This may sound pretty strict, especially coming from an organization. Why should they get involved in your personal life? If you don't have sex, you are OK to do what you want, right? It's important to understand the reason for these rules. It's totally appropriate for the church to have a say, and that is because in the area of marriage and family, there are some fundamental doctrines in our religion. The church has been clear: The purpose of dating is to lead to marriage. Obviously, no high schooler is ready for marriage, so that is exactly why it is discouraged to date exclusively and pair off. Dating during the high school years is only to gain experience with the other gender--making friends, learning about various personality traits, observing and influencing each others behavior, learning to appreciate and work with the differences between genders, etc.
The world uses the same word, "dating," to mean something totally different. Outside the church, dating usually means having lots of fun with the opposite sex to meet your own needs and pleasures, either in exclusive relationships or "playing the field," with no limits on sexual affections, and with little or no intention to make commitments.
Anyway, when I was in high school my fantastic friend Antonina told me about a book called I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris. It's a mainstream Christian book about Courting. I was FLOORED. I had no idea that there were HIGHER standards out there. But I was JEALOUS!! I wished my parents had used courting with me. The main difference between LDS dating and Courting is that families are involved in this "group" dynamic, with an emphasis on getting to know each other in real life setting, not going out for entertainment with peers. Think about it -- usually you date with friends and "get to know" somebody only in the context of your own age group. You go to restaurants and have fun, you go to movies and have fun, you go to theme parks and have fun. You don't actually do very much that resembles anything you're going to be doing as a parental unit together. If dating truly is to "try somebody on" for marriage, then I seriously think there ought to be some marriage-like activities going on...such as babysitting, cooking meals, grocery shopping, fixing household things, yard work, working out financial problems, etc.
Another aspect of courting is that your parents are very involved, giving you feedback, keeping you objective and grounded so your emotions don't get carried away, and being an accountability partner for purity goals. I think this is awesome. In that regard, finding your mate is just another wonderful family togetherness activity that you get to bond with your parents over. So you might even say that your parents help you to make your selection. Read more on that here:
Duggar's Courtship Rules
Michelle Duggar on Courtship
The other aspect of Courting vs. LDS Dating I forgot to mention is that courting is exclusive, at all stages. There is absolutely NO spending time with one person on Thursday and then having somebody else over on Friday. I never realized the big downfall here (I never realized there was any downside to courting at all), until I read this article: How Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed.
So this article got me thinking. After all, Rychen and I need to decide what ground rules we're going to have with our kids. And Courtship doesn't work unless you have a community with the same tradition, which kind of screws us as Mormons. (I'm hoping in the next 11 years, a sizeable amount of Mormons will catch on after watching TLC, and follow the super cool Duggar family's example!)
But the one thing about How Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed that I have a strong opinion in opposition to, is the belief "How can you know what personality you fit well with if you only go out with one other person?" This is common in LDS culture. In fact, the youth are encouraged to have a list of what personality traits they would like in a spouse.
I think this is ridiculous, and here's why.
- Everybody has a unique personality. You cannot date everyone to know what "personality you fit well with."
- The personality a person has today will NOT be the personality they will have 10, 20, 30 years from now. Marriage is a commitment and it's impossible to know what you are getting yourself into. Let's not pretend like you can evaluate a person and analyze what your future life is going to be like together.
- The million possible trials and experiences you will have during marriage cannot be properly conceived and planned for. It is unfair to measure somebody against such a huge hypothetical.
- Arranged marriages have a wonderful success rate. It seems odd in our culture to marry a stranger, but I truly feel that whomever you marry and however well you think you know them, one day you are going to wake up next to a stranger. And no matter how you got together, you are going to have to consciously nurture your relationship and intentionally fall in love with each other anyway.
- Married couples tend to be comprised of an introvert and an extrovert. But who did this consciously? No, it's just one of those things intuition sets up.
- So let's talk about intuition. Or in other words, going by the feel of it without so much analysis. Attraction and compatibility are not something you can compute and estimate.
Let me tell you my story. I loved the list idea. I wrote out lists all the time. I had boys on my mind ALL. THE. TIME. Another reason to push for Courtship - parents need to teach youth not to be idle with their thoughts, and guard their heart! "Guard your heart" is a fantastic term in the mainstream Christian world that I wish Mormons would pick up on. It is very important. We talk plenty about boys keeping their thoughts pure, but we don't talk enough about the equivalent for young girls--and it's something I really did succumb to, which I wish I would have been warned about. Just like Joshua Harris says in his book, I got married with only a fraction of my heart left to offer my husband. I'm sorry but that's a plain tragedy right there. But I digress.
So my cute little list. It went something like this. Musical, Funny, Good dancer, Speaks another language, Loves playing with kids... Do I need to go on, or do you already see my point? It should be obvious to anyone who knows this guy I ended up marrying--he's not a single one of those things!!! It's a good thing my eyes weren't firmly fixed on that list, or else I would have missed the BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.
I talked a little about this yesterday. And this is why I do not think lists are necessary, I don't think dating the field is necessary, and I don't think looking for the perfect spouse is effective. I'm sorry, but YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU NEED.
Guess who does?
So if I could give one piece of advice to today's Christian youth, it would be to take a chill pill. Hollywood has told you LIES. Stop looking for Mr. Right. Stop looking for some ethereal, intense, indescribable chemistry. Stop looking for all the stars to align. Stop analyzing every boy you meet. That's not fair at all! They are works in progress, just like you are.
Rychen and I got to know each other as friends. I was not attracted to him. (Sorry sweetie) I did not feel any chemistry.....UNTIL some time passed, and I began to develop a true admiration and friendship-type of LOVE for him as a person. Not as a slab of marriage meat, but as a son of God. This is the same kind of pure, Christlike love that is described in this amazing story (read question #4). This is a kind of non-sexual love that Hollywood (and the secular world at large) would never understand. It is non-sexual that leads to the most amazing, pure intimacy possible. I want to shout from the rooftops to the world, YOU CAN DEVELOP SEXUAL FEELINGS FOR SOMEBODY YOU ARE NOT "ATTRACTED" TO!!
Physical bodies might be stimulating for some, but do you know what is super attractive? A man who comes home from work and asks his woman about her day, and then LISTENS to the answer. Even if it takes an hour. Do you know what is totally sexy? A man who cleans up the house and then disappears with the kids before MY FRIENDS come over. Do you know what just plain turns me on? A man who ponders and discusses gospel doctrines in a deep, meaningful way. I don't care if my husband were a quadriplegic, when a woman is taken care of and cherished, and He lives his life for God, she will have no problem being attracted to her man.
Ahem. Anyway to finish our story. We were wonderful friends who spent pretty much every afternoon studying together. One day my roommate asked me, "Do you think you'll marry Rychen?" and my response was, "Well....he's my best friend. So I don't to marry anyone else." And there you have it. In a pure marriage, you do not have close friends of the opposite sex outside your marriage. So, all you single people, if you have a best friend of the opposite sex, you better secure that. That was the best choice I ever made.
And that is exactly how God set us up, and love kind of snuck up on me without me realizing it.
(But I still kinda wish we had gotten to know each other in a family/normal lifle context... I still maintain that I had no idea Rychen liked watching sports until after we were married. And I was somehow under the impression that he liked to read and discuss self-help books. Hmmm that's BYU dating for you!!)
P.S. Ten years or so later, now my husband is a hot athlete and he is RIPPED!! He is dang sexy. The end.
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