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.
Tl;dr
Western civilization, including the once-noble institution of marriage, is dead.
I’m surprised not much has been said about the parents of the courting boy/man- I’ve personally known many individuals & couples who have had more issues with them, either because they want to keep his help (either literal & physical or financial) at home, to themselves; Or, they (honestly usually the Mother) want to keep him, his time, his attention, etc…to themselves. In my case, it was a combination of both, for both my husband and I, and his four brothers. Not one girl/woman any of them have ever been interested in has been met with approval, including the wives the three married ones have chosen. My inlaws have been very honest that they didn’t mind if none of their sons married, so it’s hard to believe that their interest was in finding good wives for their sons as much as it was in having their own way.
I loved this article, you hit the nail directly on the head again and again!
Thanks for the good insight! I was a homeschool parent and concluded after about ten years that the whole movement does not typically operate in a grace oriented atmosphere. Instead of teaching our children freedom in Christ, in all areas, we pour them into legalistic molds. We lose sight of the vital and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ and instead turn everything into steps or formulas. Galatians 2:20 – I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Very interesting read. You have a lot of good points, and your style is clear and concise. I had a lot of thoughts after reading this, so I wrote them up on my blog if anyone is interested. You can read my post by clicking here: http://sharpenothers.org/2014/08/thoughts-on-datingcourting.html
Thanks for the insights, Thomas.
While I agree with a lot of what the author says and it gave me much to think about, as I have a 15 yo daughter, I would respectfully disagree with this section:
“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. There are a lot of fish in the sea and some dads are nicer than others. Remember that this man would have become your father-in-law, and controlling people tend to control everything they can. So avoiding women with those kinds of fathers can save you a lot of heartache down the road.”
If the woman is in college/post college and is presenting it as “my dad says you have to ask him first,” then maybe that is the case, but if she wants the guy to meet her dad, especially while still in her teens, I think that is just a simple sign of respect and most young men I know think this is completely appropriate. Shaking hands with a young lady’s father doesn’t insure that a young man will behave himself, but what it does do is remind him that his date is someone’s daughter and that treating her with respect is a good idea. The younger he is, the more that reminder is needed.
While these are helpful guidelines they are given with some assumptions that need to be kept in mind (i.e. the daters are Christians and living in the Spirit.) I personally didn’t start dating until college. That wasn’t my choice, but something that came from my being a strong and confident HS female athlete. (I understand now I was a little intimidating to the young men around me AND that the Lord was protecting me.) Not dating until college, when I suddenly received a GREAT amount of attention, had given me a great runway into really solidifying how I wanted my dates to behave and how I was going to stem temptation. I didn’t make a decision to personally follow Christ until age 15. It wasn’t until then that the Lord changed my heart as I thought pre-marital sex was OK and that living with someone you wanted to marry was OK as well, even though my parents believed and taught me otherwise. If I had dated earlier, I may have had far more experience than I wanted to have or was ready to have.
So while I think these are great guidelines for those who are older struggling with the courtship vs dating issue, I do think it fails address a few important issues with more specifics – which might help younger readers, early daters, and those younger in their faith. Maybe a section differentiating rules for HS vs older daters?
BTW – I am now a VERY happily married (21 years) mother of 5. Also, I met my husband, was engaged in 7 weeks and married in 8 mos. That happened because God clearly told us he had us for each other. Wait to get confirmation from the Lord that this person is meant for you. I had 4 men want to marry me and it was the 5th the Lord said IS HIM! 😀 We DID wait until we were married to have sex and that was HARD as he gave me the man I wanted to be ONE with. When the Lord says yes, get er done!
This is the best article I have ever seen on this subject. I did not grow up in the church. I became a Christian in college. When I learned about this courtship movement, to be honest I thought it was bizarre. Guys have enough pressure asking a girl out. To add the pressure that he has to have marriage in mind before the first date… how does that work? Now I’m a homeschool mom and some of my friends are into this. What I’ve noticed is that their teens seem to be totally disconnected from the opposite gender. It’s hard to describe, but they don’t relate in a normal way.
One of the families in our homeschool group is so proud. Their son married a girl from our group after courting with chaperones for six long years. They saved their first kiss for the altar. They came for a visit since they live out of state, right after the wedding. They had no connection and did not look like newlyweds at all. I don’t see how you can completely shut down your attraction to someone, completely shut down ALL romantic feelings for six years and then magically turn it on when you get married. Marriage isn’t some magical fairy dust that makes intimacy easier. It actually can make intimacy even harder because of the pressure some feel about the enormity of marriage. These two kids have acted like buddies for six years and now they are supposed to turn into romantic partners? Maybe it’s possible, but I have my doubts. I am certain that when research is finally done on this courtship phenomenon, they will find a high divorce rate, and a very high rate of sexual dysfunction in these marriages.
I’m in a tough spot because many of my friends embrace this idea. So I’m fighting for my kids on two fronts. I’m fighting the anything goes, sleep around mentality of the macro culture, and I’m fighting this courtship thing among Christian homeschoolers that we are around.
There is something that really bothers me about this whole purity movement, too. One of the key teachings they use is to scare kids into celibacy by telling them that if they have sex, they are sullied, ruined, they will never have a normal sex life with their partner, they have permanently given a piece of themselves to whoever they have sex with. NONE of that is true. A huge percentage of Christian kids and purity kids have sex before marriage. I’ve read articles about how some of them could never have a normal sex life, or their marriage was severely damaged because of the guilt of what they had done.
I grew up in a liberal, anything goes household. So I did not wait for marriage. I have also been married twice. It is not at all true that your sex life is ruined, or you have given some magical, intangible piece of yourself to the person you had sex with. Humans are capable of adapting to tremendous challenges. Our thoughts and beliefs are powerful, and if you believe that’s true, then yes it will be true for you. I carry no guilt nor shame for the choices I made. Jesus forgives ALL of our sins, so why would I carry a burden into my marriage because of things I did in the past?
Before someone starts screaming at me, let me be clear. I do NOT advocate for sex before marriage. What I do advocate for is GRACE. If you slip and you have sex, which statistically you will, give yourself GRACE. God gives you grace, so why wouldn’t you give it to yourself?
Another thing I read about is one partner waited for marriage and the other one didn’t. Then the partner who waited is resentful and angry at the one who had sex. Give it a rest and let it go. It’s a stupid thing to ruin your marriage over. Again… GRACE. We aren’t fairies in a wonderland who give some of our pixie dust up when we lock our interlocking parts with another person. This sort of magical thinking is dangerous.
Here’s another scenario I read about. Two people are in love, part of the purity and courtship thing. They slip and they have sex before their wedding. They still get married, but they feel so guilty that they have marriage problems. Again… GRACE. God is not up in heaven freaking out, screaming at how awful you are. No, instead he sent his son to die a horrific death so you would be forgiven.
My husband grew up in a strict religious shame based household. His guilt and burdens about sex have caused us many problems and almost led us to a divorce. You must teach your kids the ideal of purity and waiting for marriage with grace and not absolutes. Birth and marriage records of the Puritans in this country show that a large percentage of them had sex before marriage. There are many babies that were born just a few months after the wedding. If they struggled living in a homogenous culture with no outside temptations from media and non Christians, then how can you expect you won’t struggle with this?
As the mother of a 18 yo girl and 16 yo boy, the idea of ‘courtship’ is an out-dated and barbaric way of teaching our young women they are not capable to making decisions on their own and that they are no more than property that is to be bartered.
My husband and I raised both our children to be open, honest, and have a very open dialogue in our home that our children freely and often come to us with questions that would make most parents extremely uncomfortable to answer. But we agreed when they were born that if we aren’t willing to be a little uncomfortable in discussing things with our own children, we have to be prepared that they will seek answers elsewhere (normally from their peers, which aren’t anymore experienced than they are).
When our daughter started receiving offers for dates, my husband and I “offered” that if “she wanted” we would gladly take her and the boy out on their first date. The purpose of that…..it shows the true intentions of the boy (our daughter has been a developed, beautiful girl for several years). If a boy only was interested in sex, she would know immediately because the last thing he would want to do is go on a date with her parents. BUT if he was genuinely interested in getting to know her as a person, he would accept. And they did, the first two boys she “dated” were thrilled to have a first date with not only her, but us. It took some of the awkwardness off, as well the fact that we paid the bill and took them to a much nicer place than a high school boy could afford.
Our daughter admits (she’s now in college) that she has always enjoyed our company, so going out to dinner with a boy isn’t uncomfortable for her at all and in the case of both the boys we did took out to dinner, they also admitted it wasn’t bad, but actually quite enjoyable for them as well.
She has thanked us on more than one occasion that having those dinners, it allowed her to see and taught her how relaxed dating should be, not a stressing thing. If she likes a young man at school, she offers to bring friends on the first few dates, so the stress of being alone is not there. It’s not that she doesn’t trust herself or the young man, but having others around allows everyone involved to just ‘hang-out’ and have a good time.
Our son is just now starting to ask young ladies out and he also asks us or the girls parents or both to accompany them on their first date for the same reasons as his sister told him. The added bonus is we, as parents, get to know the person they are dating a little bit better as well and when both sets of parents accompany them, we get to know what kind of family dynamic that young woman/man is coming from.
Thanks so much for this post! I especially loved this line:
” It took some of the awkwardness off, as well the fact that we paid the bill and took them to a much nicer place than a high school boy could afford.”
I’ll be keeping this in mind as my girls get older. Thanks again 😀
Thank you so much for this article. It is a highly debated and very intense topic, so kudos to you for daring to confront this issue. You have done it splendidly. As a 20-year-old single former homeschooler going to a Christian college, you have spoken straight to my heart. Your voice needs to be heard and accepted as the truth. Good luck, and I can’t wait for the book!
SInce this article has been shared multiple times in my facebook feed, I think I’ll respond. SO MUCH of this article is based on the author’s personal experience. My experience is the opposite. My husband and I were raised in public school and are products of the cultural failings of the dating system of the 70s and 80s. We were burned; yet God in His grace brought us together and have been married 30 years. We now have five children, and the biblical courtship model has been very helpful to us in raising them. We also started a Christian ministry offering families opportunities to mix and mingle with other like-minded families so our young people would be exposed to a healthy community of prospective future marriage partners. We did not isolate our children from their peers, but we did set up an atmosphere of selectivity which allowed for a good-quality peer environment with a parental presence. This article woefully ignores the social environment that should be provided for by families in their home and church.
I’m sorry to hear of so many fathers being so rude to those suitors. That should not be. Fathers should allow these potential-suitor young men to come hang out with the family in low-pressure situations (dinner, coffee, music-making, games, etc.) where siblings of all ages are allowed into the circle of fellowship. These young men ought to be allowed the same polite company as anyone else. They are younger brothers and disciples for the fathers in the long haul, regardless of their future marriage potential with their daughters. But alas, this rudeness again has not been our experience.
Any system has its flaws because mankind is flawed. We have married off our three eldest children and our fourth is now in a courtship. We have made mistakes with each courtship, learned from our mistakes, and honed our skills with each one. We have acted on a case-by-case basis, keeping in mind the age of the children. An 18yo daughter is treated slightly differently from a 21yo daughter. An 18yo suitor likewise would be treated differently than a 24yo. We take them where they are and go from there, allowing various levels of autonomy based on their readiness and spiritual condition. I still think this is a more biblical model than dating, however way you define it.
My parents dated in the 40s and married in 1950. They did not have this no-exclusivity rule imposed on them, so it was not universal in those days, at this article seems to suggest. My mother did not listen to her mother’s warnings, and her father said nothing in criticism until after the marriage, which by then was too late. My parents’ marriage was dysfunctional from the beginning until my father’s death two years ago.
If you build your case and doctrine on personal experience alone, you won’t be able to stand very long on such a sandy foundation. Courtship is not fundamentally flawed, it is biblical, if you look at the betrothal model in Joseph and Mary’s story. The devil is in the details. You have pointed out how some folks can go overboard with the principles and be unbalanced. That does not mean one should throw out the baby with the bathwater. I’m glad the two suitors who came to ask permission for courting our daughters did not take offense at the father’s involvement. The key is the attitude and behavior of the father, who in every case is human. Cut the father some slack. He’s still trying to figure this out too. He’s not necessarily as over-controlling as is assumed in this article.
Finally, someone who truly understands the issue. Thank you for such a well-written comment. Couldn’t have said better myself. Exactly my position. 100% agreed.
This is the best response I’ve seen.
This is fascinating. This past year has been a source of many changes for me. At the age of 25, leaving a 3-year old relationship that seemed destined for marriage, I’ve been unsure of what I want. The only thing I know is that I can’t have such a pressured commitment right now.
I had no idea that this particular concept of “dating” was common for older generations. This is exactly what I feel like I need right now, and in fact has been what I’ve been doing this summer. I’ve made it very clear at every first date that I’m not going to be exclusive or committed for a while and that I WILL see other people. Amazingly, everyone so far has been happy with this arrangement. I feel like I’m getting to know people on a new level, and that there is more trust between us than there would be if we were exclusively “going steady.” It’s hard to explain. However, I feel I’m getting to know everyone as friends much more easily than I would have been before. As such, I completely understand and am in agreement with this old-fashioned “dating” mentality.
I love the way you articulated this concept. It helps me feel more normal for wanting to take a step back from the “serial monogamy” of continuous long-term dating, especially at a time in my life when many of my friends are getting more committed. I am not a Christian. In fact, I am an atheist, but (from a scholar’s point of view) I appreciate the biblical connections you’ve drawn. Thank you for helping people open their minds on the concepts of dating & courtship. This isn’t a topic I hear much novel advice on, but this post was sorely needed right now.
I’ve been in an “incompatible” marriage for 18 years and still going strong, by God’s grace. 🙂 We didn’t know what courting was but did follow a sort of courting paradigm, not really led by our parents but by those we respected in our church. I don’t advocate nor regret how we went about it (although there were areas that we certainly could and should have done in a more God-honoring manner), since God was working in both of us through it all and has continued to bless in our dependence on Him. We have 8 children and are homeschooling. We’ve found ourselves to be rather unconventional among most other large homeschooling families because we don’t hold to several of the beliefs that we typically find in other conservative families that look like ours. Our children haven’t reached the point of interest in either dating or courtship yet (our oldest is still young, almost 17) but we have never been too excited about the whole courtship approach. This was an interesting read, although I don’t particularly agree with everything said. Some of the comments are very thoughtful. Will add a few of my own, for what it’s worth. 🙂
We do need to be careful not to build our beliefs (about anything, in this case, how to go about finding a spouse) around experiences rather than trusting God to work through obedience to His explicit directions and trusting Him to work through our particular circumstances. The advice here about “traditional dating” is founded on the experience of his grandparents and on culture–which has changed dramatically over the last couple of generations–rather than truth. It’s got the same kind of flaws as courtship because it’s a method that isn’t God-given (but, in this case, experience driven). I’m not a courtship advocate either; the Bible doesn’t say anything about HOW to find a spouse. Examples of how people did things in the Bible aren’t commands or even necessarily meant to be followed (of course, we want to follow Christ but we aren’t all called to do everything that He did! and Paul said “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1) but this doesn’t again mean to do what he did, but to behave how he behaves). Many times the Bible gives examples of sinful behavior without commenting on it, and sometimes just narrates something that happened that was neither sinful or “right”, but neutral. The only guidelines I find in the Bible for relating to the opposite sex of any age are to conduct ourselves in purity toward one another (1 Tim 5:1-2) to submit to parental authority (Eph 6:1, Col. 3:20), if anyone cannot exercise self-control sexually, they need to marry (1 Cor 7:8-9), marry someone who belongs to the Lord (1 Cor 7:39, 2 Cor 6:14), and not to cultivate sexual desires prematurely (Song 2:7).
Several people have commented well on “telling” parents that you will no longer court but begin dating, and I’ll only add that depending on the age of the child and the circumstance (in the parents’ home or on their own) this approach varies from sinful (in a child still under parental authority, in their home) to bordering on disrespectful (for those who are older, especially adults). Of course it’s not wrong for a younger child under their parents’ authority approach a parent respectfully and present information they may not have, to ask if they might change their approach, but to tell parents outright that you no longer are going to adhere to their rules is wrong. An adult child does have this freedom, but should still approach their parents with respect, love, and honor as they explain why they have decided on a different path for themselves.
My biggest disagreement is with the reasoning for why so many marriages that began in courtship have failed. Marriages (no matter how they began or came about) don’t fail because they didn’t get to know one another well enough or because they weren’t compatible. They fail because people are sinners. They fail because, no matter what circumstance, people can put on a mask of goodness to hide who they really are if the perceived rewards are great enough. They fail because every sinner is selfish. They fail because often people are only willing to love and forgive within certain limits. They often feel they are entitled to a certain level of respect or love and are unwilling to die to themselves and their own desires. They often expect more of their spouse than they do of themselves. They fail because sinners often lack humility. They don’t try to work out problems that they expected to circumvent because of the way they got along before they were married, or because they followed a certain formula they believed would lead to success. They don’t leave room for God to work through the sharpening and sometimes painful tool of marriage to another sinner. “We did everything right (whatever their standard of right might be), so this shouldn’t happen.” I’m aware of marriages that have broken and been rebuilt because one spouse faithfully forgave, loved, humbled themself, and endured in terrible difficulty, wooing the sinning spouse either to repentance or salvation in the first place. There are also those which are broken permenantly because of a sinning spouse who has no desire to repent (and may never have been saved in the first place). I know several precious, single parents whose spouses left because they could no longer retain the hypocritical mask of Christianity that they had been wearing.
We can’t prevent trials in marriage. (Paul writes in 1 Cor 7:28b “Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.”) Troubles are inevitable and necessary for our growth in Christ. Some couples are more “compatible” than others…which means that they won’t have to rid their lives of as much sin and self as those who are in more “incompatible” circumstances. Is the goal of finding a spouse to find someone that’s easy to love and get along with? We may even say that our goal is to have a marriage that honors Christ and portrays His loving relationship with His church. But in my mind this relationship is even more beautifully shown in a marriage where husband and/or wife have to learn to deny self, to live for another, to give up their selfish ambitions for the good of the other, no matter how painful that process may be, regardless of “incompatibility”…because that’s what Christ did for us and that’s what the church does (albeit imperfectly) for Christ their Savior. I can’t think of a greater contrast in compatibility than the perfect Lord Jesus Christ and the church!
Method (courtship or dating) isn’t the problem. Method (courtship or traditional dating) isn’t the solution. The problem is sin. The solution is humble submission to Christ, no matter what circumstances a young person finds themself in…with parents who hold to courtship, with unsaved parents who don’t care what you do, with mentors who are willing to take place of believing parents in advising, and whether eventually in a good marriage, a difficult marriage or remaining single. God doesn’t promise to bless a particular method of finding a spouse. He works through a vast variety of circumstances engineered by His wisdom to refine each of His children to make them more like Christ, so we can bring Him honor and be used by Him to bring Him glory—and it rarely, if ever, looks the same in any two lives.
Finally another person who really understands the issue here. Couldn’t have said better myself. 100% agreed.
The irony in over-controlling Evangelical parents is they are declaring they do not believe in the scripture “train your child up in the way they should go and they will not depart from it.”
My mother was married in 1954 after dating 48 boys (yes, she was still a virgin, :)) that gave her lots of experience and earned relationship wisdom. She just celebrated 60 years of marriage.
I just clocked 17 years of marraige after much dating.
Parents should focus their energy on building their children’s faith and self-worth-the rest will fall into place.
Irresponsible parenting at its best.
Building self-worth is utterly unbiblical. A statement like this shows your bible ignorance.
Friend, you are criticizing a fellow believer on the basis of a simple but common mistake. Because the Bible does not use the direct words “self worth” you say it is unbiblical. Not so. “Self worth” is simply a short-hand phrase to give reference to a broad biblical teaching, in the same way that “Trinity” or “providence” are short-hand phrases used to reference broad scriptural truths.
Consider: the Bible says that my children are children of God; that they are friends of God; that they are made in His image; that they have been given a spirit of self-control and a sound mind; that Christ died for them while they were still God’s enemies; that they have been commissioned as ambassadors of Christ; that they shine like stars in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation; and on and on and on. Dear friend, how could I possibly teach my children these things and not promote in them a profound sense of self worth? Certainly the worth comes from God, but if God says we are of great worth, is it not true, and should that truth not be applied to self as well as others?
Young people who believe their lives and bodies are cheap commodities will likely sell them cheaply. Young people who believe they are precious in God’s sight will likely treat themselves accordingly.
Good day, and please aim for a more respectful and less presumptuous tone in the future.
Very very very well said.
This has been an insightful article. When my sister first told me about the “don’t go on a date with the same boy twice in a row” rule I was shocked. But reading the full article I understand its intent and fully agree. As a twenty three year old male currently in what I would call a “courtship”, I understand the “intensity” mentioned through out. Fortunately, the Lord blessed me with confidence when I asked her father to date, and his blessing to marry. However, at the start there was also an intensity from my girlfriend and myself. It was difficult for both of us to not be overly committed or unhurt if one of us felt as though the Lord wasn’t leading us to marriage. Or if we just didn’t see ourselves marring the other. When either or both people in a relationship feel this way it can lead to marriage out of guilt or fear of hurting the other, and an unhappy marriage to follow. We both love each other very much and I WANT to get married. Now days the DESIRE to get married can be overcome by OBLIGATION.
Maybe a boy asks a girl to date him after a few dates. This is the first time she has ever been asked to “go steady” and wants to get to know the guy better. A few weeks of dating tell her he isn’t the guy for her, BUT he is head over heals for her. He has already asked her dad to date her,( basically the equivalent of marriage) and she doesn’t want to hurt him. What other option does she have but to keep going and get married? If she breaks up with him everyone will look at her as mean or harsh. She can’t stand the thought of critizim for something she already feels bad about. What the “not dating a guy twice in a row” rule does is allows this girl to know that he isn’t the guy BEFORE they start going steady.
With regards to purity. We are both committed to each other and we want to get married by next summer. This makes staying pure a challenge. Lord willing our future holds marriage. Knowing this creates a false sense of entitlement to each others bodies. We are not one flesh YET, but the intense emotional connection we have brings or physical desire to a new level. I love the Lord with all my heart! I want to serve Him and honor Him. He is my God, King, and Savior. Yet I am a sinner. I disobey Him and fail Him. His grace sustains me. The point being that no matter the character of any young man he is a sinner and a young MAN. To put yourself into a situation where you are just getting to know the person and yet you still have that sense of entitlement is dangerous. God forgives all our sins, but that can lead to unintended marriage.
As a newly-*dating* 21 year old woman who grew up thinking she’d be going on chaperoned courtship outings until she was at the altar … I really appreciate this honest and insightful article! Thank you!!
A first glance of this blog post I was rushed with enthusiasm because I felt the frustration of the way the church has eliminated dating. I saw that this blog post made very good and valid points in response to removal of dating in the church and relegating it to a courtship intention for marriage. With that said I began to read the Josh Harris’s book “I kissed Dating Goodbye”. An excellent book, and I would recommend it to anyone. The problems found with this blog post is that it’s taking a secular view point and peppering it with spiritual truth. The idea from Josh’s book is that when we take our eyes off of pursuing Christ the only alternative is to see our deficiencies and quickly begin filling the voids in our life with that we think we need at that very moment. Jesus said in Matthew 6:32-34 “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” The problem we face is our impatience. We aren’t willing to submit and be patient. Take a look at the effect when we take our eyes of Christ replacing Him with worldly things, thoughts, and desires. Do you notice the anxieties? Do you notice how selfish you are acting, thinking, and behaving? We focus more intently on our strong desires and not on Christ, Purity, Godliness, and Holiness. Is it a struggle and is it difficult? Yes. Christ knows this, and in His Great Word of Truth He has given us a way out. I want to exhort us to put our sights back on Christ, and let him take care of your desires. He knows what will make you more happier, and who you’ll be happier with. I exhort you to be patient, endure, and faithfully follow and obey the Lord Jesus Christ. How can you not want what Christ wants for you? Therefore, this is also a call to repent from our unbelief, distrust, and our impatience.
I would have to see the stats to know that couples who courted before marriage have a higher divorce rate than couples that dated before I could agree with a great deal of his platform. As I see it, the issue isn’t courtship, dating, traditional dating or arranged marriage…the issue..the problem causing so much divorce is the failure of the church to teach the depth, breath, and scope of commitment. But of course, how can the church know anything about this…when she is more concerned about how people dress, what sort of car they drive, or how to get people to give more so they can build a bigger building. Like everything in life, a good marriage takes hard, hard work. It never comes easy…no matter how you met, or how long you knew each other before marriage. It is now so easy to give up…to quit…to walk away. And the church just keeps spouting off the same nonsense to her congregations…nonsense that doesn’t work. She should be leading by example…but when pastor after pastor keeps sleeping with someone other than his/her spouse, what message, through example, could that person be sending to the singles in their “congregations”…???? That marriage is too hard, boring, love is too much work…and one just “has” to “follow their heart” no matter how many homes are destroyed or lives (children) are ruined. When marriage stops being about ME ME ME…and moves into being about the others you live with….you have a much better chance of that marriage standing the test of time. Dating, traditional or otherwise, will NOT slow down the divorce rate among Christians……His premise that courtship is fundamentally flawed may be true when it comes to meeting someone of the opposite sex…but his premise that traditional dating is the “key” to stemming the tide of divorce in the church is flawed. After all….who do you think started the tide of divorce in this country??????? Yes, that generation of “traditional daters”.
I get the impression that ‘courting’ a hundred and 50 years ago wasn’t a commitment to marry. If these families are treating ‘courtship’ like a serious thing somewhere between ‘going steady’ and engagement, and young people have to jump from nothing all the way to that level of expectation, that’s not a good scenario. I thought old-fashioned courtship involved visiting a woman of marrying age on her front porch or in the home with her parents and relatives around. In the English novels about the 1800’s, a man visits the home on Sunday afternoon. She plays the piano or the family does some other entertainment. Multiple young men may show up as guests. Eventually, one proposes. (And the other is broken-hearted.) It was dating with the parents around. Some of the Amish court by riding around in special buggies– open ones where others can see.
I agree that dating or courting should be done with marriage in view, but do you have to know that someone you go out for ice cream with is going to be your husband or wife? That’s a big commitment to make to just ask a girl out for ice cream or coffee. In general, the purpose should be to find a spouse, not a girl friend or boy friend. Our dating culture is messed up with high expectations of fornication.
I have little girls, and I can appreciate courtship that involves chaperones and being under a parents watchful eye rather than a couple of teens driving off in the dark alone. I don’t my girls dating until they are within a year or so of marrying age. What’s the point? To go into temptation?
I’ve watched a few episodes of the Duggars to see about how they do courtship, researching the idea as a parent. The Duggars do courtship, but one of their girls chatted with a guy online for a year or several months before they officially went into a ‘courtship.’ Basically, they did online dating, and called a step before engagement ‘courtship. The guy asked Jim Bob’s permission to court and later be engaged. Jim Bob set the two of them up. Of course, he’s got hundreds of thousands or millions of viewers to potentially set his daughters up with. Out of those, there are probably a few dozen males of marrying age who might be interested who would watch a show on TLC.