Nearly 17 years ago my dear husband first wrote to my Dad introducing himself with the desire to court me. He had heard of me through a mutual friend. You can visit my blog to read more of our beautiful courtship.
Now we have 7 beautiful children and they are quickly growing up. We will soon be on the other end of courtship as the parents.
Throughout the years we have seen courtship flourish and be a blessing in some families and miserably fail in others. That is not due to the fault of the courtship model, but to the misunderstanding of what courtship truly is, I believe.
Having said that, here are a few of my thoughts on courtship:
- The courtship mindset must begin early. While your children are young, there should be conversations about your sons and daughters keeping their hearts for their future spouse. Boyfriend/Girlfriend talk which is so rampant even in the church, should be discouraged.
- Courtship should not even be considered until the child is of marriageable age and of maturity to enter into that estate. 13 year old girls and boys do not need to have in their minds relationships of a romantic nature. They should be freed from this until they are ready to commit to a relationship headed towards marriage.
- Courtship must be built upon trust. We have seen some parents so heavily regulating the courting couple that they hardly know each other before marriage. If we had desired my husband and I could have “escaped” the boundaries and taken liberties, but we didn’t because our hearts desired to stay within the confines and please the Lord. There was a mutual trust between our parents and us. We willingly placed ourselves under their care and direction, and they lovingly gave it without suspicion and a heavy hand. But having said that…
- Courtship is not glorified dating. We have seen some say they are courting when it is merely dating with parental consent. Biblical courtship involves much family involvement, being careful of all appearances of evil, chaperoning of the courting couple, and a gentle winning of the woman’s heart only after the father has given full permission.
- Beware of putting the cart before the horse. We have seen devastating results when young men and young ladies become attached in their before the parents have given their full blessing. Please, for the sake of your daughters hearts, do not let a young man grow intimately close even emotionally to her, until you are fully convinced he has your approval. Which leads to my next point…
- The winning of the daughter’s heart should begin only after the parents are sure that if the two desired to marry, they would have your full blessing.
- Finally, courtship is not an arranged marriage. It is a sweet guarding of hearts, lovingly directed by the father, as he seeks the Heavenly Father. If after the father, as the gatekeeper, has allowed the young man to seek to win his daughters heart she is not so inclined…then the courtship should not continue.
My husband and I both have a special place in our hearts for this topic and would love to encourage anyone who desires to turn aside from the modern concept of dating. We are practicing for divorce by continuing in these patterns of heartbreaking relationships without purity and commitment.
May the Lord raise a new generation of parents and young people who desire a higher standard of relationships!
I completely agree with all of this, but as with many things, it seems to work out better in theory than in practice! We always thought that my girls would start courting sometime after they turned 18. But I have a daughter about to turn 17 who has meet a wonderful boy who is 18, and I REALLY like him. I never intended for my daughter to get close to someone this young, and so I’m struggling with the whole thing. They’re still just exploring a friendship, and he hasn’t asked my husband yet (he knows he has to if they’re going to date), but I still feel like they’re young. At the same time, I know many Christian couples who started seeing each other at 15. So I’m torn!
Sheila from To Love, Honor and Vacuum!
My husband and I used courtship as our model and I agree very much with the guidelines set out here. For Sheila, I think the question is this: is this young man ready to pursue a marriage within the next year? Does he have a way to support her? If not, then even if he’s nice and you like him a lot, he’s not ready. Do you think your daughter is mature enough to be a good wife (as mentioned above)? Does she have the skills necessary to run her household? Please don’t jump ahead. I’ve seen so many cases of marrying very young that break up early because those involved haven’t matured enough to think of anyone but themselves.
I love this. Its so hard to know the difference between allowing our daughter an opportunity to get to now young Godly men and controlling her. We have set up some guidelines for her but because we can trust her, we allow some decisions to be her own. Thanks for sharing:)
I have to say I was frustrated when I opened this article this morning. Because of the ‘courtship’ models I’ve seen in my experience the very word is tainted in my thinking. We aren’t for dating as it is practiced either. A lot of thinking and praying to do on this one. Thankfully our oldest is still only 8,so there is time.
I understand completely. There are many words that leave a bad taste in people’s mouths because they have seen the bad side of it. I once read a book full of all the bad courtship experiences…really gave me some good food for thought. I think everyone has to come to their own understanding of what they will guide their children toward when the time comes and I doubt it will look the same for everyone. I appreciate you leaving your thoughts here.
It is so sad to me to see how the word Courtship has been used over the years. May the Lord guide us through these waters that are uncharted for alot of us!
This is something that will require a lot of prayer for my family as well… Growing up my husbands family believed in courtship, and outwardly continued with the idea through his teenage years. Then he met me. His parents were going through a hard time, and were depressed and struggling with everything, including their faith. They made no effort to get to know me, in fact my athiest father was closer to the courtship model than my husbands. We were chaperoned, but only when we organised it, which means it stopped after the first month or so. And when it came time, and he decided to ask me, my in laws never gave their blessing because, of all things, they felt they didn’t know me well enough (not.my.fault. <_<)! And they felt the financial climate was too bad to get married (huh? Yeah this was in the peak of the financial crisis, but my husband had a years worth of wages in savings. In actual fact they were struggling with money and were afraid we would too or something.)
At this point my husband and I had had an experience that told us God intended for us to be together, we knew without a doubt we were right and meant to be together, so we went ahead without their blessing. Some of you may disagree with that decision and I'd understand completely why, but after 2 years I'm yet to regret it. A parent can't fail to hold up their end of it, and then expect us to hold up ours. They had no true judgment of me, even now, 3 years later, they still barely know anything about me. That's how their family is, they don't talk. Courtship dosen't work in that sort of family (as proven by the fact their daughter who was next to marry didn't court)
After that experience I'm nervous around the very idea of courtship. I certainly believe in a very conservative use of dating, but whether we will go any further remains to be seen. I would hate for my daughter to go through the heartache of being unable to be with the man she is meant to be with because his parents are in sin.
Abba12, these are exactly some of the crash and burn situations that we have seen over the years and have a burden for. If we are going to uphold courtship for our childen then it must start with the parents walking in faith and obedience. There is a huge responsibility for fathers and mothers to be sensitive to their children’s hearts and very close to the Lord. Sadly we have seen some fathers trample their daughter’s hearts while holding them to a rigid standard. May we guide our children’s hearts as precious treasures.
This was a great read and I pray and hope to implement this in my family
Wondering if anyone has advice for me!! My husband and I are very much for the idea of not building a relationship (beyind friendship) untill they are ready for marriage, and then being very care to walk in purity, and with our children (10 and under) we have talked about this very much and I don’t think there will be any major issues, as the oldest 2 are already praying for their future spouse,BUT my husband has a daughter ( from befrore he became a christian) she is nearly 14 right now, we are preaty close, but she doesn’t live with us and her mothers home is anything but christian, she is in public school, and we have had very limited time to teach and train her, but she says she is a christian , and responds quickly(most of the time) when she understands what the bible say consering issues . it looks like she may soon be able to live with us,( it will be by her choice) and know that will mean homeschooling, and a very differant life style. she has a “boy friend” right now and has been willing to be open with us about him ( he is 12 so this isn’t a really serious relationship- but she thinks it is, and that they will stay together untill they are old enough to marry) I have been able to have some wonderful conversations with her about purity,and things along those lines, and she is now comming to me with questions. I would love to have advice in guiding her, and how to help her see that trusting her heart to God is worth it!!
Dear Sarah,
What a blessing that the Lord might be bringing your husband’s daughter into your home. If her heart is tender towards the Lord (which it sounds like it is) this is such a gift for you to be able to have more instruction and guidance over her. These are weighty questions and we have to tread very carefully when dealing with our children’s hearts. But here are a few thoughts…
I would encourage you to have a heart to heart discussion with your daughter about courtship and how the Lord desires us to keep ourselves for one man, not sharing pieces of our hearts with several before we find that one person. You could explain to her that this young man could be her future husband, but that we don’t know that for sure. God in His providence might show them a different plan before they are of marriageable age.
A twelve year old boy and 14 year old girls are still learning about themselves, about the Lord and about life in general. If you could gently persuade your daughter it would be best that she focus on learning how to love her siblings, seek after Christ with all her heart and prepare to be “someones” wife one day, without thinking in terms of boyfriend/girlfriend anymore. The comfort of God’s providence comes into view here, as well. Explain to your daughter that if God has this young man for her and her for him that when they are old enough to be thinking in these terms they will still be there for each other. But, if they are not for each other, she will be glad that she saved every portion of her heart for that special person.
It’s helpful to children to give them word picture…if they are given a special baked gift from someone, would they rather have the whole thing, or have even one bite out of it?
It might be that if your daughter embraces this, that there is a need to practically pull back from the friendship for a little while giving them some distance to be able to have the right focus.
Your husband might even speak to your daughter about how he wants to help care for her and help her look for a future spouse. But, he must carefully be faithful with that trust. This is a whole new topic about courtship, but like I mentioned in an earlier comment, we have seen many crash and burns where the parents have not handled the hearts of their children properly. We must be very sensitive to God’s leading and not work from selfish perspectives in this important issue.
Pulling a child away from the modern world’s mindset of boyfriend and girlfriend after it has already started is not easy, but I believe with prayer, guidance, wisdom from the Lord and grace that it can be done. Gently and lovingly redirecting your daughter to pull away from the relationship may temporarily cause pain, but with God’s blessing, she will thank you in the end. I hope some of these things help.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us. This is something that is so foreign to so many of us yet something that i want so strongly for my children. We need those of you who have gone been down that path to light it for us:)
You said: “Biblical courtship involves much family involvement, being careful of all appearances of evil, chaperoning of the courting couple, and a gentle winning of the woman’s heart only after the father has given full permission.”
Although I agree with a lot of what you wrote, I question exactly where the line between Biblical and opinion is. Can you give me some scriptures that back up your statements?
Isaac’s marriage to Rebecca is often held up as the standard in courtship, yet there are many other saints who went about finding a mate in a very different way. Is one more Biblical than the other?