Saturday, January 17, 2009

Not your grandfather's courtship

"I dislike when people presume they are following traditional morality when in reality they are pursuing novelties. I’ve said this before: withholding your child from dating until they are 18 or 19 is not traditional morality. Talking about discerning whom God wants you to marry is not traditional morality. Adhering to the novel 'courting' ideal where a boy and girl spend all their time together hanging out with the family is not traditional either. I’m not saying these are bad ideas – in our society, they may be necessary to protect chastity. But let’s stop pretending that we are going back to some lost moral code with these things, because we are not. We are simply adapting to the times and slapping the 'traditional morality' label on it. If we were really being traditional, the father would find a husband for the daughter with no spiritual discernment at all, would base his judgment on financial factors, would betroth the two of them and marry her off around age 16. The wife would be expected to run the husband’s household and prosper him financially, and maybe down the road they would grow to love each other. That’s tradition. I’m not saying it’s the best way, but that is the traditional way – and anything else that claims to be 'traditional' is really just a novelty. Maybe a good novelty, but a novelty nonetheless."

— Boniface"Courtship & Dating"