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.
oops I said it put us in a position to meet other Christian young people young and old–I meant to say boys and girls. ALSO as parents we were very involved with a lot of the things they did on those “dates”–like sit together in church–family picnics with other young people and parents invited etc.
You have certainly given us parents some things to think about. One point of courtship you failed to mention is it’s purpose, which is to trust God to bring his best to your child not for you to go searching for him/her. I know many who haven’t dated but waited for God to bring “the one” to them and it’s worked out nicely. Another point is that not all dads are trying to be controlling but protective. If a girl says “you need to ask my father”, how about the guy asking the father to get together in a family setting especially if this guy is totally unknown to the family. Based on past experience, I wouldn’t want my daughter alone with a guy we don’t even know.
Exactly! And this also has happened to me when a young man asked permission to communicate with my daughter. I was honored and felt he respected me. I had no problem and gave a few guidelines. He insisted it was only a friendship and I said, “of course it is” and things have gone fine. She already had a situation in the past where a “boy” underminded me and caused an awful lot of unnecessary pain for her and she doesn’t want to repeat it. The “boy” charmed her late at night by texting her when I was in bed and emotionally enslaved her by telling her all kinds of stupid things he could never make good on. That was like a divorce for her but was relieved I put an end to it. The boy (26 year old – my daughter is 18) recently had a intimate situation happen that proved the kind of creep he is and regularly talks to 14, 15 and 16 year olds.
I am very thankful that my Dad raised me with an answer to many questions I had “what does the bible say?” When it came to modesty and I asked about covering my head he turned the bible and practical cultural applications that represented. “Do you wear a midriff shirt to church?” Of course not! But I wear a two piece bathing suit and rash guard when I surf…..he always said the right things to put it in perspective. Right before I turned 21 someone became interested in me, a mystery at the time for why! He had dated and was not liking where his life was heading and got on his knees and asked God for a wife. Every “dating” story has two sides mind you, needless to say on our first date we had different experiences. I went out with someone who listened to my stories, didn’t mind that we drove hours in traffic, my weird family wasn’t a deterrent and seemed to have a good time. Hmmm I could go out again. He on the other hand, said as he was getting out of the car “just so you know I’m going to marry you”. Easy tiger. Yes my actual response. He then got “I just want to be friends”, I didn’t know what he saw. So we were friends for two months and he was going nuts! He took me as his date to his sister’s wedding and was there just for me. Mind you, beautiful absolutely gorgeous women there and he never saw them, hmmm I could date this guy. So then we dated with an interest of exploring a future, mind you other people have different views of what a future should look like. He is legally blind and a point was brought to my dad’s attention that I would end up “supporting” him. He responds with “not only do I trust my daughter but I trust God”. So we will just skip to the end where we have been married for almost fifteen years, have been to the mission field and still make each other nuts. I think some people have a checklist and I just want to say “wouldn’t you be ecstatic to know you are the answer to someone’s prayer?” I remind him when he throws his hands up in frustration, “yup you prayed for this!”
This is beautiful! I love it. For every lousy story and horrible end there are always stories of God’s marvelous grace shared between two people living happy and satisfied. But we are a fallen people and you will not find one marriage between a family who homeschooled their children and believed in courtship or a family who sent their children off to public school and believed they should be allowed to date, that will not end in divorce if Christ is not front and center. We are innately selfish and have a sinful nature that always wants to bust out.
Your article has hit home hard! I have 4 sons and one daughter. Through the years I have struggled with what is best for my kids because I thought dating was a disaster. After 32 years of marriage, I am now divorced and wondering at the age of 54 what is best? Right now I spend time with my Heavenly husband and ask Him to direct me because I really have no clue how to “find” Mr. Right. Blessings to you as you seek God’s face to offer us wise advice. Thanks.
I see your point and agree to many of the researched and tested theories. however, I do not agree with the statement in the advice for young men part of the article “if you ask a girl out on a date and she says to ask her father first, just move on to a different girl.” I feel strongly that just because a girl has a father that makes that rule, does not in any way make her unworthy to pursue.
that is the only thing I do not agree with. All the rest of the article was brilliantly written, enlightening and very much appreciated.
I just made a comment that ended with this very point! 😛 While my dad would never have forced the issue once I was an adult, he sought to protect me from genuine predators by offering his wisdom and discernment as I prepared for the dating scene. When I deferred to him, it was my choice to do so because I trusted him to know a jerk that I definitely wouldn’t see. (I tend to be a bit oblivious, and I know it too well!) I also knew that he is a kind, polite and generous man who isn’t out to butcher every guy that comes along for his daughter. He wanted me to be happy, to find a good guy, to get married and live a long, full life. Including my family in everything I do has just always been something of a habit of mine.
It might be a good idea to encourage young women who want to (or are required to) defer to their father in dating situations to rephrase how they tell the guy that. Simply stating “you have to ask my dad” and then leaving it at that can be VERY intimidating if the guy doesn’t already know the dad.
I also do not agree with this statement. A girl who asks this has high regard for her father who loves her. Our love for our heavenly father should cause us pause and ask whether any of our actions would displease him and then do the opposite. I am not God to my daughter but there is a sense of respect and a value for my judgment I covet from her. Any man who passes her by for this is not worth my daughter. He is only a “boy” and is looking for easier pickings. My son did exactly this and settled on someone who was “easy”. It was mentioned in conversation that she did not challenge him spiritually at all; only in other ways.
This is a very potent blog post. Thank you for sharing! I’m the third in my family to marry at this point, and for all three of us siblings the way we found our spouses was so different. Both my older siblings had a wide range of dating/courtship experiences, everything from the stereotyped homeschool arranged family meetings to the simple “will you go out with me” to eHarmony. But in both situations, our parents always kept one fact in mind: that dating/courtship can’t be simplified into a one-size-fits-all formula that will solve any problem and secure marital bliss for a lifetime. That belief, when coupled with their kind but honest advice and constant prayers, was crucial as we entered our adult years and began making all our decisions on our own. Your post reminded me how important it is for parents to not only realize when their children grow into adults but to also realize that their involvement as advisers, supporters and partners in prayer with their children is essential. (Although I would like to add, whether it’s been posted already or not, that the guy asking the father, when both guy and girl are adults, isn’t always a bad idea given that some dads – mine included – are perfectly normal and are only seeking to get to know the guy.)
I think so much of todays language has been skewed. We associate dating with romance and/or sex that we forget it is about getting to know someone. And spending time with them. the dating aspect should be used to build friendships and eventually relationships.
Dating is usually practicing divorce. I mean, when you date you can end it at any time, so why should you stop that because you added some legal documents which are easy to untangle when you’re tired of it.
I am not the biggest supporter of courtship, but there needs to be more commitment nowadays not less. I mean think about how often “talking” is thrown around? People are “talking” than they stop, and what happens to the person left behind? The problem with promiscuity is a sin problem not a loyalty problem.
The high divorce rate between Christians proves that traditional courtship doesn’t work, but the equally high divorce rate among unsaved people shows that dating doesn’t work either.
Let’s look at the Edenic creation that God made, that’s a precept right? One man, one woman for a life time. It worked in God’s plan, is it not good enough for us? I’m not saying that everyone should just marry the first person of the opposite sex they interact with. However, to say we should try it out? That’s a step in the wrong direction.
Instead let’s encourage people to get to know people without calling it dating. Let’s encourage friendships that lead to a dating/courtship mix. Let’s tell young men to not be so quick at thinking they have anything. They should ask for the dad’s blessing, than ask for the daughter’s permission for every interaction after that point, until engagement. Than ask her again for marriage.
Sure this isn’t as quick and easy, but the truth is that love isn’t usually that easy( Jacob worked 14 years for Rachel.) The principles that are taught are that a woman is the responsibility of her father’s care, possibly only spiritually but also physically if he has the means, until the father dies or she is married. Also, Jesus asked for the hand of the church before time, He didn’t date around, He just went straight for marriage. Some say it’s different, but not according to Paul in Ephesians 5.
Just my little but. Sorry, I had to say something.
Jeff,
Love it. Very good points with this response. Offers a bit of balance. Nothing more to say. I love the end about Jesus didn’t date around he went straight for the marriage. And for that, I am VERY grateful!
I agree with most of what was said here except for part of what was said under single men.
“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.”
Just because a girl asks you to speak to her father does not mean that there must be a courtship. The father could very easily just want to get to know the guy asking his daughter out on a date better, and to see his intentions behind asking her out.
I’m almost eighteen years old, and I have spent the last four years living by the rules set out in I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I don’t go on dates. I don’t let myself “fall in love.” It’s been four years of this, and it was only a few months ago that I started to wonder . . . was this really a good idea?
Most of my thoughts have already been pointed out in this article. Getting to know the other person was a big one. Suddenly, this perfect, holy, pure thing that I had set my mind on, that I was SO SURE was what God wanted for me, started to look . . . stupid, honestly. It looks like something a controlling father came up with to make sure his daughter only saw boys he approved of.
And now, I’m at a bit of a loss, because it’s so obvious that the traditional, “shallow and sinful” way of dating is just fine.
This was a fantastic article, and it really made me sure in what I was debating on. The only problem I have is that it seems to insists that the BOY has to ask out the GIRL. I plan on asking out as many boys as I like, rather than waiting for them to come to me.
Please don’t give up on your commitment to trusting God to bring you together in His way and His time! Speaking from experience of not dating, but still enjoying godly relationships with boys – treating them as Brothers – while I was focused on my One True Love, all of a sudden He brought me to my future husband! I almost fell over! We’ve been married for 21 years now and have 4 children.
So worth waiting for!
Hang in there, dear!
This article is fundamentally flawed – As I read this article I feel like the old lady in the Wendy’s commercial saying, “Where’s the beef?” My question is, “Where’s the Scripture?” NOT ONE VERSE is used for the support or the disagreement of any position. It is the Word of God which is living and powerful; It is the Word of God which is sharper than any two-edged sword. It is the Word of God which will not come back void. This article is fraught with personal opinion and speculative reasoning, but what does God say? God’s Word is generally dismissed when you say, “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.” There is much more the Bible has to say on the important issues related to the male-female premarriage relationship. Divorce is not the fault of either dating or courtship, it is the result of not making Christ central to the marriage and making His love central to the relationship. It would have been good to include 1 Timothy 5:1-2; 1 Thessalonians 5:22; 2 Corinthians 6:14; and 1 Corinthians 7:1, 32-33 as some good starting points to understand God’s relationship rules for all cultures and all times whatever you want to call it.
my thoughts exactly
I also wonder if the author is just searching foe an excuse to date and justify it to his courtship-minded parents, and future dates of courtship-minded parents! 😉
Go back and actually READ it. The author references, quotes and paraphrases Scriptures throughout the article. Your straw an argument is fundamentally flawed.
Get together with Dr. Jeremy Clark who wrote I gave dating a chance. Together You two could have a great imact for our Christian youth. He is my son and I am the happy grandfather.
I loved this article! As a single woman, I sense the hesitation from men. It’s as though they consciously limit/reject friendly conversation because there is an unspoken expectancy. All the while, I’m screaming, “I don’t know if I want to marry you either, but you’re a heck of a conversationalist!”
Also, I think as Christians it’s easier to cling to a set of rules than seeking Christ. We’re not use to being led by the Holy Spirit, so rules become our safety net. His job is to guide us into all truths and he will do it. He also informs us that there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors, which is why I applaud the author for seeking out other believers.
My advice is:
1)Listen to the Holy Spirit. There are proclaimed “Christians”, who I’ve gone out with counter intuitively, that exposed me to the concept of “organized prostitution”. That’s how I describe modern dating…(NSA) it’s just two consenting adults who have needs that need to be met outside of marriage because that’s not necessary, right?! The devil is a LIAR!
2) Listen to the people who love you. Saved or not, others can see things you can’t see because their outside looking on the inside. As the author stated, don’t isolate, incorporate
I don’t agree with everything in this blog, but I have seen some issues come up in the “conservative Christian home school world”. I believe that looking at the model and learning the principles from it is wise. Extremes can be dangerous including ideas in the conservative world, the danger comes in when they are not checked by God’s word. As for personal experience, my sister and I were raised in a conservative home school family. My sister became friends with a someone in her senior year of high school, both families knew and respected each other. They started liking each other and eventually over time started dating. They have been happily married for a few years and now have a precious little girl. It was not courtship, but there was principle of family involvement. My story is a little different, I am working in the teaching field where there are few guys and my church group is mostly women. I was not meeting anyone, so I tried online dating. I started talking to someone over email, we talked about everything like our view on finances, family, views of God and basics that I would want to know about someone before going out someone. After a month,we met in person and continued to meet until eventually it turned in a dating relationship. My parents were involved, they saw his profile and read our emails (with my permission). Early in the relationship he met my family because I wanted their input on him. It was a fun, non-intense get to know you dinner. Later once we recognized that we both liked and respected each other and wanted to continue dating he met with my dad. By now, he has spent time a lot of time with them and I know his. We have now known each other for almost eight months and have a healthy relationship. Our “dating” has a mix of courtship concepts through family involvement, and dating in the sense I get one-on-one time with my boyfriend. We want to honor God with our relationship, so we have physical boundaries, and we spend time with groups as well as by ourselves so we can have private conversations. Learning about courtship has helped my sister and I have healthy relationships. What she did and I am doing is more of dating with a few principles of courtship thrown in.
This is interesting. ..great article! Something to think about if we ever have kids!
Hi Thomas,
wow! This is extremely interesting to a homeschooler of 6 (eldest aged 16). I think your most important point is the Parentally-supported autonomy of young people (prayerfully!) selecting their OWN spouses from as wide a base of choice as possible. I am Australian – my grandparent’s culture wasn’t as strong on dating as the American way. Yet my grandparents and their many siblings managed to choose their own spouses from rural communities, stay pure and stay married – without the luxury of 20 different dates to compare with! I must find out more about how they did it… My other comment is that to keep the attention of your crucial audience -passionately ‘conservative’ parents like my hubby and I – please offer plenty of practical answers on how young people can date ‘like their great-grandparents’ and still remain sexually pure in today’s culture, which is without question SOOO much more aggressively immoral than ‘back then.’
I agree and disagree with things you said. As a person who has been through a “failed”/ or called off courtship, I know the pain that it can cause. However that didn’t make me hate courtship. By discounting courtship completely I think you are throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. What I think you are missing in courtship is that there is value in and importance in having a good relationship with your parents. Just because parents want to be involved in the process doesn’t always mean they are trying to be completely controlling. The bible says “there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors.” And most of the time parents want to be involved to help you clearly identify God’s best for you. In my case had my parents not stepped in I would’ve definitely missed what God had for me. I don’t think courtship or dating is THE way. I think every situation is different and the goal should be to find God’s will. Sometimes that means you’ll get a “no” whether you date or court. But often God wants to use the authorities he has placed in our lives to help us see that. On another note, you say the divorce rate is higher in courtship couples. That may be true of those you know but the divorce rate in the American “church” (as a whole) is near 50%. That is essentially the same as non-Christians. And I think we can all see that most people in the church do more traditional dating more than courting. So, while you may know more courtships that have ended in divorce I daresay that it is more true across the board that more marriages in general are ending in divorce than ever before. I do appreciate your thought provoking writing.
There are a lot of things that are off here. We all always have to go back to the Bible and how God sees and wants things and not how we analyze this whole “system”
Thanks, this is a good piece, sparking conversation in my family and church. Where your thought breaks down is when you get to the “going steady” phase. At this point the intensity ramps up and leads to problems (been there, done that, I will not wear the tee shirt). I agree that courtship (my model) has presupposed a culture of work and play that allows for a getting to know others at some level. One way or the other the whole thing of finding a mate is wide open to lots of heart ache and pain. This basic getting to know others needs to be thought out and fostered somehow.
This article is Fundamentally Flawed
Indeed, it’s basis in one particular religion has no application anywhere else.
I couldn’t disagree more with your ‘new’ promotion of Practical Courtship. Neither ‘courtship’ nor traditional dating is good for successful marriages! God’s Pre-marital plan was laid out for humanity in Genesis.
Not time or room here to explain in detail, but the focus is on developing our relationship with our Loving Creator first and foremost, busy with the work that He designed to develop us, allowing Him to put us at rest – not searching for, trying out, or arranging – but rather trusting God and allowing Him to bring us together in His timing….in His way! (It will look different for each person and judging the way one couple was brought together is not necessarily the standard for how others should be told to meet their future spouse).
Then what GOD has joined together ………
Interesting article. I have been married to the man of my dreams for the past 7 years and it was a ‘set-up’ 9 years ago. My three brothers each met my future husband independently of each other and all thought he would be an excellent match for me. My oldest brother and sister in law organised a hiking trip with the four of us (brother, sister in law, my future husband, and me) and here we are now 9 years later very happy and with three gorgeous children. I had done dating for several years before that but was some how going steady with the wrong types of guys who had lots of baggage. I am so glad of the ‘arranged’ relationship.
I’ve got single daughters ages. 24. 23. 21 and 20 and don’t have a hard and fast paradigm of dating or courtship. Appreciate your thoughts and intend to study them carefully, and discuss with my wife. Great input. Thanks!
I only read this quickly but one things smacked me as dead wrong: “If she says you need to talk to her dad first, just move on to the next girl.” I’ve encouraged my girls to do this and mostly they don’t but sometimes they do. My second had a fella fly her to his graduation from the Merchant Marine Academy and we has nice phone talk and I thanked him for his generous expenditure, reminded him this didn’t entitle him to anything “like a good night kiss” (euphemism for taking her to bed- I didn’t know this guy from Adam) and asked him if this was acceptable to him. I told him my job was to protect her for her future husband…whomever that may be. He respected that and it reminded him of some truths many young men haven’t though through yet. It modeled to him how to protect his future daughters, it gave my girl freedom to know what expectations awaited her in NY and it elevated her to him and his family as they realized she was protected and had high moral standards. Her family developed keen interest in my girl…she was clearly the “marrying type” for their son.
I’ve talked to other fellas interested in another daughter and broached hard questions like how recently they viewed pornography. I shared with them this is a temptation common to man, and my own struggles with moral purity to help them relax. One fellow said it’d been a past problem but not for two years. He called the next day to apologize and say it’d been two months. I said that’s great, keep up the fight, but it’s tough and he needs to turn that two months into a year, and shared some things that’d helped me. This is a epidemic problem, a set up for a disappointing marriage, and a subject girls cannot typically broach. They need a loving dad’s protection.
So rather than categorically condemning such dads as controlling and telling the guys to move on, I’d encourage the guys to man up and call the dad’s. It takes courage so those who don’t have any, or who have wrong motives are sifted out. And if the guy shows some backbone to only find out the dad is a jerk, then move on. But don’t prejudge the dad or girl by her dad and possible miss out on some jewels.
A dad’s role is protector (not controller) and I don’t know what your experience is, but you’re throwing out the baby with the bath water on that point… while bringing up many other excellent ones.
My oldest daughter, a college student, emailed me this article and asked me to review it.
As a first generation Christian, I had experience in the dating world in the 1980s. My parents divorced when I was 7 and I watched both of them “date”. I also “dated” a lot of young men, most of whom were not interested in marriage, but in having fun for the evening. I met a Christian young man. His respect for me as an individual, is what drew me into finding out more about Christ. While I was taking care of my grandmother, we sat on my grandmother’s porch and spent hours in conversation. We often refer to it as our “courtship”.
We want both of our sons and our daughters to be cautious about who they marry. We have had many discussions about this. We have emphasized that the future spouse should be like-minded with respect to faith and values. We have emphasized purity. Each of our daughters (and our son’s girlfriend) have received a china tea cup from us. Girls are to be treated like a china tea cup. Not like a styrofoam cup which is used once and thrown away or a coffee mug that is used daily and thrown into the dishwasher. We have emphasized accountability. One on One relationships can get too intense too quickly. Statistics show that a couple who spends 300 hours together struggle to maintain purity. We have emphasized family involvement, especially for our teens.
At 15, our son had to ask the “father” to get permission to see the “daughter”. This is much a symbol of respect to the young woman as it is her parents. We also had the parents over for lunch after they went out a few times to discuss our expectations of the “dating” or “courting” relationship. The couple is accountable to one set of parents or the other, siblings or church groups. Because we live in a rural area, the two see each other one or two times a week, but text or talk(yes, cellphones can be used to talk) to each other almost daily.
Most fathers do not have to work that hard to remember being a teenage boy. They know much more how a teen age boy thinks than their niave Christian teen age daughter. While some young men may lack the social skills of being able to carry on a brief conversation with a young girl’s father, that is not reason enough to bypass this important step in the “dating” or “courtship” process. For the young men, a firm handshake while looking the father in the eye is an excellent place to start. Be prepared to tell the father, where you are taking his daughter, what you will be doing and who you will be accountable to and when you will return. The father wants to know that 1. You are a safe and responsible young man. 2. You will treat his daughter with respect.
As for college students, I would recommend not dating or courting during the freshman year. There are too many changes the first year you are on your own. In choosing a college, pick one that has a good Christian presence on campus. Get to know as many girls and boys as possible during a Bible Study or other Christian activities. When you do get serious about seeing just one person, meet each other’s families as soon as practical. Find an older couple at campus or your church to which you can be accountable. Maintain your purity even through engagement until the marriage vows are exchanged. It is true, you will be marrying into a family.
College and adult children do represent a different set of challenges.
Parents and young people need to remember that Christianity is best described as a walk, not a run or a race. We cannot expect an 18 year old to be a perfect mate for our child. He or She will not have had the 20 plus years of marriage experience we have had. Marriage is a life long commitment with Christ at the center.
I have read through this article, and I have to agree that the way courtship is presented in this article is ~completely~ flawed. However, the way it is presented here has also ~never~ been my understanding of how courtship is supposed to work. As I understand it, courtship was meant to be counter-cultural to the ‘play the field’ mentality that had young men (or young women) perpetually dating, but never committing to anyone. They either weren’t emotionally, spiritually or financially ready to make the commitment, and ended up stringing the other person along, sometimes for years. My understanding is that courtship meant a young man was intent, and purposeful, desiring to be married to ~someone~ within the next two years. The courtship process was meant to guard the hearts of those involved, as they sought God’s wisdom to determine if the two should get married. It was supposed to end as soon as one person knew they did not want to marry the other person. Initiating the process was ~never~ meant to be tantamount to saying ‘even though you don’t know me, will you marry me?’ I can definitely see how this distinction could get lost, and corrupted to mean ‘don’t ask a girl out unless you know you want to marry her-even if you don’t know her middle name, or anything about her.’ I can see how that would put an enormous amount of pressure on a guy, and intensify and heighten the significance of just asking a girl out to coffee. The flip side of this is that girls, in response to such a request, are wondering ‘if I say yes to coffee, does that mean I have to marry him?’ That was never the way courtship was supposed to work. I did like the article, and think there is a lot of wisdom to be gained from what’s presented here. I liked the notion of Middle-School aged ‘dates.’ I like it because this is the time life when our social identity is usually (not always) but usually, formed, and a good time in which to learn about the neighboring gender – but only in the context of the “one date” rule. The two concepts have to go together to be a functional learning opportunity for the youngsters involved. The other concept I Iiked: dating, and marrying and finding a mate,well – its supposed to be FUN. Not a source of stress or anxiety, but a joy and a blessing to find someone whose company you just flat out enjoy to no end, and want to have, for the rest of your life.