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.
This article has been a riveting read. As a non-Christian, I did not know that this has been an issue and I’m sorry to hear about the trials you and your friends have gone through. From my experiences in dating I would probably add “Don’t be afraid to say no”. This isn’t just a sexual thing but rather sometimes a new dater can feel pressured or guilty to keep seeing someone who is just not a good fit. Thank you for this interesting article.
This is definitely an interesting article and I’ve learn a few things. I think there are a couple flaws but nothing that really takes away from the meat of the article.
The place where you mentioned your grandmother and how traditional dating was the norm back then and most people stayed married. I think that is more about the times and not about traditional dating vs. courtship. Even non-Christians knew the stigma attached to being divorced and marriage then was looked at more as a lifetime commitment than it is today. Just my 2 cents on that.
I agree with your comment that courtship is flawed, but also that dating is flawed. How can you know a person by just dating for a year or two? The correct way is to trust God and God alone. In my church and we are an international revival church, young men pray to God to give them guidance whom to marry. The lady on her side must also pray and the day before the alter their dating starts. Of thousands that got married, I know of one divorce and that is because the guy went into the world with drugs etc…. Thus a higher level than courtship and God’s permission not the Pastor or the parents.
Thank you so much for writing about this.
We were going to let our girls date.
As parents we trust the Lord to keep them not our abilities.
I personally have felt like courtship was too controlling because parents have so much fear.
I think as a parent it best to keep communication open and honest with our kids.
Rooting our kids in Divine love gives them wings to fly in the freedom of Christ to make their own decisions. WRITE THE BOOK!
I’m so glad to read this comment. I love what you said about fear.
I agree with some points, but not with all of them. But one that I deffinatle agree with is that, maybe people don’t actually say it, but courtship is an extension on an engagement. When you have that level of commitment, it creates a strong temptation for the couple. But also for their family and friends to assume that they will get married. I do not think that that was the way that courtship was supposed to be viewed, but that is the result of it. And it makes it much harder to break out of a bad relationship because you feel as though you are already committed to it.
I definitely agree with most of the points made here. I have been pressured into “dating” or “courtship” or whatever, because it’s equivalent to marriage in many aspects. You don’t get together with someone unless you plan on marrying them. This has been hard, and my heart has been broken. But looking back I’m so thankful that I didn’t stay with those girls. Right now I’m with a wonderful girl, and we are “going steady”. But she has never been with anyone else, and I almost have been treating this relationship just like any other one, with the intention of marriage from the beginning. We have discussed marriage from the first few weeks, and other important topics that could effect a marriage. I think this is healthy, so that you know right away major flaws that could effect the relationship further down the road. I have been together and been closer with this girl much more than my other relationships, and I feel like it will lead to marriage. Neither of us “dated” before getting together. Sure, we had friends of the opposite sex and hung out in groups, but never really went on dates. I had two failed courtship encounters and she had none. So when I look at this kind of article, I totally agree with many of the courtship flaws. But then I try and see it from her perspective, and I would be discouraged from only trying out one guy, and I might get second thoughts about the whole situation. So I can’t recommend this fully. Because sometimes, the first one is the right one. I don’t know if I really got my thoughts out, they’re kind of convoluted. The main thing I’m trying to say, is that there are no rules to dating. No two people are the same, and no relationship is the same. I’m not a fan of courtship, or of dating. They both have their positives and they both have their flaws. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ussCHoQttyQ
Well written Thomas!!!
I like the points you made on guys.
Especially “Get a job. Money makes you more attractive”
I agree completely that courtship is not a healthy tool. I grew up homeschooled in a stifling overprotective home where my parents were politically and community conscious and active, but carried their beliefs and ideas like an arrogant badge of superiority, and courtship was the thing they liked and we were regularly reminded. Following their lead in this meant being treated with approval and love, but not following it meant being harassed, bullied, and verbally and emotionally abused. I met my husband when I was at college and we were around one another for a couple of weeks and we knew there was something there. We dated for three months and told his parents who were tickled to know their son was happy. I was afraid to tell mine, but we eventually did, which was followed by plenty of guilt-tripping, verbal and emotional abuse long-distance from my parents, and efforts to break us up until they figured out I wasn’t changing my mind. I’m so thankful now that growing up in the kind of overbearing patriarchal culture I was raised in where I was taught to keep my head down and passively obey whatever I was told that something inside of me rose up and stood its ground. Even after we married my parents refused to truly accept him as part of the family, and even on my wedding day my Dad would refuse to be pleasant and just be happy for me. They refused to help pay for the wedding in spite of the fact that I was in college and I had little money, but doing my own wedding gave me creative freedom and I didn’t want a large production – kept it simple and sewed my own dress, and I’ve never looked back. I married EXACTLY the right man. My marriage is a 180 from the unhealthy contentious one my parents have, and no surprise, they still don’t get us.
Parents are important, but parents need to realize their job is to start preparing their children and letting go early on, and their kids will thank them later.
I’ve had the non courtship mindset for years ans have yet to be asked out. I’m 24 and my friends aee falling in love…because they courted.
And I am desperate…compermizing starts to sound appealing.
Thanks for your thoughts. I hope they change something.
The way I understand “I Kissed Dating Good-bye” is not there is no dating, but you wait to date until you are ready and able to make a life long commitment if the opportunity should arise.
I enjoyed reading your article…and I basically agree. It would be great, if ‘dating’ meant the same as years ago, as you mentioned. These days, when a girl is asked out, she automatically thinks it means the guy is in love with her and wants to go steady (to use the other old term). Even good ‘Christian’ girls act the same way. If a guy were to ask several different girls out, he’s considered a ‘player’ and his reputation is in question. Our son is very frustrated because even when he just wants to have fun, kayaking, going to the beach, etc., if he includes a girl in the group, they automatically develop a crush on him, flirt with him, etc. EVEN CHRISTIAN GIRLS (in fact, some of them are worse than unbelievers) And, as is natural, when a young man receives that kind of attention, it can make him feel good, and he goes along with the flow. I don’t think courtship is the answer, but I also don’t believe dating, as it is defined today, is the answer. I did feel that your article hinted at disrespect for parents and their part in guiding and guarding the children they are responsible for, before God. And especially disrespect for the father. If a young man doesn’t think enough of my daughter to respectfully talk to her father, he’s not worthy of my daughter. I also believe if the daughter is not willing to have her father involved in her life, she’s not going to be a very good wife to anyone. I’m sure I could say more, but I will quit.
I personally find the idea that somehow a daughter is the property of her father and thus a man must converse with the father to pursue the woman as a morally reprehensible concept. Men should respect women enough to risk being rejected by them and not some third party who they don’t plan on marrying.
But perhaps that’s just me being alarmist
Apologies if this is addressed elsewhere…I’ll leave reading every single comment to you 🙂
While I am familiar with the courtship/dating conundrum (and I’ll say that I’m heartily on Grandma’s side, and have been since college), many of the circumstances of controlling parents, permission to date, courtship imposed by parents, etc. are not something that I ever experienced in my own life or that of my friends. These are foreign issues to me (but not uncommon, I’m gathering).
I think that if you’re planning to write a book – which could be really great – what this blog post is lacking is some personal perspective. I’d love to hear more of your story, or get permission from peers to tell their stories anonymously.
Also, many of the Christian dating flaws you identify are certainly present outside of courtship/controlling parents. That might spiral into a much larger publication, but you might could afford to be more broad in your application.
One of the points where I disagree: you state that “lack of emotional commitment leads to less physical temptation.” That naively assumes that all traditional daters need commitment to pursue physical intimacy…which I can tell you from experience is certainly not the case. Lots of people who date casually (online dating is a perfect example) find that the ease with which they can move on to the next person, probably without ever encountering the first, opens the door to fool around. But where there is dating or courtship of any kind there’s going to be physical temptation. You’re right on the nose about guarding your heart through traditional dating, though.
Last comment! Go grab a copy of “How to Get A Date Worth Keeping.” My favorite on traditional dating. Nice work, Thomas, and thoughtfully done.
While I am a parent in a very secular household, I really appreciate the wisdom in this post. My husband and I have three teenage daughters, and my observation is that the traditional idea of dating described here – that is, a flexibly structured system where teenagers go out with the acknowledged purpose of getting to know each other – has all but gone by the wayside. In some ways it seems to be the victim of overscheduling – the teenagers in my live love to hang out in groups, which is a fine way to spend time together provided there is parental involvement, but it supercedes the opportunity for adolescents to get to know each other one one one, in a way that foreshadows long-term adult relationships, and that’s a pity. Reemphasizing the 1940’s style dating sounds like a great idea to me, and one that could go a long way tore addressing the trend I see for adolescents to to idealize and pursue the “steady” relationship, which does, in this day and age, normalize sexual activity in a way that gives teens far too few working examples of a different way to do things. Thank you – very glad I saw your article.
Thomas,
I appreciate your effort to honestly access this subject and bring forward something better. However, I see underneath all that you are saying here a serious error that I want to candidly address, and I hope you will be willing hear me on this. You are carrying into your new method the same problem you had with your old method– trust in a system. You show a strong passion to find a system that will fix everything. The problem and the solution is not to be found in a system. As a pastor, I have seen this for years among many who practice courtship and it greatly concerns me. You may have been one of the people I read in the past on this that caused me concerns– I don’t know. But now you are doing the very same thing– just do what your grandparents did and all will be well. You want to totally trash one system and replace it with another.
I would rather see a godly family humbly practicing contemporary dating in faith (which of course would be done without breaking clear commandments) than a family practicing 30’s style dating or courtship of any kind with reliance on the system rather than on the living God. What is needed rather than the perfect system of getting people married is active faith in the Lord. Parents and young men and women need to spend time on their knees, not as another system (“I said my prayers so now I am safe”), but as those who are honestly, humbly, crying out to the Lord for wisdom, grace, help, the ability to die to self, understanding of His revealed will, etc. I have seen excellent examples and blessings from families practicing courtship and I have seen the same with those who practice dating. What we need is God’s blessing, not formulas.
That said, there are things that need to be followed from scripture. One is, that a daughter in a faithful Christian family should not marry without her father’s consent. In large measure, fathers abandoned this responsibility in your grandparents golden years. I have had to deal with many sad cases of Christian women who married unbelievers (their fathers who were earnest Christians did not seem to think it mattered because they were nice boys). While they stayed married to these men (because they understood what commitments means), they had confused children who did not often continue in the faith and they often had a lot of heartache. These young ladies had no guidance from their fathers. They were just left to marry whoever they hit it off with without thinking about the future. The courtship movement has helped us to remember that women are “given in marriage” and that there is a responsibility associated with that. That responsibility does not have to be exercised in a weird formulaistic way, but it is to be exercised somehow. So be careful not to toss a good thing in trying to pit one system over another.
I also find it odd that you see courtship as equivalent to engagement. I know many people who practice it as just the opposite; that the purpose of it is to evaluate whether a couple is suited to each other. The man comes and presents himself to the woman and to her family as a suitor and they evaluate him and (of course) he evaluates the woman and there is NO COMMITMENT until they get engaged. In fact, I know communities where two or three men can court the same girl at the same time; not that this is done very often, but it is something that may be done because courting involves no commitment in these communities. Before a suitor is allowed to court, the daughter and her parents find out if they want to let the fellow court. This is based on some very basic things. Is he someone that the girl could at all see as a marriage partner from what she already knows of him? If he is an unbeliever or if there are other issues of incompatibility (he does not want to have children or he has large character flaws or ungodliness or if there are differences in secondary matters like baptism or worship or something that would affect parenting, or if she just does not like him), he would not be declined. There would be no reason to get started in such a case, and you avoid developing an interest in someone that has fundamental differences with you that will make a difference later on.
As you can see, I have an inclination toward courting because I think it brings some things to the table that have been neglected. But as soon as you trust in a formula instead of in the living God, and you trash whatever does not fit your formula, then you can expect a lot of disappointment. The good things I have spoken of about courting can be in place in what is called dating (and is dating). For example, a daughter who trusts her dad might just naturally say, “Joe asked me out– what do you think?” or perhaps, “I went out to lunch with Joe and he seems like a nice guy, but I am concerned about this and this…do you think I should go with him again?” God’s grace is what is needed– and the truth is, a godly trusting saint can end up with an ungodly spouse no matter what approach they take– but the result will still be growth and blessing for the godly trusting saint.
So my advice to you is this: Do not feel like you have to have a system to fix things. Don’t labour to pit one system against another. Labour and encourage people to walk with the Lord and to follow His word with humility and earnest dependence on His grace. I am sure you would say that of course– you know that and you do that– but the wooden way you pit one system against another betrays that you are in fact putting too much trust in systems. Why should you feel that you must totally trash one over against another if that is not the case?
Thank you for this needed comment here!
Two comments;
First off: (which is probably understood, but wasn’t stated here) as Christians, the very first thing we should do is ask God’s guidance with this whole process. Invite Him to tell you what His plans are for you/your children. Then, when He shows/tells you something, obey.
If you don’t have this type of relationship with The Lord, get that settled before you even consider bringing someone else into your life!
Second: something that worked for me was dating only as *friends*.
In college, I went out with hundreds of different “dates”–but made sure that each guy asking me out always knew we were only going out as *friends*. Then, when they tried to hold my hand, etc. I’d ask, “Would you do that with your guy friends?”
They always responded with understanding and respect and backed off. They also always wanted a second, third, fourth etc. date… Which meant I could choose, as the Lord guided, which ones I was interested in going on a second date with. They also knew I was dating (as friends) many other guys.
This “no touch” idea helped us to get to know each other as friends and people–instead of being overwhelmed with raging hormones.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Thomas.
Re: “After 20 years there still is no general consensus as to what courtship is.” I agree!
Re: “But here are the elements most conservative communities have in common…” I guess this depends on the teaching you hear along the way. It seems that you have encountered a very pinched view. Through the past 20 years we have, too. But we also kept coming across the following principles found in the Bible, and we realized that they can be applied in many different ways according to the unique individuals and circumstances involved. While many have applied these principles in a rigid, legalistic manner, some have allowed the Spirit to breathe wisdom and life through them.
1) Seek to know Christ more intimately, and strive to be more like Him, by His grace, mercy, and the empowerment of His Spirit. (A marriage between more mature individuals is more likely to succeed than a marriage between less mature individuals.)
2) Practice trusting patience; wait for the Lord to lead you. (This reveals a more mature faith.)
3) Prepare for your future roles. (A less stressful marriage is more likely to succeed.)
4) Humbly seek and value parental counsel and oversight and/or that of mature Christians. (Glean the wisdom they have gained through their experiences. Keep gleaning after your wedding!)
5) Demonstrate love through guarding the gifts the Lord has given you for your future spouse, and the gifts He has given others for their future spouses.
Perhaps these principles can be found in your article? 😉
Of course, the only path that guarantees a successful marriage is walked by two people who know and love the Lord, and seek to die to self and live for Him daily.
Blessings 🙂
My only comment is that I wouldn’t throw out arranged marriage. The only difference that I can see between dating sites and arrange marriage is that on dating sites, a computer database does the matching, instead of the family.
Yeah and there is no force involved. Most arranged marriage proponents say that parents are the only people who have the right to choose who you marry. And they just sort of announce it.
Having parents or matchmaker types suggest folks for you to date is excellent and wonderful. Institutionalizing a mandated system of matrimony is immoral.
There’s another great website/blog/book that deals with this exactly, it’s called “True Love Dates” & it has many wonderful points, discusses many relevant and important issues, and encourages healthy dating. It’s very practical.
People need to make their own decisions based on their own convictions, but we can, as stated in the article, provide advice and guidance, past experiences – successes & mistakes, while remembering that what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for all.
I love this article. It highlighted some very keys challenges in courtship and dating. I feel it’s important to stress that every style is flawed in some way, and thus will not work for every culture. The divorce rate of marriages has little to do with the path leading to the relationship. The institution of marriage has been greatly devalued in the past 20years, especially within the church walls. It’s now all about how or what one feels.
In my view, if anybody earnestly seeks a relationship in marriage, believing it’s their non-negotiable path towards fulfilling God’s ordained purpose for them, wisdom would suggest consulting with God all the way. Learning how to do this should be the preoccupation of our children, before the need for relationship hits them.
It’s sad that as important as a matter as marriage is, God is carefully eliminated from the process when it’s being discussed these days. Don’t we think God wants to lead us in this very crucial matter? I believe He does.
But some would say introducing the notion of God, or being “too spiritual” about relationships could be a tool for manipulation. True. But shouldn’t we seek to learn how God leads us in every day matters and build a strong relationship with Him that will come in handy when it’s time to choose a life partner? It’s not for life anymore so why bother. The lack of teaching and information on how to hear God’s voice and be led by Him is a big problem within the church today. Rom 8:14 -As many as are led by the Spirit of God, are the children of God. Seek to be led!!!
It’s vital to underscore the point that even when God has led one to their spouse or helped guide them aright, the choice of staying married regardless… still remains ours. Where selfishness has taken center stage, love for and fear of God will seem old-fashioned.
If we model unconditional love in our relationship with our spouse to our children, the process, courtship or dating, will not be subjects for debate. If we teach our children to learn how God speaks to them and we, know how He speaks to us, we’ll build better communities.
All side, the just shall live by faith- Heb 10:38
Great article.
I was not a part of the most conservative circles and yet this sort of thinking had guys afraid to express any interest in a girl until they knew they wanted to marry her – which meant they weren’t going to try to get to know any but the hottest of girls, because if you only get one shot…
And of course ladies weren’t going to so much as smile at a guy they couldn’t see themselves with. It was all very fraught before anyone had even said “hello” !
And then I see people bemoaning the fact that none of us are marrying till we’re in our thirties. Well of course not! That’s how long it took us to figure out that we were told WRONG.
I read your blog with interest. I read the Josh Harris book on courtship when my children were teenagers and at least one of my teens read it, as well. We discussed it, gleaned some of the good from it, and saw some of the fallacies. Thankfully, they are happily married (and yes, they did date!). I like the idea of getting back to the old-fashioned way of dating. Sadly, though, our culture is way beyond that. A girl (or guy) might be hard-pressed to find a date who thinks of their “date” in that light, when the culture is teaching them that sex is a recreational drug. Also, the maturity level of many junior highers has declined as their promiscuity level has increased. I would still not allow my junior higher to go on a date. But hang out with a group of kids at a church or school function – no problem.
My questions about this article are two-fold: 1) I wonder where you are getting some of your facts about divorce trends and lack of marriages among courting advocates, since you don’t cite any sources. Divorce rates are high (way too high!) in every category imaginable in America. 2) I was somewhat put-off by your equating homeschooling with courtship. Perhaps that is where the courtship movement began, but homeschooling has moved way beyond that. There are many, many very savvy, culturally relevant, and academically competitive home school families today. They have found ways to solve the challenges of how and when to interact with other kids – through sports teams and clubs or activities such as dance or drama, home school co-ops, church activities, jobs, etc.
You raise a lot of good points. I hope that it is not an exercise in nostalgia or wishful thinking!
While I agree with many of the things you have said, there are many flaws. Just like courtship is not the be all end all idea, neither is traditional dating. I appreciate that you are attempting to flesh it all out, which is needed…but sometimes in your argument for/against things are true for one side that are actually true on the other side as well. The truth is, if we are trying to “rely” on any system of pre-marriage and/or marriage, and not the Holy Spirit, we are susceptible to failure…Each families set up must reflect their convictions and their relationships, based on the Word…not what is popular Christian culture. Blanket statements, solutions, as you say to things that are cultural or vague in the Bible are dangerous. I totally disagree with some of the points you “tell” men or women to do…You do not word them like suggestions, but “this is what you should do if you want this to work” language. I hope I am not sounding completely negative. I do appreciate you opening this dialogue, but I do feel it is a little out of balance to the other extreme…somewhere in the middle is the Holy Spirit guiding us on this issue.
signed,
~Woman who dated and see its problems
~Mom who encouraged courtship and see its problems
~Child of God who knows the Lord knows our hearts and that we should seek his answers to this problem.
Thank you for this insightful article. As a veteran 20 year homeschool mo of three daughters, we tried courtship and now that they are adults they are trying the dating approach you spoke of. They are still finding it difficult though to find young Godly men with similar aspirations and goals for family and life. Either way, they are happy, and continue to pursue what God has for thier lives. Thank you.
If James Dobson said it, we believed it. We absorbed the words of Gary Smalley, John Trent, Tedd Tripp, Gary Chapman, and more. We attended all the homeschool conferences, met regularly in small groups, shared our burdens with other parents, and beat our hearts out trying to “hear God” on behalf of our kids, desperately wanting to know how to raise them well in an era of sexual overload, government intrusion, and societal corruption. We were convinced that what had gone before had not worked. We examined and reimagined dating, courtship, parental involvement, the role of fathers, the influence of mothers, the place of “youth ministries,” and even the size of the churches we attended.
We did all these things.
It wasn’t enough.
Sorry, gang. The world is hell, ain’t it?
my husband and I courted 12 years ago. the “readiness” for marriage bit was used by my parents as a last great fling of abuse and control via impossible hoops. Lemme tell you: being able to control and withhold another person’s relationship on your whims is a HUGE powertrip, one that was a temptation that neither of my parents could resist. One of the reasons why they accepted the proposal of my now husband was that they perceived that he was usable for their ends. He was from a non-fundamental background, and was so, so far from my upbringing he didn’t even get what was happening until years afterwards, even when it happened in front of him.
I was under a huge pressure. The only way to escape my abusive childhood home was by marrying. and the only way to marry was to choose someone whom they would approve. i understood intuitively that caring for my partner would be used to further hurt me. So going into a relationship, I was quite, quite ****ed up. I needed to charm and pretend to be in love with the chosen target enough to convince my parents and him. I also had to be restrained and “mature” enough to convince them i was ready. (spoiler- they only consented to setting a date when the power of the courtship over me was lost and they sensed that they needed to up the ante) I needed to also not care enough to survive. I took my dreams of romance and love out back and killed them in early adolescence. The thing about marriage is that it is based in part on the act of choosing and being chosen. This gives security even when romance fades. There is really no way to express how much hurt and insecurity has come out of A. one partner knowing that they were not really chosen and B. the other partner knowing they didnt really get to choose.
The marriage that can come out of courtships is based on enduring unpleasantness and pretension. In retrospect this is so retarded I have no words. Those kinds of things wont get you through the really hard times in life. and my parents, having been married for many years (after dating in college) should have known that.
There is more but I will truncate it there.