Dating v Courtship ...All inflammatory disease begins here - ADHD, learning disabilities,... Part 219

Could the excess hygiene levels enforced by COVID-19 actually be contributing to this problem?

How many COVID-19 cases per day occurred by population with and without mask mandates, cases were higher with mandates than without, further calling into question their use among the general population.

I am sure you know that “courtship” can mean a lot of things and has quite a spectrum. It can include arranged marriages where the couple gets married without even knowing the person they are marrying to something similar to the traditional dating.

One thing many courtship advocates won’t share typically is the problems that courtship has caused. Not all courtships result in long term marriages.

Most people who are married share one thing in common at a minimum: they took a risk at some point. Set aside the “guarding your heart” nonsense (this is the most oft misinterpreted scriptural reference as it pertains to matters involving opposite sex relations) and consider this: marriage in itself is a risky proposition.

Some people try to “play it safe,” and though caution is often wise, a HEALTHY marriage is rarely forged in fear. Marriage requires two people to set aside their fears of rejection and heartbreak long enough to take a risk on love.

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Thank you …I am grossly over simplifying this, but “victory favors the bold” is often accurate in matters of the heart. It is not a RELIGIOUS concept – or is it?

Where’s the real balance?

Fathers….who do you want your 16 year old daughter(s) kissed by?

Who do you want them snuggling with?

How many young men do you want to enjoy these types of moments with your daughter(s) before they identify the man for their lifetime (spouse)?

Are you comfortable with your 15 and 16 years old daughters being intimately handled (I’m not necessarily meaning physically /sexually touched, but kissed passionately / snuggled with / cuddled with / held close in intimate ways) ?

Where is your comfort zone as a dad?

How are your daughters to hold “a line” at any one point in this type of intimate activity? A kiss can be a pretty potent and powerful thing!

Respectfully….and with great love for my daughters…

Want to add word or two? 

Both dating and courting CAN produce happy marriages, but as flawed as dating is, it lacks many of the flaws inherent to Harris’ alternatives (I say “alternatives” plural because his recommendations fluctuate from book to book, making it nearly impossible to pin down what it is he actually does recommend).

It might seem scarier/riskier at first blush to date, but while I know of seemingly less scary alternatives to dating, I do NOT know of any less risky or more effective approach or approaches.

Dating is the best way to weigh one’s options between multiple people before exploring a one-on-one, exclusive commitment.

People may not be comfortable with that reality or with the social implications of “playing the field a bit” before committing to one person, but our discomfort doesn’t change that we really ought to consider more than one person in making such a life-changing decision.

It’s increasingly harder to do that the faster we commit to a person, and courting really emphasizes commitment sooner and without investigation (of the options).

Does a wise person commit quickly or easily?

Commitments, I believe, are something we should be slow to make and quick to keep.

Staying in our comfort zone, or attempting to let others make our decisions for us in the area of relationships/marriage, is not wise. Whatever advice we receive, we must assume responsibility for acint on it or for not acting on it.

Your comment ….? 

One problem I see with IKDG and those who follow that teaching is that single men and women become almost afraid of each other and any interaction. It is almost as if they become separated from each other until one decides to get into a courtship with someone.

With regard to courtship and getting to know each other, most who teach courtship don’t assume that just because a couple enters into a courtship that means that they are engaged and thus have to marry.

I thought the purpose of being in a courtship was for the express purpose of determining if the two people want to get married. I thought that if the couple after spending some time together in courtship and getting to know each other decided they weren’t a good marriage match then it wasn’t that big of a thing.

What I have seen and heard is that with courtship sometimes there is pressure for a courting couple to either get engaged or married or break off the courtship. This has resulted in couples getting prematurely married including before they were ready and some that did this found out they weren’t the best of a match.

With the courtship model I also wonder how much it makes sense for a young man to first have to get permission to see young lady and court her before even getting time to know here.

Having to approach the father and sometimes spend time with him seems like a lot to go through if you haven’t had much interaction with the young woman to know that there might be potential.

How does the young man know he wants to go through all of this?

Thus this situation might work well for some couples when they are in the right situation to meet someone that is a good match for them. Unfortunately not all people are in situations where they have the pool of social interactions with good potential mates.

Thus just cause it might work for some singles (who are in better situations such as their families being well socially connected) it might not work for all singles.

Many of these girls were highly desirable and most of them badly wanted to get married, but they invoked “I don’t date”. And there was no courtship mechanism in place either; so these women had rendered themselves utterly unattainable, despite their professed desire to be attained. This highlights a basic problem:

Courtship philosophy presumes (without realizing that it presumes), that you grew up in church and that you and your family have a lifetime’s worth of social connections there.

What is a young-adult convert supposed to do, coming from an unchurched family and therefore lacking this social infrastructure?

How are they going to set up courtship under those circumstances?

Their non-believing parents are no help in courtship; there’s nobody else at church who knows them well enough to be willing to serve as an accountability couple, there’s nobody there with a lifetime knowledge of them to vouch for them in the face of the skepticism of the opposite sex, and so on.