a beautiful picture of what God intended. I am so thankful for her showing us this. I truly believe that God MUST be the One to choose the mate. Then, hopefully the parents are also walking with God and can discern if this is correct, to guide their children in the correct direction. God gave parents the privilege to guide, teach, lead their children in Christ. It is our RESPONSIBILITY to do so. Yes, there are parents that aren’t following God’s leading – we are all broken in many ways – but that is for God to correct and we need to leave the judgement to Him.
I urge you to allow the reader to seek God on this subject, not your words. Only He has the answers.
I don’t see the author saying anything about giving yourself to many men. I see him saying that people need have the opportunity to form many relationships with a variety of potential mates BEFORE getting romantically involved with any one human. I would like to know where in the Bible it says this is wrong. I disagree with him about these interactions needing to be seen as “dates” and about the “no two in a row” rule being hard and fast. No, Rebekah didn’t date like this, but if she was interacting with strangers at the well, she certainly had to have learned those social skills somewhere–probably from growing up interacting with the local boys one-on-one as she watched and watered her father’s sheep side-by-side with them as they watched their own fathers’ flocks as well as at social events such as weddings. Jacob knew Rachel was worth working for, but he had undoubtedly grown up surrounded by neighbor and servant girls he did NOT feel were worth working for. Moses married a non-Jew HE met by chance at a well, and her father became one of his greatest human advisors as he struggled to lead God’s people. Abigail was perfectly willing to join a king’s harem, but this was a king who acknowledged her wisdom in front of his subordinates and occurred only after a terrible marriage which she had probably been told by her parents was God’s will for her. How did she decide to accept David’s proposal, once she had finally achieved autonomy from a dangerously evil man? She knew because she had personally interacted with him, with her previous husband, with her husband’s servants, and probably with a lot of other men as she managed her deceased husband’s estate in the interim.
None of that says to me that a Godly person is being promiscuous by having coffee with one person one night, setting up for a charity pancake breakfast with a second person the next day, studying with a third person the next night, and attending church services with a fourth person the next.
I believe each “courtship” is different from another. My husband and I courted and are happily married. He is glad I had not dated around and having experienced dating around a dozen girls in the past himself in his old life. He saw the value of going about it a better way. Are there things we might have done a little differently? Yes.
Jason: I was raised in a household where dating and freedom was left up to the choice of the young adult (us) by well meaning parents. I have dated many times over a fifteen year period and I decided to court my now wife at the age of 32. I would not change a thing in that decision and love her with all my heart. Any system no matter how well designed can be abused or applied incorrectly. Laying aside the argument that the world of our grandparents was different than ours as it exists today, every couple and family is different. The principles never change but how each couple and family integrate them into their lives is what drives success or failure. The fatal flaw to the assumptions in this article is that because all these problems exist courtship is wrong. I disagree with that whole heartedly, knowing full well that all the problems the author discussed exist in dating relationships as we’ll. I have many friends and family struggling in their marriage who did ‘dating’ as defined in the article and I have friends that have courted. One friend even had an arranged marriage. I am an engineer by trade so I tend to look at things very analytically. If anything studies and statistics show is that struggles in marriage and the divorce rate is constant across the board for all types of relationships, as well as all walks of life. If courtship and dating are not the problem then what is? The answer is quite simpe. It is US. It is our good and bad attributes and how we learn to communicate with our girl/boy-friend/spouse. We bring all of our baggage of our singleness into the dating relationship and eventually into the marriage. The most usual culprit being selfishness and unrealistic expectations. The courtship and dating seen is no different. The question that we must ask ourselves when dating is how can we serve the other person. We also have to enter with expectations that not all people, no matter how compatible, are ‘meant’ for each other. We have to have realistic expectations of what should be in the relationship. It is a searching for who God has for you with the full understanding that none of us is perfect. It is a forgiving and loving attitude. As I see it the problem lies in the trend of culture today that love and marriage is all about how the other ‘makes me feel’ or how they can take care of ‘my desires’. You may not even do that kind of thing consciously but that is what subconsciously drives most of our actions. Call it the nature of self preservation if you like. That is very detrimental to the health of any relationship. That is why the old saying of ‘marriage is work’ is still true today. That applies to dating as well. We have to consciously and sometimes not so easily override all natural tendencies of US to be more of an attitude of THEM. If we develop the attitude of ‘how can we serve our girlfriend / spouse’ then the relationship will blossom no matter what previous experiences we had. It is not easy but through the process the blessings of the relationship will come full circle back to ‘ourselves’ in the end anyways. I believe it is the attitude in the relationship that determines the outcome of that relationship. I can speak specifically to men and maybe my wife can speak to the woman. As a man I tend to be very selfish and needy. I learned that lesson through many mistakes in my past and used that knowledge to better serve my girlfriend (wife now) in our relationship. Being aware of our flaws and correcting them is key. The men of the past years had great respect for woman and how to show them that respect. We seem to have lost that in today’s men. Woman were made to respect gentleness while men were made to respect honor and gratitude. I have been asked many times why do I open doors for my wife or give her my jacket when she is cold or many other little things I do for her. It is a matter of respect as much as it is of love. It is treating a woman as she needs to be treated; with respect, maturity, and gentleness. The love language of men is a respect and gratitude for what we do. My wife honors me with that. With respect and true love for the other and not ourselves success is much more possible. That is my opinion and any encourage anyone that has question to ask me. Thank you for listening to my soap box.
I appreciate your honest, humble comments about courtship and marriage especially being able to admit that you were wrong. I went to a church school, did not date in middle school or high school. I actually knew very few boys my age. I did not begin dating until college (I was about 22) I only dated about 5 different boys then. I married late (32 years old) to someone who basically said that they were going to marry me when we first started dating. He ended up being verbally abusive to me and we are now separated. I just had a conversation with a friend about this subject (we are both parents) and we were looking for insight on this issue. I realize now that I didn’t have enough experience with boys to just an abusive person from a non-abusive person. Dating more would have helped give me more experience in relationships. I will pass this article on to my friend. Thank you for your help.
We have researched this for years. We have found that the courtship model is only working in very specific circles. When you take a model and just read a book about it, then try to apply it to your life, yet no one else in your area has read the same book, it spells disaster.
We have seen the flaws, the heartbreak and the evils of delayed marriage. We made a documentary;
https://www.youtube.com/embed/nM1ftBKUaDM?rel=0
Courtship is NOT delayed marriage.
I guess we can call this article the backlash against the backlash (courtship) against the backlash (sexual revolution) against the backlash (Greatest generation dating model). But if we get away from all the reactions, we can get at a few truths that seem to be missing: 1) contemporary secular culture features emotionally-disengaged sex with lots of people: the hookup culture. Courtship will prevent people from becoming mired in this mess, while dating will increase the opportunity for it. 2)The stability of a marriage is dependent upon lots of factors apart from how the principals met; it’s not a one-to-one correspondence. Anyone who thinks that courtship = no divorce is being naive. 3)All cultures will use dating/courtship models that will work for some of their members, and not for others. God can bring even hookup culture partners to grace, repentance, and lasting marriages; that does NOT mean that we should not distinguish between models and try to find the best we can. 4) Turned down by a father? Maybe. Or maybe the young lady just let her father have the task of chasing you out of her life. Harsh, but–if she cared about you, and her father cared about her, you’d be doing great with her. Finally, 5)The Greatest Generation raised kids who gave us the sexual revolution, “love the one you’re with,” and skyrocketing divorce rates. Whatever they GG did themselves regarding dating/courtship and marriage, they didn’t do a great job in their child-rearing, because their children failed at both. Still, it never hurts to think more about how to improve the models we have, and this article provokes thought.
Have you ever considered how to help widows and divorced people? You have some great observations and ideas.
This author has a firm grasp on effective, Christian dating practices that work. More stress could be put on teaching children to make decisions so that they are able to decide what they want from marriage. My parents made an effort from the time I was a toddler to encourage me to make small choices, including asking me to explain the reasons for my choices and letting me feel the consequences when I chose badly. They also worked hard at teaching me responsible Bible study skills, including the understanding that stories in the Bible tell about how God uses people despite their choices as well as showing how choosing the path God wants for each of us leads to good results in the long run.
Because I was growing interested in boys in the late 80’s and 90’s, when “dating” meant exclusivity, I was not allowed to “date” one-on-one until I was sixteen, but I was allowed to go to any public place or event with boys starting at age 12 and, if I had been interested in double dating it would have been supported at age 14. My mother’s argument was that cars got involved at 16, so that is about when serious relationships could start. This didn’t make sense to me at the time, but I realize now that she, an introvert, understood that some people need that privacy to discuss what is most important, and that she also wanted me to avoid getting in cars with men I was not willing to trust enough to commit, even theoretically, to several dates in a row. My parents, church youth leaders, and teachers also spoke often about safety while dating–not the “God made men irresponsible hornballs and your job is to say no” kind of safety, but the kind where you get to know and trust a man before you end up somewhere private with him, accept that both men and women feel sexual urges and learn your own ability to resist temptation, and learn clear limit-setting and consent habits.
Most of the discussions I had with both parents about sex and marriage were about MY values, with them offering their opinions when asked, or about biological facts, so I could make responsible choices. They also encouraged my participation in an active, medium-sized church youth group taught by several married couples who led Bible studies on sex, marriage, and healthy male/female relationships on a regular basis. It was important for at least some of the members of this group (mostly those with demanding or controlling parents) that these conversations NOT happen with their parents, so they knew their decisions were about what was right between them and God. When I did start dating exclusively, I maintained my friendships with and continued meeting one-on-one with my male friends, so I always had an idea of what other options were available, including several who lamented that I wasn’t “available” to go steady with them at the time. I decided, for myself, that I would not exclusively date any man I KNEW I would not want to marry or raise children with. That was how I “guarded my heart.” I involved the two men I did date in my family activities and expected to be involved in his family life, and watched and listened to the interactions.
I was ready to commit to the adventure of married life with my husband before we had sex, and we would have been married at that point if not for his (non-Christian) parents’ insistence that one of us have a 4-year college degree before marriage (we got married one week after I got my B.A.). The only thing in our lives that has gone as we expected is that we are still in love with each other and know how to enjoy each other’s company.
Many of my friends who didn’t date until college, who were TOLD that dating was only acceptable as a precursor to marriage (even without requiring parental consent), and who weren’t allowed to make decisions for themselves until sometime in adolescence have said to me that they would have been spared a great deal of pain and frustration if they had had my understanding of what I wanted when they started dating, or have lamented time wasted in exclusive relationships with people they should have known all along would be a bad match for them.
Yes! I think you need to expand this into a book — and I would buy one! I’m a mom of a 15 year old and was convinced that courtship is the way. But after reading your article I’m convinced you are right. You are backing up what I see happening to 2 beautiful young ladies who are 22 and 24 (my daughters friends). Their mom is playing the dad’s role and stopping ‘dates’ from happening. It’s controlling and abusive. They continue to contend that the right guy will show up at the door. All I see is them becoming old spinsters or marrying someone they will not end up liking. I also see their lives so focused on themselves …. without the practice of letting their heart love and be loved. It’s really sad to watch and I don’t want that to happen to my daughter! Thank you!!!!
Great article! I’m a homeschool parent with kids not yet old enough to date and it gives me some points to ponder. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home myself and literally had no rules. But, being a Christian, I wanted to wait for the right guy and marry him. By the grace of God, I did end up marrying the first guy I dated and had feelings for. When you are in love, you just know. So, I would disagree about not thinking you will marry the first guy you date and have feelings for. I did. And, by the grace of God, we are happily married 14 years later.
What a wonderful and well-thought-out article. I had never considered the option of sort of “structured” single dates with different people by design, but it does make a lot of sense. I think in the typical high school setting, people who are doing this would acquire the label “player” which often has a negative connotation, but if that could just become more the norm, it would be a positive thing, I think. We should spread the word! And I have just the person to send this link to! (Hint: he is a generation younger than me and lives in my house!) Thank you again.
I think there are a lot of really, really good points here. One thing that I am concerned with is the discrepancy between what a date looks like to our grandparents and what it looks like to young adults today. The cultures are vastly different. My perception is that dating today is a synonym for consent to be sexually intimate (at whatever level) for just one evening without expectations beyond that night. I’m pretty sure that is the norm in our culture. You’d be hard pressed to find a man who doesn’t expect some level of physical intimacy in exchange for buying dinner. Let’s be honest. (Unless you’re pairing two homeschooled, former courtship advocates together, which can’t be expected to happen often.) I agree, courtship isn’t working out. Dating in today’s definition of the word doesn’t seem like a recipe for success if you’re trying to stay pure. Maybe the answer lies is what you said about becoming a part of a community (found in church or other) where you can get to know people of the opposite sex, but without putting yourself in a situation where you’re expected to dish out in physical intimacy before you know if you even like that person.
This article is actually very misleading and not well written. Some extremes of courtship may be “fundamentally flawed” but not courtship itself. What the author states is akin to saying that “marriage is fundamentally flawed” and then proceeding to make his case based on his own extremely limited experiences. And, even then the author exposes his “flawed” reasoning, etc. Just for one example, in the space of 3 sentences, the author states that courtship “never” worked for his friends and then he says that courtship has a high divorce rate. Interesting that if no one is getting married via the courtship process that there could be a “high divorce rate”.
If the discerning reader looks for biblical support for anything the author says, he will be left wanting.
The author states that courtship has a high divorce rate but never gives us any statistics supporting such a statement. What was his sample size? Maybe 1 couple he knew. The author is wrong in so many statements, it would take quite some time to list them all. He gives us pragmatic evidence of his grandparents dating and long marriage that this proves that dating works and the implication is that courtship doesn’t. No one that even begins to understand argument and logic would buy what this author is selling based on his presuppositions and lack of supporting evidence for his many wild assertions.
For the record, our experience with courtship has been fantastic with many successful and God-honoring marriages as a result. We know of no divorces in dozens of marriages via the courtship model with the exception of one couple. However, even with that one divorce, it had nothing to do with courtship and everything to do with the ex-husband’s addiction to porn.
So, even if courtship had a “high divorce rate” (which for the record, the author has not substantiated), it would require taking a closer look at the reason for the divorces before coming to any conclusions about what role, if any, that courtship played in the cause of the divorces.
So much more could be stated supporting that what is “fundamentally flawed” is this article and if I had the time, and I thought it worth the effort, I would take it apart sentence by sentence.
Awesome. Well written and great information. My daughter is 14 and in this very confusing time for her(and me!!) this article couldn’t have been better timed. I now feel ready to face dating. . actually looking forward to it. I feel prepared now. . on some solid advice : “just don’t go out with the same guy twice”. couldn’t be more simple or effective.
one last thing: I have some other questions I’d like to ask your grandma. . she sounds wonderful!!!Thank God for her!!!
I think it depends on how the courtship is handled. I’m a fan of 19 kids and counting, and so far 3 of the Duggars have been in courtships and two so far have gotten married. They all got to know the person they were courting fairly well before the official courtship started. They had chaperoned dates, but it wasn’t always the parents. The duggars trust the siblings to chaperone as well. so far everyone seems pretty happy.