Courtship
Although many fundamentalists still let their teens date (translation: “sit next to someone of the opposite sex in youth group or church”) many like the idea of courtship instead.
The trend towards courtship became very popular a few years ago, when a single charismatic-leaning Calvinist teenager who was living in a basement decided to write a book about why he didn’t want to date anymore. For some reason, this book was widely accepted in fundamentalist circles where some touted it as gospel and declared it the “Biblical way.”
Using the biblical model for finding a wife, the parents of the bride and groom are the key decision makers in who their children marry. The advantage is that this eliminates emotionally painful breakups and purges out the leaven of mates who are not quite up to fundy snuff. The disadvantage is that rounding up the livestock needed to pay the bride’s dowry is a messy business. The week-long wedding feasts are also very expensive. But, if a fundamentalist is going to set out to do things the Biblical way, he can’t pick and choose which traditions he wants to follow.
Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match…
Posted by Darrell
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the aforementioned book was given to me at school to read in 12th grade – one of the biggest wastes of my time… ever!
You know what’s funny? Even though the author of that book is one the main leaders in my church’s family of churches (oh, just call it a denomination and be done with it!), his book isn’t really that huge among the young people or their parents. The Fundies treat that book like it’s a lost part of the Bible, but to us, the members of the Sovereign Grace church family, it’s just another opinion, and opinion most of us don’t actually follow. LOL
Parents who want to over-control their children (who are actually becoming young adults) love this stuff.
My parents decided that at 20 I should get married to the youth pastor’s daughter. She was 19. They were following Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians that it is better to marry than to burn. So rather than face judgement for having premarital sex, (and being good, obedient IFB’s) we married at a much too immature age. It lasted 9 years.
I was told growing up that if I dated, I would be “giving bits of my heart away”, Eventually when the one God wanted me to marry came along, I wouldn’t have anything left to give and I’d be ruined. I never understood that. I remember asking, “What about someone who’s wife died and then found someone else to love years later? How do they have any heart left?” And of course the typical answer when someone is uncomfortable….. “Well that/they dont really count.”