Why Courtship Needs to Get Back to Fundamentals: Part 1

The Courtship Controversy

Well, I had intended to make this a fun, mom-oriented blog with occasional delving into more serious subjects, but it would appear that my first substantive post is going to be more of the latter variety. I just can't stop myself from getting involved in debates sometimes. ;-)

An Introduction to Courtship

First, a little about me for those who don't know. I grew up in a community in which modern dating was the exception rather than the rule. What most parents and young people tended to prefer was “courtship,” an older-fashioned approach to romance. There are many different nuances of the term depending on the circles in which you encounter it, but to try to sum it up, I would narrow it down to three basic principles: 1) romantic relationships are intended to explore the possibility of marriage and are hence delayed until an appropriate age; 2) the couple is committed to staying sexually pure before marriage; and 3) parents play a significant role in helping to guide the romantic relationship.

What this looked like for me was that I did not date through my teen years. When I was nearing 20, my (now) husband asked my dad's permission to get to know me as a potential mate. We spent time together, both with my family and just the two of us, grew closer and eventually decided that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. (This sounds rather clinical when put this way, but it was more romantic in practice, I promise!) We set certain standards for ourselves during our relationship, including deciding to save our first kiss for our wedding day. We got engaged about 9 months after beginning our courtship and were married about 7 months later.

For many of my friends who may read this, this was the “norm.” I am only explaining it in this much detail because, in the community of which I am now a part, this approach to romantic relationships seems relatively uncommon. I have heard some of my local friends express a desire for something different from what our culture commonly offers our children, and I heartily agree! While there might have been a few things I would have changed about the way our relationship was handled, I was very happy with it overall. I would recommend the kind of experience we had to anyone.

That said, I am aware of some problems that others have experienced with the courtship model. There are stories of failed relationships and broken hearts; there are stories of poorly thought-out marriages that end in disaster. And I cannot deny that courtship—as some people interpret it, anyway—is at least partially to blame.

Dueling Views of Courtship

Now cue a certain article floating around my Facebook feed called "Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed." I read the article shortly after it came out last week, and as a few of my friends already know from my comments, I was not a huge fan of it. There were certainly some good points, I thought, but there were both things said with which I didn't agree and things left unsaid (or under-said) which I felt were rather important.

Yesterday I discovered that Doug Wilson, one of the early proponents of the courtship model, has written an article in response. As I read that one yesterday morning, my opinion of it was similar... Some good points, some not-so-good points (or underlying views), and some points I thought were missing.

Now, I don't claim to be a top-notch journalist or an expert on the subject of courtship, nor do I expect to get the sort of audience that either of these two men are getting. But I thought I would at least toss my opinion into the ring as one who has gone through courtship, who has observed and spoken with a number of “courters” about their relationships, and who is the daughter of one well-known advocate of the courtship movement. At the very least, this blog post will serve as an easy link I can share instead of clogging up my friends' comments sections when these articles inevitably make the rounds again. ;-)

For those of you who have read the article, you may have gotten the impression, as I did, that Mr. Umstattd (the author) considers himself an authority on the subject of courtship. He mentions speaking at homeschool conferences, he tells of a courtship-related website he “founded,” and he seems to know a lot about the divorce rate among courtship users. I do not know the guy personally, so I can't say how much of an authority on the subject he really is. But just from a little internet digging, it appears to me that he is not exactly an expert. In fact, I feel that this was one of those articles intended for a much smaller audience that just happened to go viral.

If you are like me, you probably assumed that Mr. Umstattd has gone around speaking to homeschool conferences on the subject of courtship. That would be incorrect. According to his bio he speaks on the the subjects of marketing and technology. You may have assumed that his website, PracticalCourtship.com, is an up-and-coming new site with thousands (or at least hundreds) of people talking about courtship, or perhaps even a new courtship-oriented version of Match.com. Also incorrect. Look it up, and you can see for yourself that it is little more than a blog with a dozen or so posts written about 5 years ago, with the most popular post receiving right around 40 comments. It looks professional... much more professional than this blog, of course! :-) But it is hardly a hub of courtship wisdom.

Now, does this mean I think he has nothing important to say? Absolutely not! As I said above, he has some very good points... things that many people relate to... things that need to be said. Why else would the article go viral? My only point is that he (unintentionally, I'm sure!) made himself sound like he has a lot of authority on the subject when he really seems to be someone with not much more experience than anyone else who came out of the courtship mindset. With the whole article being predicated on the idea that courtship is failing, making such bold statements as, “Courtship leads to singleness more often than it leads to marriage,” I think there ought to be some proof to back up his words. But there are no stats to back him up... not even any personal stories that he shares as examples. By all appearances, he has little more than anecdotal evidence drawn from his personal experience. So I think Wilson's article is quite right in pointing this out.

Furthermore, for an article whose title seems to promise a detailed rebuttal of the courtship model, there is surprisingly little evidence against it (other than the supposedly high courtship divorce rates). He did touch on a few of the points I would have made, but he did little to explain them. Any of us can make broad, sweeping statements about things that are “fundamentally flawed,” but if they are based on nothing but an overview of our limited personal experience, they don't really carry a lot of weight.

On the other hand, the mere popularity of the article ought to serve as evidence that something may indeed be wrong with the courtship model—at least as Umstattd defines it. There I would disagree with Wilson, who asks why we are calling for a solution when there is no proof of a problem in the first place. So while I do not think the problem is necessarily as common as Umstattd makes it sound, my experience (and the popularity of this article) tell me that there are problems associated with courtship. And while I have not read the whole of Wilson's book (referenced in his article), I have read enough of it to know that I have some rather strong disagreements with his views on the subject. In my opinion, however, Umstattd failed to address these sufficiently, which is why I am writing now.

Note: During the writing of this post, Umstattd came out with a new post to clarify his last one, which I think was helpful overall. That said, I still felt it had some holes in it, so I continued with the writing of this response.

Why Courtship Needs to Get Back to Fundamentals: Part 2

Why Courtship Needs to Get Back to Fundamentals: Part 3