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What is courtship and does anybody know how to do it right?
If you're involved in the homeschooling community or close to it, you probably know that in some circles at least the idea of courtship has become almost a corollary to homeschooling. "We homeschool, and we plan to use courtship as a model for our young adults as they become adults and enter into a relationship with the opposite sex." I've heard some variation on this statement many, many times, and I've even said something like it myself.
The problem is that no one seems to know what courtship is, but we all know know what it isn't ---it's NOT DATING. Now we have young adults in our home, four of them ages twenty-one down to fifteen, and it's past time for a little more definition and a little less waffling. I've read I Kissed Dating Good-bye and Boy Meets GIrl: Say Hello to Courtship by Joshua Harris. I've read Best Friends for LIfe by Michael and Judy Phillips. And I've read Her Hand in Marriage: Biblical Courtship in the Modern World by Douglas WIlson. I've also listened to some tapes by Jonathan Lindvall. All of these, except maybe the last, have some ideas with which I agree and others I question. All of them present a different model of courtship leading to marriage.
Last night while browsing the internet I found a self-published e-book written by the son of Michael and Judy Phillips, Robin Phillips. The title is The Way of a Man WIth a Maid: A Response to the Courtship and Betrothal Movements. The book is available for download for free and well worth reading if you have any interest in the subject. Mr. Phillips has a lot to say in response especially to the strict advocates of courtship or betrothal who approach an ideal of (parent) arranged marriage in their writings on the benefits of a a courtship relationship. Two objections that Mr. Phillips gives seem reasonable to me:
1. Many advocates of courtship teach that young people are to maintain "emotional purity" prior to the beginning of their courtship or betrothal. The meaning of emotional purity varies according to which writer you're reading, but the ideal is that young men and women are not allowed to be friends with anyone of the opposite sex nor even to have an attraction or a special friendship or realtionship with their intended spouse until after the courtship agreement is finalized. This "guarding of the heart" is supposed to ensure that young people, especially young women, are not hurt by committig themselves to a relationship with someone who is not "the right one."
As I've seen this working out in practice, it's a catch-22. Young men and young women are not allowed to become friends in a normal, natural way, so they have no experience of relating to the opposite sex. They become so afraid of a wrong relationship that they cannot form a "right relationship." Girls and adult women wait and wait for someone who live up to Daddy's expections. Guys know that they can never be the perfectly mature young man that dads are looking for, so they don't even try. And everybody is looking at everyone else to initiate something, but no one feels confident enough to do so. Or else someone, somewhere relaxes (or breaks) "the rules" enough to let a friendship develop, and families recognize the relationship and eventually a marriage takes place. I can't find the concept of "emotional purity" anywhere in the BIble, and I find it difficult and counter-productive to put into practice.
2. Phillips also finds theological problems with the courtship/betrothal movement in the areas of legalism and authoritarianism. I have seen parents in my church benignly and helpfully guide their young people to the consummation of a marriage relationship in which both the young man and the young woman were thankful for the parents' intervention and guidance. I also know a fine Christian man and his wife who have told the Christian young man who came to them honorably and told them he wanted to be friends with their daughter that he is not allowed to even speak to her at church or anywhere else. They didn't consult the daughter in question, didn't give the young man any reason, other than the idea that their daughter was not allowed to have any male friends. I pray not, but I fear this kind of over-protection is headed for disaster in one form or another.
So, what do you think about the courtship and betrothal ideals? Are these the ideal ways to approach male/female relationships? Are they the "Biblical models?" Have you seen courtship working out practically in the lives of young people you know? What problems have you seen? If not dating, then what? How do two people come together in purity short of an arranged-by-the-father marriage? What have you read on this subject that really makes Biblical sense?
And, finally, are we trying to make something messy and wonderful, namely love and marriage, into a set of rules that we can follow to ensure that our children achieve the "right outcome," namely a good and God-honoring marriage?
I'd recommend the Kass & Kass book "Wing to Wing". This is mostly a collection from the Western canon on courtship and marriage (with a small amount of commentary to explain why each piece was included). It is not polemical, but just lays out various texts for the consideration of the reader.
Leon Kass also wrote about ten years ago an essay entitled "The End of Courtship" which you can find online via google.
Interesting post.
As a mom of two girls, this topic has interested me but also left me with several questions.
I'm wondering who out, other than Josh Harris, actually knows what they're doing in the sense that they followed a courtship pattern and now want their children to benefit from the same course of action.
As a 39-year-old who has been in evangelical circles for close to my entire life, I do not have one peer who met her husband through courtship. And I've asked! (I'm one of those nosy friends who loves to hear how others met and married.)
I met my husband in the singles ministry (18-35 year olds, most never married) of a large reformed church. We dated. He took the lead in all ways (our first date was to a Sunday evening service) and conducted himself appropriately throughout our dating, engagement, and now through 11 years so far of marriage. My husband, who also lived within evangelical boundaries his entire life wouldn't have bought into the courtship "rules" for a minute.
For me, the dating process worked. It even worked with the handful of men that I dated prior to meeting my husband. We got to know each other and one or the other of us came to realize that we weren't "the one" for each other.
There was one man (a good man) who broke my heart in the process of dating, but God used that relationship to teach me a lot about His character. I was a stronger person on the other side of that dating relationship than I was before it, and the things I learned in the midst of it have been a blessing to me and my husband.
No doubt dating can be hard. But good grief this courting thing seems to me like some sort of experiment with no real experience at the helm.
Our family has yet to cross that bridge and, thankfully, we have a few more years before we get to it. I think if one or both of our daughters wanted to run with it, we'd be open to giving it a whirl, but expecting it seems extreme to me. And I can't help but pity some of those homeschooled girls you mentioned in your piece.
I like the idea of freedom within parameters. I attended a reformed college and many of my friends parents expected their daughters to meet their husbands at college. Many of them did, but they had freedom within the parameters of the student body. And while I didn't meet my husband at college, my parents had confidence in me that I date men of integrity, which I did.
So there's my rambling which again leads me to the same conclusion: some of these kids are being experimented on by their rigid parents who weren't subjected to the same criteria when they met and married each other. I worry that it could cause more damage than good.
Josh Harris didn't actually follow his own model, as his second book makes clear. His biggest criticism of his model is that it left no room for a transition between group relationships and being engaged. How do you do that? What he's left with is something that, as far as I can tell, is easily described by the term 'dating'. If you look carefully at any courtship model that actually has some such transition, you'll see something similar. What Harris didn't like about dating had nothing to do with the fact that it was dating. What he didn't like about it is some assumptions that nonbelievers would expect in a dating relationship.
What I find especially funny is that the view Harris settles on in his second book is virtually identical to the view in the response book Why I Gave Dating a Chance, but one refuses to use the word 'dating' and the other insists on using it. Once you get a reasonable courtship view, the debate between dating and courtship views becomes a merely verbal dispute about what terms mean. And of course we know what the New Testament says about wrangling over words.
"Courtship" is an insult to your daughters.
1 - If you raised them correctly, they will be able to make wise choices. If you raised them well in faith, they will come both to you and to God with thoughts about ALL of their friends (male and female) and discuss with you what's in their hearts and minds, and ask for guidance if they need it. That's the result of good parenting.
2 - It is insulting to insist that someone stay paired for life with someone they didn't get to choose in the first place. How are they realistically going to commit to anyone if they had no choice in the matter? It's preposterous.
3 - The courtship model basically does the opposite of what a relationship is supposed to do. It bares the entire relationship down to caricatures. If males and females are not allowed to form friendships, what determines good marriage qualities? For him: she cooks, she cleans, she obeyes, she has sex whenever I want her to. For her: he gets a job and pays the bills. Those ideals represent roles, not a relationship. Contrast that to why they might choose to marry each other if they were allowed to develop friendships. Her: He's kind and compassionate, has great eyes (and dimples!), loves kids, and his mild-mannered temper contrasts with my moodiness so he calms me down a little. Him: She's kind, but speaks her mind (which helps, because I'm too nice sometimes), she laughs easily, loves kids, and we both love baseball so I don't have to fight her for the remote during the big game! These are reasons why two people might ENJOY BEING AROUND EACH OTHER. That helps when you're supposed to be with someone for the rest of your life.
4 - Like it or not, your daughers don't know all of the things they want in a man yet. They don't get to actually know any of them! Why would you or their father know this more than they do? What if YOU choose wrong? God doesn't hold you accountable to be married to their husbands, so you should not make the ultimate choice. Guide, yes. Suggest, definately. Talk about your reasons for liking someone and find out who/what they like and why. Your input is invaluable, but it is their decision to make.
5 - The types of traditional households where the dad is expected to choose their daughters' husbands are usually the same types of traditional households in which the fathers don't really interact much with their kids - especially the girls. How, then, is he to know her well enough to choose the man she'll spend the rest of her life with? Or is the point that she is obviously so stupid that she can't choose? (If so, see point #1)
6 - This doesn't apply to you, but the courship model itself doesn't fit into modern society for several reasons. All kids don't have fathers. Sometimes the fathers left when the moms were pregnant and the parents never married. Some dads are in jail, or they are drug addicts or promiscuous and completely unsuitable for choosing anything for their child, much less a mate. Others may have had loving dads who died before they reached their teens. And, even in households where everything looks grand, that doesn't mean it is and/or the dad is qualified to choose a husband for his daughters. None of this is the child's fault and the kids shouldn't have to spend the rest of their lives paying for it and/or feel as if they are unsuitable to marry because of what their parents did or didn't do.
My suggestion: Let them date, and you be the party. When your daughter lets you know she likes someone, you the parents forge a friendship with his family and make your home one of the primary places your daughters socialize with ALL of their friends. That way, you're always in the loop, you're open to discussion, and you get to see the friends in your daughters world with your adult eyes while she's getting to know them through her teenage ones. If you have a genuine interest in your daughter's lives and you get to know all of the people who are important to them, you'll definately get to know their future husbands - and they might be better at picking them than you think!
...if you raised them right...
"you're always in the loop, you're open to discussion, and you get to see the friends in your daughters world with your adult eyes while she's getting to know them through her teenage ones. If you have a genuine interest in your daughter's lives and you get to know all of the people who are important to them, you'll definately get to know their future husbands"
hmmmm. You've raised all your kids, and found this true? And if you have, how do you know success for you wasn't just luck, and had little to do with "raising them right" as if there were a solidly dependable model for this.
Courtship is just an idea- like all ideas it takes adjusting it to your own situation.
Katryna, your post holds so many assumptions and simplifications that I wouldn't know where to start. How many sincere Christians have followed all the "right" rules for making things turn out for their children and seen plenty of griefl instead? How many have done little right, but surprised at how well their children turned out and had solid marriages?
I don't think any of us knows, but over simplification and stereotyping ( such as "traditional households where the dad is expected to choose their daughters' husbands are usually the same types of traditional households in which the fathers don't really interact much") end up giving some really disappointing detours.
Courtship ideas actually motivate some parents to be more interactive than they might be. Our family had a modified version of it. Not all the children abided by the things we taught them in all ways... but to the extent they did, it gave them a foothold on a difficult part of lifes decisionmaking. It is too complicated to go into here- but courtship mode was always much better than dating mode- and a large reason it interested me is because my own history was to date quite a bit, and suffer some of the drawbacks of that lifestyle- not talking promiscuity here, just the damage doen with the requisite bonding and breaking up, etc.
I think people who are all gung ho on modern dating are either jaded or naive- one or the other...
My parents were absolutely against my marriage. They did everything they could to prevent it, and to sabotage it after the fact. But my husband, who I dated, and I are thrilled with eachother, still.
Thank God they didn't require me to marry someone else.
Ilona, you said I was simplifying and stereotyping. You also said "Courtship is just an idea- like all ideas it takes adjusting it to your own situation."
On the first point, I was referencing people I actually know, so it means that families are different and everyone's family isn't as involved as yours. Those other types actually exist.
On the second point, courtship, if you mean where the parents are involved in the daughter's choice of a husband, does NOT always work even when modified. My dad would have loved to choose a husband for me. He always said he wanted me to marry someone exactly like him. He's an excellent business man and a good provide for his family - who spent his younger years sleeping with every woman in sight. If he could, he would probably choose someone just as adulterous as he is. As a matter of fact, one of the guys he "recommended" to me was successful at work, but known at my high school as the biggest playboy on campus. Do I want that in a husband? NO!
So maybe I should have had my grandfather step in. Let's see which grandpa that would be. There's the drunk one who abandoned my mom so he was definately not going to be there for me, and there's my dad's dad, who had an "on-the-side" for years that everyone knew about. Or, my step-grandfather, who's granddaughter looked exactly like him - which would be really sweet if his daughter wasn't adopted.
But I guess I'm naive or jaded for wanting to choose my own dates.
Ouch, Katryna, it sounds as if you've had a difficult family background, to say the least. However, I wasn't really trying to find the "one right way" for every family, dysfunctional or not, Christian or not, to get its young people happily married. I was, and still am, trying to figure out what to do in my own family in which the the father, my husband, is a fine, Godly man who wants the best for his daughters who are good, trustworthy girls.
I see problems with dating and problems with a courtship model. I'm not sure what will work for us, hence the post.
Sorry to hijack your thread, Sherry.
Hopefully I can make it up to you by suggesting some books:
1 - Boundaries in Dating
2 - Finding A Date Worth Keeping
3 - Any other book in the "Boundaries" series
These books were written by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. They are Christian psychologists, so they are aware of the ideal (Christian), but are also aware of how life really works (psychology) and they are pretty good at advising people on how to live in the real while striving for the ideal, and accepting that we fall somewhere in between - without being legalistic or permissive.
I'm currently reading the second book. It gives me such a great perspective on how I should treat others. Even without dating being involved, I feel like this book is "calling me out" on the way I see people and the way I evaluate them. Seeing those things for what they are makes me not just a better date, but a better Christian. I think it may help in that way with your daughters as well.
In general, I think helping kids make a decision is much better than making it for them. Since marriage is an adult decision, this applies all the more.
Please don't pre-judge the books based on my earlier rantings. I'm still learning - these guys are the experts :)
Good luck!
Katryna
Thanks, Katryna, for the reading suggestions.
I didn't feel "hijacked," by the way. I apppreciate everyone's comments and concerns.
I am a seventeen-year-old homeschooled girl who has never dated, kissed, or had a boyfriend. My parents have decided to use courtship as the process to me becoming engaged. I wholeheartedly support this and am committed to courtship myself.
Following I have detailed the process that my parents and I have agreed upon:
During my teen years I will continue to have plenty of casual guy and girl friends. When I am over eighteen, if a guy would like to court me (for the express purpose of trying to find out if we want to get married) he must ask my dad. If my dad believes that he has met the requirements to be a Christian husband, father, and leader as well as a good provider then he will privately consult with my mom and I to see if I am willing to be courted by him (i.e. consider him as a potential husband). If I agree, then the courtship will begin.
The period of courtship is a time to spend a lot of time together (to find out if we want to spend the rest of our lives together as man and wife) with a proper chaperone; either my mom, dad, brother, or girl friend. My parents will sponsor and host plenty of group activities with both of our families so that we can each see how the other behaves and reacts with their family. We also will take the time to get fully acquainted with the others' parents and siblings.
If at any time either I or the man courting me believes that a marriage together would not be God's will then we are free to gracefully bow out without any hurt feelings. If, however, I find my heart being won by him and we fall in love, then engagement would quickly ensue. During our engagement we will be allowed to have 'alone' dates in public places (restaurants, theatres, malls).
I believe that this is the safest and most healthy way to meet your life mate and I am looking forward to it. I have witnessed at least five courtships culminate in happy and successful marriages.
Since I am "on the inside" so to speak, being the teenager instead of the mom/dad, I thought I would contribute my family's plan for courtship to try and clear the waters a bit.
I think there is too much emphasis on the ideal of a Biblical Formula, for which there is none.
Why is Isaac and Rebecca always used as the Biblical precedent for finding one's life companion?
There are numerous other stories that are never endorsed as Biblical Models.
Consider, for example Ruth, who went to where Boaz was spending the night and lay down at his feet.
Or how about the story in Judges in which the girls of Shiloh held a dance, and the men grabbed the girl they wanted and ran?
Somehow I can't imagine the proponents of Biblical Marriage holding these up as examples, but they happened in the Bible!
That is not to say there are no Biblical principles at stake. There are clear Biblical principles involved in the dating/courtship/finding a spouse process.
But there are no cut-and-dried models, because God expects us to use common sense.
I have a short opinion on this topic. It is that whenever I've dated a Christian woman I try my best to recognize her as a potential wife one day and I see myself treating her better. I have no problems meeting parent's and having dinner with them and talking to them. I have nothing against a young woman who lives at home and is still in her 20's. I have come across some unpleasant situations though in the past that say to me that these young women will never be truly women. The problems come when the parent's think that she is wasting her time with me and they secretly tell her to break it off. That creates problems as you can imagine. I try to do my best but am usually told that it's not good enough by someone who knows that young woman. I feel as a man that I could never match up to anything that her dad has given her or her mom or anyone. That is how I've felt in dating just 3 Christian women. I have been very reluctant to date anymore because of that. It's not uncommon to find this overprotectiveness in parent's and I think it's potentially destructive to what a woman and man can make of their relationship. I guess even if you involve God into your relationship with a young woman it still doesn't help much. In my opinion parent's should really try to not get involved too much but give advice if they think that she is being abused or if she asks them for it. I have been unable to be a good boyfriend for longer than 2 months usually because parent's tend to intervene for small things that are not very important. I have no idea what they are thinking about things like me seeking a new job or whatever it is but I feel like as long as I treat their daughter right, which I do, then that should be the most important fact period.
I am reading a book "How to Get a Date Worth Keeping" by Dr. Henry Cloud. The author had comments on what effect not allowing singles to date has on them. I would recommend reading this book. It certainly gives another point of view.
In a chapter titled "Unleash Your Libido or Real It In" he talks about at least one situation where he has counseled people that were involved in a church where dating is frowned upon like with SG (no specific group name was mentioned). He found that with this person "this 'spiritual' teaching was covering the fact that he was hiding from sexual problems, insecurities, and lots of weirdness"
He then states his opinion on the affects of a non dating policy:
In the name of purity, chastity, and good morals, singles have been desexualized. The are often repressed beyond normal decency, and as a result they are in a "presexual" stage of development.-- what psychologists refer to as "latency/" In other words, out of a fear of sex, they have regressed to preadolescents, and they are feeling and acting like twelve-year-olds instead of adults who have gone through adolescence and figured all of that out.
He additionally states later in the chapter:
Keeping one's sexuality in an immature and unintegrated state makes it neither holy nor ready for real relationship. ... It keeps them out of what God designed as natural attraction, and it keeps them sexually disintegrated from the rest of their personhood.
He also goes on to state that he is not advocating "sexually acting out." He was advocating sexual ownership as part of who you are. He also quotes Col 2:23.
Thus here is a professional stating in his professional words what some were stating earlier about the affect of groups/courtship. This author also coauthored "Boundaries In Dating" with Dr. John Townsend. Reading what Cloud has written certainly makes one question even more the wisdom of Joshua Harris's idea of "kissing dating goodbye."
Both of these authors are respected and have a lot of counseling experience as well as education. Compare this to someone who at the age of 21 wrote a book about his own experience and how good of an idea it was was for him to "kiss dating goodbye" and who only has a GED. This sort of comparison should give one an idea of who has the more experienced background as well as who one should listen to.
Hope this helps.
I have now set up a blog to discuss the IKDG book and courtship.
