Courtship Challenge #1: Identification

Posted by Thomas in Challenges on 10 12th, 2009 | View Comments

How do you find your future spouse if you rarely interact with the opposite sex?

Courtship-Identification

One key to any successful marital system is the ability to identify a possible mate. For cultures some this means using professional match makers to facilitate the identification. Fiddler on the Roof anyone? Other cultures created opportunities for young people to meet each other and do their own identification.

The village dance is gone.

In America the idea of an arranged marriage goes against our core as a people. We tend to value liberty and happiness over safety and predictability. The traditional American mechanism has been the community dance.

In these dances the man must give his full attention to a single woman for a single song. This pulled the guys away from the huddle of other guys who talked about guy topics. It forced them converse with the gentler gender. It also caused some of them to notice a sparkle in the young lady they had not noticed before. Sally is not the same girl at age 19 as she was when she was 14.

These traditional dances sometimes used dance cards that helped girls who tended to blend into the crowd. You didn’t need to be dazzling to get noticed. You only needed to show up.

Modern dances don’t work.

Dancing doesn’t work as well these days for two reasons:

Reason #1

Modern dances such as techno and hip hop are danced individually in a crowd with little individual attention. Line dances, allow for even less individual attention.

Reason #2

Most people attend dances with a date. It is hard to find a dance partner in a room full of couples. Single people often sit watching the couples dance Two Step and Swing while they sit with other singles, feeling awkward.

courtship-disco-ball

So, dancing is now a poor mechanism for identification. The world has abandoned it for bar room pickup lines and speed dating. The church has abandoned it for singles Bible studies and eHarmony.com.

Where are all the Godly guys?

For those who do not attend singles Bible studies or visit bars (i.e. conservative home schoolers) there are precious few culturally appropriate mechanisms for identifying a possible soul mate. Many home school girls stay at home baking bread while wondering where all the Godly guys are. They meet very few new people in a given week.

The home school guys who leave home for college or work meet lots of new people, but not stay at home girls.

Bill Gothard has attempted to address this issue by holding a once a year conference for singles but this is a band-aid and not a solution.

The village is gone too…

Not all early Americans went to the town dances. Some sects of Christianity taught that cross gender dancing should be avoided. These sects held other community functions such as picnics that would bring people from the “village” together.

The challenge now is that fundamentalist conservatives do not live in villages. They live in communities centered around ideology instead of geography. It is hard to bring the “village” together when it is spread across three counties. It’s hard to go to the church picnic when the church is an hour away.

What do you think?

What are some good mechanisms for identification?
How do you help Sam discover that 21 year old Sally is not the same girl she was at 16?
Do you think match making serves (either online or in person)would help?

Caveats

Please know that I am speaking in generalities. We can learn from the exceptions but these challenges are real if not universal.

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Courtship Challenge #2: Interaction How can you know what you are looking for...

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Daniel B

Actually, I think dancing works great these days. If the single people sit around and watch the couples dance no wonder they aren't finding anyone. You'll be seen before you get talked to - so mannerisms mean everything. Get up and look like you want to dance and be danced with! Or go and (gasp, groan) ASK someone to dance - especially if you're a guy, but yes, girls, you can do this too. It's not like you're proposing to the guy, it's saying "Hey, dance with me!" - give the guy a reason to dance with you instead of any of the other 50 girls in the room that he might be considering ... stand out.

Also, for guys or girls, if you go a dance and stand around in a group of your own gender talking, you make people not want to ask you to dance because it's more awkward to come up to a group than an individual, and it's harder to do if you have to interrupt a conversation first, and people might feel bad asking one person (especially if there are only 2 people in the group) and leaving out the others.

"I noticed somewhere on your blog that you basically said love can be a choice....it can be, but the person you marry should be someone you love. Not someone you decide to love."

Thomas is right. Love is a choice. I'd much rather have my spouse have chosen to love me than claim that she just drifted helplessly on a current that happened to force her emotions to view me differently than other guys.
David

Interesting topic. It may be helpful to see how other cultures have done it. Actually, I have some first hand experience with this. Back in my single days, I became involved in a ministry to Cambodian immigrants. Cambodians are a very sociable people, far more so than Americans. It is a very normal thing for Cambodians to spend hours visiting in each other's homes. During this time I got to know a family of Cambodian Christians. The dad had worked with missionaries in Cambodia as a lay evangelist before the communist take over. This family embraced me as one of their own. I was continually working with them in the ministry or was being invited to their home for dinner. One day I experienced a serious cross-cultural shock. One day the dad came to me and asked me to consider marriage to his daughter! Being an American, my initial thought was "No way!!". But as I thought about it I began to wonder if their might be something to this. With the parent's encouragement, I began to get to know their daughter and realized what a wonderful girl she was. My future wife grew to love me as well. (By the way, I am not advocating arranged marriages or even courtship. Just because it worked this way for me doesn't mean there is a one size fits all legalistic formula for everyone.) God has blessed me with a wonderful wife and four beautiful children. I am very close to my in-laws. Beside this, God has used our marriage to spread the gospel. We are still working as a family to spread gospel to the Cambodian people.

The point of all this is if people want to do a home based courtship, they can't do it in isolation. In my wife's culture, the home is the center of courtship. But meeting people is not a problem, because the home is also center of a very active social life. What would happen if families, well before the children reached marriageable age, began inviting other families or singles over for dinner and other activities about once a week? By the time the kids got to a marriageable age, it would be no problem to finding someone. But that takes time and effort to show hospitality and build those relationships.

I wonder if another barrier to successful courtship may be the parents themselves. If the parents come across as harsh, judgmental, holier than thou, proud, ect. , it will repel many good young people. Who would want to be a part of that? Reading some of the blogs and websites on courtship, it seems to be a matter of pride on how many young men the father as been able to chase off. It may be necessary to say "No" sometimes, but it shouldn't be something to gloated over. The interrogation process some are advocating has all the warmth of Spanish Inquisition. I can contrast that with my own experience. My future in-laws built a warm caring relationship with me well before the courtship began. When they approached me about marriage, I was not able to take offense because I knew that they respected and loved me. That care made me consider their advice. The bottom line is that successful courtship is about building sincere caring relationships, not about rules or formulas.

David
A Jesus brain-washed person

I am not a Muslim, nor do i make my drop-dead gorgeous, college senior daughter wear a chastity belt. She is an adult and will make her own choices, and as the non-brainwashed person put it, she will live with the consequences of her actions.
Last night my wife and I had dinner with a young married couple who met on an electronic dating site. The young lady went out on many blind dates before she got married, and was quite glad that she had a CHP. Once on a date she had to put her hand in her purse for her Glock. Single people: with that in mind, if you do the e-Harmony thing, beware that your date might actually believe in the 2nd Amendment, packing heat.
Now I know what to get my daughter for Christmas this year.
Tim Stewart

This is the first blog post I've read on this site, but already I have to say that I'm glad this topic of courtship is being discussed. My thoughts on the specific issue of how godly men and women can meet godly members of the other sex: for me the place that happens most is at church.

For one thing, there's the church service itself. At my church (Hope in the City, located in Austin, TX), folks of a given demographic tend to sit in the same sections. There's the college-age kids, and then there's the parents of young kids (near the nursery and Sunday school hallway!), and then the singles. So in the times right before and after services, I'm surrounded by women in my age range that I can talk to in a casual setting.

And then a group of us will often go out to lunch after church. Also, folks will throw a party and invite people over to eat and chat and watch movies. Then we also do outdoors stuff like hiking, camping, and sight-seeing. So I'm meeting lots of women and I have the chance to talk to them and to observe them in a variety of casual settings. This helps me decide who I might want to approach in order to get to know them more deliberately.

I've had at least two people in the past week ask me if I'd like them to set me up with someone, so I know that being "set up" is an option that some people may choose. My personal choice is to work with God on that, but I've heard success stories of people being set up.

Well, those are a few thoughts. I'm looking forward to seeing other content on the site.

Tim Stewart,
Austin, TX
Vanessa

I don't meet new Christian guys or go out in an effort to meet any so I think that a single person's pastor or deacon or even their wives can be used as a medium. I've heard suggestions of young men in other churches that the pastor's wife thought would like me and I would like. Although it may seem a bit awkward, I know their help would be good. I also think if "Sam" speaks to "Sally's" family or pastor, "Sam" may find out if she is ready to be in a relationship or interested. "Sally" may even tell her father or pastor that she wants to know more about "Sam". I really can't say that online match making sites would be good, I don't think highly of it, although I know a couple who are married who met through one.
An un-brainwashed person....

Dear author of this blog,
People make choices. And they have to live with the consequences of those choices. End of Story. Let's look at Jesus in the Bible, did he have no temptation? Absolutely not. He had temptation it's just that he avoided it. However he did have the choice to give in or to resist and that is important to realize. You and I as well as every other human each are to be faced with choices. It's not a parent's responsibility to protect their child from every temptation but rather to train them up in the way they should go to the best of their ability. If this isn' the case why don't we simply go back in time and make our kids wear chastity belts or better yet become Muslim? Or maybe we should simply arrange their marriages.....:) I know a lot of dads would love that..... I noticed somewhere on your blog that you basically said love can be a choice....it can be, but the person you marry should be someone you love. Not someone you decide to love. Marriage isn't just about people signing a paper so that they can be "married" and so they can hopefully grow to endure one another. It's about the joining of two passionately in love people who want to be together for eternity. At least I hope my marriage would be like that and not one I have to enter into trying to decide to love that person. Believe or not, people can make choices and they should be allowed too as long they know that they will have to live with the consequences of their actions. It's each persons choice how he lives his life....not his parents.
Jman #17

Oh, and one more thing. You're first sentence....

"How do you identify what you are looking for in a spouse if you rarely interact with the opposite sex?"

.... is the problem. You can't be expected to find a lover if you never interact with anyone of the opposite sex.......
Jman #17

There's absolutely nothing wrong with dating. I'm not sure why conservative homeschoolers/christains take such offense to it. It's like they are afraid of kids messing up. Young people have every right to make mistakes, it's part of growing up. Force someone to conform to a certain standard, and very quickly they will find every opportunity to break it. I've seen it many many times.

Sure, modern dating sometimes results in premarital sex, but so what, if the people involved believe that it violates their personal moral standard, than it is 1) they're fault, 2) far less likely for them to engage in such acts. It's a personal choice.

But modern dating is the best way to really find out if you are compatible with someone. There really isn't any other way to ease into a serious, committed relationship. There's a reason why most youth do it.

Just because people a long time ago did it one way, doesn't mean that's necessarily the right way. The christain church used to burn innocent woman because they had black cats....
Von

The reason why Christians take such offense to dating is because it is completely unBiblical. It stands in opposition to every principle that God lays out for the relationships between the sexes.

You make much of 'finding out if you are compatible', and scripture makes nothing of it. God created man and woman one flesh. What makes them compatible is their creation and their obedience to their creator... not some vague and unGodly modern standards of 'compatibility'.

And even 'uncompatible' couples (ie those who are unequally yoked) are told, in I Cor and I Pet, that their relationship is to be the same... the wives obedient to their husbands, the husbands obedient to God. In Ephesians 5 we see that husbands are *commanded* to love their wives... nothing is said about only those 'compatible' wives.

Chesterton said:

If Americans can be divorced for “incompatibility of temper” I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have know many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.”

— G.K. Chesterton
Fiona

I agree with David L. I also want to add that we must serve God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength first and be involved in a ministry with others. My youth leader once said "Run this race with endurance and occasionally check to see who's keeping up with you.."
V

I've seen homeschooling done well and done badly. There comes a point where people have to make their own decisions, and being prepared for those decisions is key. So being accustomed to the opposite sex is vital if you're the one making the decision.

There are plenty of ways to do that though. Joining groups that you have interest in. Whether it be political, hobby, or a new interest. Go out in groups of mixed sex as friends. Meeting new people at grocery stores, laundry mats, etc.

Social skills are a must. For the shy, meeting people through friends is a true god-send.
David L

18 to 20-something-year-olds have it better than ever when it comes to finding people, I think. College takes young people with similar beliefs, interests, and intelligence and puts them in settings where they interact and get to know each other through classes, study groups, student organizations, even frats/sororities (including Christian and service-oriented greek orgs). Honestly, I really don't think you can get to know someone during a single dance, but spend six hours on a community service project with them and you'll have a much better idea what kind of person they are.

After college, you have to put yourself out there a little more (during college and after, dating really becomes necessary if you want to get to know someone), but if you maintain your network you built up in college and work to extend your professional networks, get involved in a church/bible study, etc. then you get chances to meet people.

Regardless of what chances you have or don't have to meet people, though, a Christian should not be concerned with trying to get the statistics in their favor. If God wants you to meet someone, he'll make sure you do. Single Christians should be focused on going where they need to be in life, and God will take care of the whole meeting people aspect.
K

You could just forget about courting and allow people to date and relize that if you keep God as the focus there is nothing wrong with that....honestly it seems as though "conservitive" homeschoolers are often taught that even talking to a guy can be taken the "wrong way" so it is therefore a "sin"....so maybe it's not anything we can change simple by doing something a "little differently" perhaps what really needs to happen is for homeschooling parents to change their child training philosophy and stop laying on the guilt and simply allow their children to make some of their own decisions and teach them that conversing with a guy isn't a sin...I think that simply teaching them that it's ok to talk to guys would help a lot.

Courtship Challenge #1: Identification

The village dance is gone.

Modern dances don’t work.

Reason #1

Reason #2

Where are all the Godly guys?

The village is gone too…

What do you think?

Caveats

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