All About Feelings for $500, Alex

Christians can have many opinions about the proper way to go about finding a spouse, about the proper "path to marriage," if you will. However, when a Christian begins to make claims about what the Bible says it is imperative such claims are backed with citations to Scripture. I recently read an internet posting in which a woman claimed that a certain practice needs to be repented of, and I managed to take offense at such a statement because I have engaged in that practice. Since she publicly made her objection, I shall publicly make my rebuttal. I shall respond to her objectionable statements one by one.

The Bible has a lot to say on this topic!
It teaches there is great wisdom in having *purpose* and being ready to marry before a single person begins to actively pursue a romantic relationship with another person.

She says the Bible has a lot to say on the subject of what she calls "pre-marriage relationships." As per the purpose of my blog post here I must ask, "Oh really? Where? What does the Bible have to say about pre-marriage relationships?" Is she talking about boyfriend/girlfriend relationships? Because the Bible doesn't mention them. If she is talking about those who are betrothed, the Bible likewise does not mention how such couples would interact, if at all.  Romantic relationships in Scripture are specifically restricted to those who are married. Romantic relationships outside of marriage are not mentioned at all, except within the context of extra-marital sexual contact, which is sin. The only possible exception is the Song of Solomon and the couple there are, at the very least, betrothed when speaking to each other in a romantic manner. I would refer my readers to my posts To Court or Not to Court, and Does Physical Contact Lead To Sex?  for my explanation on why romantic relationships outside of marriage are sinful.

My second objection is to her claim that the Bible talks about a single person having "*purpose* (sic) and being ready to marry" before pursuing a romantic relationship. She is clearly making a distinction between romantic relationships and marriage. Since I already covered that, I'll just deal with her claim that single people should have purpose and "be ready" to marry. What does that even mean? What makes a person ready to marry? What makes a person unready? The Bible gives no answers that I can find and if she wants to say the Bible DOES define these things, the burden is on her to show it. She doesn't even try. The entire quote above is just a lie. The Bible does not say what she claims it says, and no one is even questioning her on it! She just boldly makes the statements and gets a bunch of comments agreeing with her. It is just frightening what Christians will say and believe.

The Bible supports having the *parents* and families & more mature believers as involved as possible.

 Let's forget for a moment her use of the * in every paragraph, annoying as it is and address the content of her claim. The Bible does not support having a bunch of people involved in deciding whether a particular man and woman should marry. If it did, she could easily post her references. Instead, what do we see in the Bible? We see fathers deciding whether their son or daughter should marry and to whom they will be joined. In the case of Rebekah and Isaac, Rebekah's brother, Laban is also involved. Even in the New Testament we see Paul saying that the father of a virgin has the right to either give her in marriage or not. (1 Corinthians 7:36-38)  Here is the rub for her, SHE wants to be involved in the match-making of people who are not her own children. And in order to justify her meddling, she tells us that the Bible supports her meddlesome ways. She operates a facebook page where she acts like the matchmaker, Yenta, from Fiddler on the Roof, but she works directly with young men and women, rather than with their fathers. The Bible does not "support" this practice.

God's Word commands singles to *protect physical purity*. I think it wise to have boundaries and daily accountability to a parent or more mature Christian friend.

 Again with the *s. Anyway.....  God's Word says to all people, single and married, to "flee fornication." (1 Corinthians 6:18)  Daily accountability is not the same thing as simply fleeing or avoiding situations in which fornication could occur. As Douglas Wilson says in his book Her Hand In Marriage, "Don't heat up the oven if you aren't going to bake the bread." There is no way a person can be fleeing fornication while becoming physically affectionate with a person to whom he is not married. It is inappropriate outside of marriage. It isn't an issue of setting boundaries, unless those boundaries are the same as those that would apply between a single person and married person. For example, a single man should have no more physical contact with a single woman than he should with a married woman. Any woman who is not his wife is off limits to him. The Bible no more approves of unmarried people holding hands, kissing and hugging or petting than it does of oral sex. All sexual contact, from the least to the most intimate is approved for the married, but the Bible cannot be used to justify any contact that doesn't reach sexual intercourse for the unmarried. It just isn't in there.

To go against the God designed process of *REALLY* getting to know someone before marrying them.

 This is not a complete sentence, so it is difficult to understand her point here, but I object, quite adamantly, that God has designed a process for a man and woman to really get to know each other before marriage. God has NOT designed such a process, unless he revealed it to her personally. I will refer to one example in the Bible where God has shown us just the opposite, the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah. They got married before they knew each other AT ALL. They had never spoken to each other, and Isaac didn't even know who she was until she showed up at his tent. She is perfectly entitled to have the opinion that a man and woman should get to know one another before marriage, but she is NOT entitled to state that God prefers such a thing, requires such a thing or that He designed a process for such a thing. She is wrong. And it is a pretty frightening thing to be stating wrong things about God. Or it should be. 

It has also caused families to *hide* the fact that their single child is "getting to know someone" until it's certain that person is the one, for fear of shame. In addition to not being honest and open so others can learn how it *really* works, at the same time these hidden relationships perpetuate the false idea that people actually ARE marrying the first person they talk to.

 This is the part where I begin to take offense. As you may already know from reading about my daughter's arranged marriage here and here, we did not make it public that we were arranging a marriage until they were engaged. The woman who wrote the quote above is known to me, and I suspect that our daughter's arranged marriage is the only one she knows of where the matter was kept private until it was settled. She is making straw man arguments and is misrepresenting what we did and our motives for what we did (unless she knows of other people who would actually fit her description - which I highly doubt but remain open to being enlightened). What we did was to keep it private, we were not hiding anything. We had no fear of shame and I don't even understand what she could mean by that. Shame for what?  I guess she's upset that we didn't seek her input?  We were dishonest? We weren't open? What business was it of hers or anyone else? This woman takes "busy body" to new levels of height. As for letting others know how it *really* works, both my husband and I blogged about it and have made ourselves available to anyone who wants to discuss it. We have written extensively, although not exhaustively, about the dangers of public courtships and the potential for damaged reputations and the loss of perceived value in the eyes of potential suitors, but we never considered a failed marriage arrangement to be shameful. She has no basis for stating such a thing except for her own imaginations. I doubt if she has read what we have written and she has not personally asked us about our process or our reasons for how we conducted the arrangement. She did, however, provide a forum for people to bash us on her private match-making facebook page where we were unable to defend ourselves or respond to comments made about us. So much for her being honest and open.

She is also misrepresenting our process. Our daughter was not "talking to" her suitor. The fathers were talking to each other. We weren't "perpetuating" any false ideas about anything. Women who dream up ideas and then assign the origins of those ideas to others are fantasizing. We have never assigned any moral value to whether a father is able to secure a husband for his daughter on the first try, and I'm not sure why she is making an issue of it. I do believe that multiple courtships, where people are entering into romantic relationships and then ending them, is wrong. Since I believe that romantic relationships outside of marriage are little more than fornication light, obviously having multiple such relationships is repugnant to me. The authoress of the above quote may not think so, but she is not able to dictate how that sort of thing rates with potential suitors. She may believe that her daughters having been through multiple boyfriends doesn't diminish their value, but she really has no control whether men use that issue to cross those daughters off of their list. Likewise, I believe her son-in-law would not be happy to see the names of her daughter's former boyfriends/suitors being proclaimed publicly. Why would he want the whole world to know that he wasn't her first choice? How does the cause of being open and honest trump his dignity?   I believe it would be fabulous if every Christian reserved romantic relationships for within the bonds of matrimony, and therefore every Christian had only one romantic relationship. There is nothing wrong with promoting that standard within my family and within greater Christendom.

This is FALSE & a twisting of the Scriptures. Let us repent of black and white, of extra-biblical labels and ideas, of systems, rules and shame. Let's NOT confuse commands with opinions. Instead, let us stand confidently on God's Word & the certain and sure guidelines He's given for pre-marriage relationships.

 Calling others to repent is to accuse them of sin. This is probably best done in private, but she appears to have no idea what that word means. The one presenting extra-biblical ideas (such as romantic relationships outside of marriage) is this authoress. She is the one stating the "Bible says..." without citations. To close with a reference to the "sure guidelines He's given for pre-marriage relationships" is pretty ironic, when she didn't reference a single verse or passage from Scripture in her entire rant. By all means, steer us all to these "sure guidelines" as you call others to repent for violating them.

I hope she will follow this post with her biblical analysis, with citations, for the role that mothers and match-makers should play in bringing men and women together in marriage. The burden of proof is on her to justify her methods, I've already used the Scriptures to justify mine.

Finding a Spouse - WWJD?

Wouldn't it be great if we knew how God would find a bride for his Son?

Then, just to make sure we are understanding the picture correctly, and to give a hint of how we could do it, maybe God should give an example in the Bible of a godly man (maybe Abraham?) getting a bride for his son?

Naw. We should just invent stuff for ourselves. After all, if God wanted us to understand marriage better, He would have given us some direction.

A Working Definition of Marriage

For several years now I have been continuing to study marriage. Primarily I want my understanding of it to be formed by what God has revealed in the Scriptures. God ordained and instituted marriage, so any definition or description that contradicts what He ordained must necessarily be incorrect.

In addition to the Scriptures, I have also looked at history, at culture, and into the writings of others on the subject. In order for a working definition of marriage to be accurate, it must be universal. I covered this in an earlier post, but I will repeat it here because it is important to my conclusion. A marriage must be a marriage in every time, in every country, in every culture, or else it isn't a marriage in any. An accurate definition of marriage can be held up to any putative marriage and everyone should be able to conclude whether the relationship we are examining IS or IS NOT a marriage. There should be no question. This would include the first marriage, of Adam and Eve, and the marriages of tribal people, modern western people, and even the marriages formed under the auspices of pagan religions.

I would also like to address the question, "Why does this matter?" It matters because God has said that the transgression of His Law is sin. As believers, we are to purify ourselves, we are to repent of sin and to walk in righteousness. In order to do that, we must be able to identify sin and righteousness. In addition, since God has declared that marriages are created as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church, if we have an inaccurate view of marriage, we are lying about the gospel. God has said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." God regulates sexual activity and He has stated the only place that sexual relations are permitted is within marriage. All sexual relations outside of marriage violate His command. This means that we must know whether we are in a marriage or not, and in terms of dealing with sin in the church and the greater community, we must know if other people are in marriages or not.

So here it is, my working definition of marriage:

A life-long union between a man and woman which has been publicly declared and sexually consummated, and where the union is not otherwise prohibited by the Law of God.

It has 5 elements which can be compared to any alleged marriage to see if it is, in fact, a marriage. Firstly a marriage is to last for the entire life of either the husband or wife. In some marriage ceremonies we hear the words, "For as long as you both shall live." Marriages do not extend beyong the death of one of the parties, they don't last into heaven, but neither can they be temporary, ending before the death of one of the parties.

In the past it would have seemed silly to mention that one party to a marriage needs to be a man and one needs to be a woman, but recent history requires me to assert that if this second element is not present, there is no marriage. This is true because God specifically ordained the sexes for marriage at the time He instituted marriage and also because God has prohibited sexual relations between those of the same sex in His Law.

The third element is a public declaration. There is no such thing as a secret marriage. Violating a marriage can be a death penalty offense, so those who are married have a duty to the rest of the world to hold themselves out as married.

The fourth element is sexual consummation. Husbands and wives are not mere roommates, they are sexual partners. There is no such thing as a platonic marriage.  We also need the fifth element, where no marriage can exist contrary to the Law of God because God has specifically forbidden certain people from marrying each other, even if they meet all the elements, such as mothers and sons.

Some people would try to add other elements or place other types burdens on the simplicity of marriage, but that becomes problematic when questions start to be asked, such as, "Were Adam and Eve married?" "Are people who were forced into marriages really married?" "How can we determine if the people in our church who are living together and/or having sex are actually married?"

This simple definition of marriage also makes it easy to distinguish between a man and woman who are betrothed (covenanted to marry) and a man and woman who are married. 

Arranging a Marriage - Part 2

If you haven't yet read Part 1 of  "Arranging a Marriage" you may want to do that before jumping in here, although it isn't absolutely necessary.

After the marriage of our first daughter, my husband (hereinafter "Dad") approached our second daughter with a very serious proposition. She was 16 years old at that time. Dad asked our daughter (Let's call her Jennifer) to trust him to find a husband for her. By this he meant that she would agree not to pursue the attraction of any man and would not dwell on or try to form any relationship with any man. He also told her that she must not attempt to steer him toward any particular man and that if she brought up the name of any man in that context that the young man would be scratched from the list of potential suitors. Much to our surprise and pleasure, she assented immediately and never wavered from her commitment.

One of the benefits of this agreement which we predicted and which we observed to have been true was that our daughter was liberated from the competitive nature of social interactions. When we attended events ranging from picnics to dances to potlucks, she never had to view them as opportunities to snag a fellow or to attempt to out-shine her young lady acquaintances.  This is not to say that she didn't feel the pressure that all young ladies feel to present herself as an attractive person and wife-material, but that she was able to rest in the promise of her father and could therefore enjoy all outings with the liberty of treating all others equally and without testing whether she could monopolize the attentions of any single person. For example, at dances, she didn't have to despair if the evening passed and one certain young man didn't ask her to dance, because if he was to be her husband, her Dad would take care of it, regardless of the young man's dancing partner choices.

From the time of the agreement's commencement, Dad began to take very seriously his promise to find a husband for Jennifer. He even left her an out. If Dad failed to find a husband for Jennifer by the age of 26, he would release her from her commitment and she would be  permitted to seek a husband in any manner that she believed would work. Naturally Dad intended to work very hard to make sure that clause of the agreement would never come into play!

As I relate my version of how Jennifer came to be married I want to emphasize, as I did in Part 1, that while facts are facts, my perceptions and therefore my descriptions of what took place may not exactly match how my husband or daughter would describe it. As Jennifer's mother I was not an outsider to the process and the events, but I was on the fringes, not in the middle, as the bulk of the negotiations, questioning and arranging took place between Dad and the father of the groom. Sometimes I knew about their discussions, sometimes I did not. My husband consulted me whenever he knew that my input would be valuable or when my knowledge of plans would further our goals of confidentiality and discretion.

On to the story! The church that we attend does not have any other families in it. Because of that, we had to travel in order to come into contact with men and to form networks of friends and acquaintances from which we could find a husband for Jennifer. Dad called this "trolling my daughter." In case you are not familiar with fishing terms, it refers to dragging a baited hook behind a boat while the boat moves through the water. Our other option was to sit at home and pray for a husband to come. While this is certainly within God's abilities, we did not feel it was an appropriate option. There is no other important thing in our life in which we sit at home and just wait, or even just wait and pray, for a great thing to occur. We don't do this with getting food or clothing, we don't do it concerning work or forming other relationships, and we don't believe the Bible teaches that it is the norm for God to just send a husband out into the boondocks to our door to obtain our daughter as his wife. So we took action.

In this case, we visited other churches where we knew there were like-minded families. This networking led to us forming friendships with families who would introduce us to other families. This sort of thing can be done on the internet, and that may work well for some families. We had really wanted to give our daughter in marriage to a family with which we had formed a friendship that included the parents as well as the potential suitor. Our first choice would be for Dad to be arranging a marriage with another father, rather than directly with the would-be husband, and therefore in-person friendships seemed a better route to that particular destination. Also, in our particular situation with this daughter, we didn't want her marrying someone who had no intention of  living near us, so arranging a marriage with a man who lived in anther country or on the other side of this one was not an option for this daughter.

After several years of trolling and of Dad making inquiries with other fathers, we received a communication from some very close friends inviting us to visit the church they had recently started attending. Our friends live in a largish city about 3 hours from our home and we had attended worship with them at their former church on several occasions without furthering the goal of finding a husband for our daughter. This new church, they informed us, was made up mostly of very large home-educating families and many of these families had adult sons who needed wives. We were intrigued by the prospect and made plans to spend a weekend with our friends.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into their church was the small children out-numbered the adults by about 2  to 1. The second thing I noticed was a large number of young adults, both men and women, which was something completely lacking in our own congregation. After worship, we were invited to the home of one of the larger families. Our friends were also invited so we all made our way to the rural home of our new friends. I walked into the living room of their home and there were 4 or 5 young men scattered around the large room. I thought to myself, "How many families did they invite over here?" In a few minutes I discovered that all of these young men were the sons of the family who lived here. In fact, they have 10 sons and 3 daughters. None of them are married. Four of the sons were wanting to be married, the four oldest ranged in age from 20 to 26. Naturally, I tried to contain my obvious interest and excitement, this was like the suitor jackpot!

Because the time-line of events will be of interest to some readers, I will state that this first meeting took place on the 14th of December, 2014. Just slightly over one year from the date of this writing.  There was no talk of marriage during this visit but it was clear that, marriage or no marriage, these people were going to be our friends for life. We had much in common, we had children close in ages, we shared philosophies about politics, government, home education, the Kingdom of God, etc.

About a month later, in mid January, we made a second visit. This visit included attending worship with them, having a meal at their home and attending an evening social event. After this visit, Dad began an email exchange with the father (Let's call him James) with the express purpose of discussing arranged marriage. James had never even given arranged marriage any thought, their family was more courtship-minded, and so the first email exchanges consisted of Dad describing what he meant by the term arranged marriage and how he thought such a thing might go. James was taking it all in and evaluating whether he liked the idea and whether any of his sons would possibly be open to an arranged marriage.

During these talks, no son was singled out as the object of interest, as the discussion involved mostly principles and not details. How would they arrange a marriage if they decided to do that? How long would it take? Who would be involved? What would be the process? Etc. Their goal was to bring the marrying couple into the process as late in the game as practically possible.

Both fathers were committed to complete discretion. And by that, I mean secrecy. Only the parents would know about the negotiations. This was for the protection of the sons and the daughter (we only had one daughter of age to marry, so it was clear that it was Jennifer). If for any reason the fathers decided that the process should not move forward, the children would be none the wiser and no one would be hurt or have their reputations damaged by a "failed"  relationship. In fact, there would be no relationship to fail.

During that time, and all the way up to the wedding itself, there was no relationship, or special romantic relationship between Jennifer and the young man she married (We will call him Robert). For most of the time she did not know about the negotiations between Dad and James, and even when she began to suspect something, she did not know which son was being discussed. The only contact she had with Robert was through church and social events involving both families, and usually other families as well. For example, we attended an event with them towards the end of January, a beach birthday party for a home-educated mutual friend. During these contacts there was no special contact between Jennifer and Robert, they did not single each other out for special treatment or spend time together. They played games and danced and sang and treated each other in the same manner as they treated everyone else.

This might be a good point to explain our policy about the "no romantic involvement". It is explained more completely in my post "To Court or Not to Court", so I will just address it briefly here. To a man, every woman in the world can be placed into two distinct categories for him. The first category is "my wife." For the sake of argument, let's just say that only one woman could fit in that category and for many young men, NO woman fits in that category. EVERY OTHER woman is in the other category, "not my wife." The women who are not his wife, are going to be, or already are the wives of other men. Since no man can lawfully be in a romantic relationship with the wife of another man, Dad cannot justify any sort of romantic involvement between Jennifer and any man until they are married. Period. There is no biblical category such as girlfriend or finance where a woman is not the wife, but is something more than other women.

We didn't see James' family at all in February, although Dad and James continued their email correspondence where they were finding out about and evaluating each other, and by proxy evaluating their children. In the beginning of March our family hosted a dance and James' family attended and spent the night with our family.  Because of the distance between our homes, we rarely, if ever, had a visit that was just for one day. Dad's parents have a large home with many guest rooms and they live next door to us, so we were able to accommodate James' large family for overnight visits without compromising the morals of our children. When we visited their family we stayed with friends or with Dad's brother, who lives only 20 minutes drive from James' family. Additionally, James has a rental home on the property adjacent to his own home which was not occupied during the time of our visitations and we sometimes stayed there. The week following our dance, James' family hosted a dance and we traveled to their town to attend the dance, attend worship and share a meal with them. In case you are keeping track, by the end of March our families had visited together 5 times.

We saw James' family one time during April and by that time the communications concerning the possible arranged marriage had been narrowed down to the son Robert, with another son as possible choice. Two sons had been eliminated. From our perspective, all four of the sons would have made acceptable husbands for our daughter, it was their father who had determined that only two would be good matches for Jennifer based upon many factors including timing, common interests, etc. At that time, Robert was finishing up his college studies and was working on a senior project and James did not want to distract him from that with marriage talk until after graduation.

We did not see James' family in May, but Robert graduated in the middle of the month and his father approached him with the idea of arranging a marriage for him with Jennifer and Robert said that, yes, he would like his father to continue pursuing that route. Jennifer was still not told anything although she was aware that Dad was talking to James, she was unaware of the particulars and she did not know that Robert was the son being discussed.

Once Robert was brought into the process Dad presented him with a questionnaire covering many aspects of life including theology, future plans, marriage, health, children, finances, etc. The purpose of the questionnaire was not to rule Robert out as a suitor, as we were pretty sure at that point there was nothing about this young man that would disqualify him. The purpose was to make sure he was aware of the many, many potential friction areas in marriage and to know ahead of the marriage which ones were going to be in question between Jennifer and himself. Also it would provide an opportunity to offer teaching or counseling if he expressed ideas that were unbiblical or if he needed further instruction in any area. After Robert answered the questions and there were follow-up questions to some of his responses, we asked him to prepare questions for Jennifer.

The questions prepared for Jennifer did not reveal that Robert was the suitor and we did not tell her because we wanted her to answer the questions as honestly as possible without attempting to tailor her answers to a certain man. After she had submitted her responses to Robert, we allowed her to see how he had answered the questionnaire and told her that Robert was the man. They were then permitted to ask each other follow-up questions through Dad. They were not permitted to email each other directly.

During the course of the questions going back and forth James' family visited with us twice as they stayed with us while going to and coming from their family vacation in California. For those keeping track, at that point we had visited together 8 times.

As soon as the two of them were satisfied that they understood each other's answers, Robert asked Dad if he could propose marriage to Jennifer.  This was merely a formality and a romantic nod to the culture. On June 20, 2015, our two families attended a dance and Robert proposed to Jennifer on the dance floor. She said, "Yes." At that point, Robert announced loudly to everyone in the room, "Jennifer and I are engaged." There was complete shock. The only people who knew a proposal was coming were Robert and both sets of parents. None of his siblings had any idea that anything was happening.

The rest of the evening was great fun for us as we answered the question, "How long have they been courting?" with "They haven't been courting at all." Dad was able to corral a bunch of other fathers into a group and extol the benefits of arranged marriage. Because we are strong supporters of short engagements, by the end of the night we had pretty much settled on August 29, 2015 for the wedding date.

The next morning, at James' church, after worship James announced the engagement to the absolute astonishment of everyone in the room. We had lunch with James' family before heading back to our own home.

Between the time of the engagement and the wedding we visited with James' family twice. The only communication between Robert and Jennifer was via group email as we made plans for the wedding. Robert and Jennifer had no sort of romantic involvement at all. When Dad presented Jennifer to Robert, as his wife, the entire crowd of witnesses literally witnessed the very beginning of their romance as Robert kissed Jennifer.

You can use the comments below to ask questions, I will do my best to answer them. My husband is still working on writing more about how we came to choose an arranged marriage and how we did it. It is turning into a small book, but when finished it will be available through my blog or directly through him. If you would like to talk with him directly, let me know in the comments and I will connect you.

Tolkien Instructs His Son on Women

I just love this bit of Tolkien posted over at Vox Day's Alpha Game Blog today. It makes me cringe to see otherwise godly young Christian men pursuing a route of chivalry in an attempt to attract a wife when the very roots of chivalry are based on ungodly courtship, promiscuity and adultery. For example, this blog. Instead of supplicating to women, I would see young men assuming that they will be leading, teaching and guiding a wife, rather than bowing down to her superior spirituality and ability to mulit-task. Hold yourself out, men, as one who will be needing a helpmeet, not one who will exalt his bride and put her on a pedestal.  Not attractive. Regardless of whether the mothers of the young women you know think you are fabulous and wish you were their son.

You can read all of Tolkien's letter to his son, Michael, over here. It is letter #43.

Sexuality in Design vs. Churchianity

I've read a couple of strange articles on the web lately concerning Christian young women and chastity. One of them was by a woman lamenting that she had remained a (technical) virgin until marriage and the second was by a self-proclaimed Christian that had given up on chastity and decided that sex outside of marriage was not only ok, it was superior to chastity.

While both of these young women make ridiculous claims about both Christianity and sexuality, they also both are exposing something that I do believe is a genuine problem within the modern, western Church. That problem is a wrong, completely wrong view about human sexuality. And they both claim that they were taught this at church, which I believe. We are not excused from knowing and acting on the truth just because we were taught a falsehood at church, however. We, believers, have the Bible and Holy Spirit, so if we are ignorant, we are without excuse. As an older woman and as a mother, I would like to offer some counsel to younger woman about sexuality and God's design for it.

First, what is this wrong belief that is held by so many within churchianity? It is simply that sex is bad. Sex is icky. Sex is a necessary evil. Only bad girls want to have sex. Only men enjoy sex. Along with that goes the equally wrong belief that sexual desire is evidence of sin. It is time for Christians to acknowledge the obvious; all people are sexual beings. Sexuality is one of the characteristics that belongs to all people, particularly from the onset of puberty.

Why is it dangerous to ignore, or worse to deny, the sexuality of all humans? It causes us to do stupid things. It causes us to make bad decisions. It harms people. It destroys marriages. Pretty serious accusations, but I think I can defend them.

How does denying the sexuality of young men and women cause us to do stupid things? Primarily it causes us to push young women and men together while expecting them to behave as non-sexual beings. This is stupid. A better practice would be to embrace the sexuality of young people, to encourage them in it and to train them in how to use it properly while keeping men and women mostly separate. This is how most societies have dealt with sexuality throughout history and it has worked rather well. Men don't have women for friends. Men and women don't work together in offices or go on business trips together. They don't hang out together on the couches in the youth group meeting.

What we need to realize is that God actually designed women to respond in a sexual way to men. There are all sorts of hormones involved and possibly pheromones (although this has not yet been proven). There are certain frequencies of sound, certain smells, etc. that actually cause sexual arousal on varying levels in women. The same is true for men, of course, but I'm not talking about that here. The purpose is rather obvious, when a woman is given to a man to be his wife one of the first things that they are going to do is exercise their sexuality to the maximum by becoming one flesh. In order for that be pleasurable, as designed, both bodies must prepare physically for the act. These preparations are not limited to the time they spend in bed. Which is why it is stupid for men and women to be interacting closely outside of a marriage relationship. We don't WANT Susie getting all hot and bothered by Roger's arm brushing up against hers on the youth group couch. Susie may not want it and Roger may not want it, either. But we can't make it NOT happen. So the best thing to do is keep them apart.

As an American, I have always been curious about other cultures. Those people over on the other side of the world are so foreign to me, that it is sometimes impossible for me to reach any sort of understanding about what they are doing. I have made it a life-long practice to judge them for their primitive ways when the truth is, I have absolutely no context for analyzing what I was seeing. For example, I have seen photos or videos of groups of girls in other countries. I know they are not in America because of the dress of the girls. In some countries, those gals are really made up. They have jewelry or painted hair and brightly colored printed dresses, scarves or wraps of some sort. Sometimes they have their heads covered or even have veils on their faces. But what I notice is that they are not mixed with boys, and when boys pass by, or they are talking about a group of boys, the girls will giggle or laugh and blush and lift a veil across the lower face. These young women are very, very aware of their sexuality. And they seem to know that those boys in that group over there are going to become their future lovers and husbands. They are clearly excited about it, they seem to look forward to it without fear. But one thing is certain, they are kept absolutely apart from those young men until the time is right for all that sexuality to manifest itself.

In the past, I would have used my own experiences and attributed my own sort of feelings to those girls. I would have thought that they were like the group of wall flowers at a junior high dance, waiting and hoping that a boy would come ask them to dance. But the stakes for these girls is much higher than a dance. They are waiting for husbands. And they are not waiting in the sense of "I sure hope one of them picks me." They are waiting for the right time when the husband who has already been picked will be permitted to come get her. They wait with anticipation and with joy. Not with dread or fear.

How is this different from and really superior to the way we do it here? The typical church-raised girl in America will be doing very different things in her post-pubescent years. At the time when her sexuality is rising to its peak she will be thrown into mixed groups of other pubescent folk. She will be told to guard her own chastity and to suppress her sexuality. She will be told to "just be friends" with boys, the same as with girls. She will be forced to compete with her girl friends for the attentions of boys, because woe is the one who gets left behind in the marriage race. No one is making sure that she gets picked. No one is guarding her chastity for her. She will be permitted, like Jacob's daughter, Dinah, to go down to town to look around. She may or may not be warned that men will want to seduce her, but what good is a warning against the charms of a man? We are so incredibly stupid.

We will expect an American Christian young woman to carry on like this for a decade or more. From perhaps the age of 12 to the age of 20, 25 or even 30. We will expect her to date and spend time alone, in the dark, with men. But we don't want her to rush into marriage. Not when there are so many other important things she should be doing for Christ. Like getting her college education. Like getting settled in a career. Like setting up her own home. Like getting her first cat. Then when her best child-bearing years are behind her and she is losing the bloom of youth, we may permit her to entertain the idea of marriage, if there is a young man perfect enough for her.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that at the age of 28 she does find Mr. Perfect and he agrees to make her Mrs. Perfect. What does she have to look forward to now? Her sexuality is finally going to be let out of the bottle, but she has spent years and years beating it down. When it attempted to rise up, perhaps she gave in to fantasies or self-pleasuring, and then felt so much guilt for her in ability to contain. She shouldn't be having sexual desire outside of marriage! And she has learned to associate sexual desire with bad feelings, with guilty feelings. She is like Pavlov's dog. She thought an impure thought and WHAM! guilt. Now what happens when her husband approaches her? She recoils. It makes her feel dirty to accept, it makes her feel dirty to say, "That feels good.", so she doesn't. She let's him do what he needs to do, but she can't bring herself to enjoy it properly or to encourage him, so he feels rejected. Their marriage is not off to a good start.

Dear sisters, let us not so mistreat our own daughters. Let us not teach them to despise God's gifts. Let us not teach them to suppress their desires. Instead, let's encourage our husbands to find husbands for our daughters as soon as is practical. Don't make her wait until she has done X or Y or even Z. Don't reject suitors for being too immature. How mature was your husband at 19 or 20?

If they cannot contain, let them marry. So says Paul, and so say I.

And to any of you who do not enjoy the marriage bed to the fullest, contact me. I may be able to explain what you are doing wrong. Because you are definitely doing it wrong if it isn't fun.

To Court or Not to Court?

Court - The primary sense and application are not perfectly obvious. Most probably the word is from a verb which signifies to go round, to collect.  American Dictionary Of The English Language, Noah Webster, 1828

There are many English uses of the word "court" as both a noun and verb, and as a root word of such terms as "courtship" and "courtesan." I am particularly concerned in this blog post with the verb usage described by Noah Webster as:

In a general sense, to flatter; to endeavor to please by civilities and address; 2. To woo; to solicit for marriage.

This definition is adequate for my rejection of courting as a legitimate method for procuring a wife. At least when it comes to my sons and daughters. Selecting a spouse is too serious and important a matter to be reduced to flattery, solicitation and seduction. It is not enough for a young man to be able to woo and win the heart of a young woman. I'm sure there are thousands of men out there who could succeed at that task concerning my daughter. I believe it is in the nature of young women to be impressionable and to respond to such appeals from men. Even Eve, probably the purest and most intelligent woman who ever lived was wooed into a conversation with the serpent in the garden. His manner of address and civilities toward her were enough to overcome what should have been her hesitance to speak with him.

And why should a young man have to put all of his hopes for a good wife upon his success at being wily? Why should he be addressing himself at all to an impressionable young lady? If she falls for him, does that assure him she will be a good and faithful wife? If she doesn't fall for him, does that mean they shouldn't marry? We are talking about a woman who can't make a long term decision about hair style or shoes and we are putting it into her hands to decide whether she should or should not marry this man? What other good decisions has this young lady made? Is she the most qualified to make this very important decision? Do not men need to guard their hearts and be protected from heartbreak and rejection as much as women? Why should a man put it all out there with the potential to be stomped? How many men are willing to face the gauntlet of fickle female emotion? It is little wonder that many Christian young men are skipping this challenge and choosing to remain single.

If he should be successful in the wooing, he still has to face a myriad of other potential gate-closers. See my post here about that challenge.

Another usage of the word "court" contributes to my dislike of it as a method for finding a spouse. In nations that have a monarchy or aristocracy, the court refers to both the place of residence of a king or sovereign prince as well as the persons who compose the retinue or council of a king or emperor. (Thank you again, Mr. Webster) It came to include the social circle of the king/queen as well. Those who were in that circle could be said to be appearing "at court." Within this world of the court in Europe, including in Great Britain, the persons who appeared at court would engage in an immoral yet socially acceptable practice called courtship. This is where men of the aristocracy (the titled and privileged land-owning upper classes) would take both wives and mistresses from among the women at court. A woman at court, upon marriage, was expected to remain exclusive and faithful to her husband until she had born a son and heir to him. After that, she could engage in courtship activities and become the mistress of another, usually higher status, man. This practice still exists today in the English court. The current Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, the oldest son of Queen Elizabeth II has had many mistresses. After his marriage to Lady Diana Spencer he had two very prominent mistresses who were married to other men in the British aristocracy. Both of these women, Camilla Parker-Bowles and an Australian woman by the nickname of Kanga, took pauses in their relationships with the Prince while they bore children to their husbands, then resumed their affairs with Prince Charles.

My personal working definition of courtship is "a romantic/sexual relationship with a person to whom one is NOT married."

This definition describes the courtship practice of the British court as well as the practice of Christian dating which is also called courtship. I can already hear the argument, "But the Christians aren't having sex during courtship!" It doesn't matter to me. Romantic attraction IS sexual attraction and to stir up that sort of attachment is to stir up something which belongs exclusively to the realm of marriage. There is no practical or righteous reason to form romantic attachments outside of marriage. Romance belongs in sexual relationships, not platonic ones. To any given man all of the women he will meet will fall into one of two categories. Those categories are 1. Wife and 2. Not-the-Wife. If a woman is his wife, he should be free to engage her sexually and romantically. If a woman falls into the second category, Not-the-Wife, he MUST NOT engage her romantically or sexually. It doesn't matter if she is his mother, an elderly woman at church, the wife of his best friend or a single woman at the grocery store. All of those women fall into the same category. Would it be ok for the Pastor to place his hand on my leg while we sat next to each other in church? No? Why not? Because I am not his wife. Is it ok for a single young man to place his arm around a single young woman at church? No! Because she is not his wife. The Bible doesn't give any other categories such as "potential wife," "girl friend," "fiance'," etc. Therefore any practice which permits and encourages men to have romantic or sexual relations with women to whom they are not married is an immoral practice and I cannot support it.

In other countries the woman who serve as mistresses or concubines to the royalty are called courtesans, which comes from the same root word. A courtesan might be a paid prostitute or she might be accepting admission to the the world of the court as payment. In other cases she might be another member of the nobility.

I am advocating for parents to arrange marriages between their sons and daughters. Who has a deeper interest in the well-being, happiness and eternal soul of a person than his or her own father? Who in the family is most qualified to weigh the qualifications of a potential spouse in light of the character of his own son or daughter? A father can give a daughter in marriage thus relieving her of the burden of controlling and checking her own desires during a courtship. When the father gives her in marriage, she is completely free to give herself romantically and sexually to her husband without restraint. A son whose father finds him a wife is freed from the burden of supplicating to another father, or to multiple fathers to gain access to the opportunity to woo a daughter, only to suffer the humiliation of rejection. Once he is given a bride, he can be vulnerable to love her with his whole heart without fearing the pain of having his advances stopped by the woman, her parents, her pastor, her elders, her siblings or her girlfriends.

Another advantage to women having their fathers find them husbands is that they no longer have to live with the agonizing fear of "What if no one ever comes to court me?" "What if I don't get married?" Once her parents have determined that she will marry, they will make sure it happens. They don't have to sit at home waiting and hoping that Prince Charming will come, they can be out beating the bushes and looking for him. Perhaps we can end this shame of Christian women who want to marry but are still sitting at home waiting at the age of 30.

I'm going to repeat my working definition of courtship here and let the reader determine whether it is appropriate for Christians to support such a thing.

 A romantic/sexual relationship with a person to whom one is NOT married - Courtship

Sophie's Choice - Why Can't She Choose Her Own Husband?

I have been doing some more reading over at truelovedoesntwait.com. In this post, a young woman by the name of Sophie is arguing in the comments that she should not be prohibited from choosing her own husband. She claims that she isn't insisting on doing the choosing, but rather should simply have the veto if her father wants her to marry a man that she doesn't "like." In other words, as long as her father picks a man that she chooses, she will obey her father and marry him. That reminds me of a woman who obeys her husband in everything, as long as she agrees with him.

The heart of her issue, which she herself doesn't even realize, is that she is as solipsistic as the typical woman. She is the measure of all things. Absolutely no one, no man and not even God, are going to put any limits on her. They are not going to limit her sexuality, for sure. This is the essence of  feminism. A woman can do anything she pleases without limitation and without guidance and it is the duty of others, including her God-given authorities to embrace her choices and to finance them. I'm sure that Sophie would deny being a feminist, but she is believing and practicing the core principles of feminism, therefore she is a feminist, even if she would protest.

No one should miss this post over at Vox Day's Alpha Game Blog. It sums up the solipsism of women very concisely.  And why should women read this and understand it? Because if we don't understand the evil residing in our nature, we are bound to either excuse and dismiss it or outright embrace it. Don't be put off by the strong language. It won't hurt you.

What follows is my response to Sophie and the other commentors over at True Love Doesn't Wait. I wanted to save it here for future reference, you know, for that book I'm going to write someday. It deals with the arguments which say that betrothal is not a command or that any way of getting a wife is ok. On the contrary, I believe that betrothal or an outright purchase are the only ways of getting a wife that conform to what is taught about marriage in the Scriptures. I also wanted to point out that while I agree with much of  what Vaughn Ohlman (the writer/owner of True Love Doesn't Wait) says about betrothal, I also have very serious differences of opinion with him. I do not accept his definitions of either betrothal or marriage, for example, which are pretty big differences.  Ok, my comment follows:

I don't think that Sophie really does have (or that she should have) choices. I think the Bible shows us that a woman does not have the authority over her own sexuality. Her father is the guardian of it until she marries, and he decides to whom and when she will be given in marriage. Once she is married the authority and control over her sexuality passes to her husband.

While there is no single passage of Scripture where this is explained and set forth, it is revealed all throughout the Scriptures. Obviously Vaughn has already written two books on the subject, and even in those he wasn't able to cover every verse where these principles are either mentioned or implied. When we say "show me the verse....!" we are demanding something we don't demand of other principles. For example, where is the verse in the law of God which commands parents to feed and clothe their children? What? There is no such command? But we see parents doing it. Is that just cultural?

In the case of betrothal, we not only see that it is implied as the natural and normal way of doing things, we also see that God, in his law, gives remedies to fathers and husbands when other men, or even the daughter/wife herself decide to exercise their sexuality outside their authority. We see a law wherein a man who suspects his wife of being adulterous can have the priest test her for it. If she is guilty, either by admission or by failing the test, she ends up dead. There is no such test for husbands. A husband's sexuality is not under the control or authority of his wife. He has a duty to her sexually, but it is not exclusive to her. God calls this "just". Is that cultural?

But the real convincer for me came after I became reformed. When I came to understand that the grace of God is irresistible to me. The father chose me for Christ and neither Christ nor I have any choice in the matter. God, Himself, uses betrothal for His Son. And then He created the institution of marriage as a picture of the marriage of Christ and His bride. Every aspect of the marriage, including the betrothal is pictured in how men take wives. The way we do this speaks the gospel. When we ignore betrothal we lie. We are hiding the gospel. When Christians let women choose or not choose their husbands we are using a picture of marriage that lies about the gospel.

There is nothing about marriage from its institution in the Garden until today that is cultural. It was created for the purpose of illustrating the gospel. Not the other way around. God didn't look around the earth and try to find some earthly thing that would help him explain what He is doing, instead, He invented marriage and gave us marriage as an aid to our understanding. When we accept the analogy as created we see that election is from the beginning, we see that betrothal is from the beginning. It is a vital part of the message of the gospel and therefore should not be excluded from the manner in which God's people express marriage.

Perhaps Sophie believes that she chose Christ? Or that she at least had the option to reject Him if she didn't like him? The Scriptures don't teach this. We are to love the God who first loved us, not just say "no" if He doesn't get our motor running. In the same way, we are to love our husbands and if we don't, the older women can teach us how. We don't "marry the one we love", we "love the one we marry". Huge difference. We have no business loving men who are not our husbands.

Gate or Bridge?

I am continually surprised and gratified when I learn something new that allows me to further refine what I believe to be the proper mode of getting couples married:  betrothal.

Much gratitude is sent the way of Vaughn Ohlman over at True Love Doesn't Wait for his description of courtships's gate versus betrothal's bridge. While there is much, much more to be gleaned from this article, this particular aspect really stood out to me.

In courtship, much ballyhooed by the conservative Christian community as THE way for Christian young people to pursue marriage, we typically see a young man setting his sights on a particular girl and then he becomes the initiator, running the gauntlet to first getting permission to court and hopefully, if none of the gates shut him out, marry the girl. What do I mean by gates? These are the numerous people who can, at any time, deem that the boy or girl is not worthy, or for some other (or no other) reason decide that the marriage is not to be and cut off the courtship. The first gates that a young man encounters are his own parents. Because his parents are gates, and not bridges, the best they can do is allow him to pass through. They can't help him and they can certainly hinder him. If they shut, the courtship is over before it begins. If they remain open, he doesn't get the girl, he has to pass through the next set of gates, IF they will open to him. Those gates are the girl's parents. Then there is the girl herself and perhaps a pastor or some elders thrown in there as well.

The reasons for a gate to close are unknowable to the young man. They will be arbitrary and perhaps even capricious. And they can be closed retroactively, too! After the young man has been granted permission to pass! Is it any wonder that young men don't want to try this? Is it any wonder that Christian young men are arriving at 30 years old still unmarried?

How does betrothal differ? Because in a betrothal, the father of the groom is dealing with the father of the bride. They are acting as a bridge so the marriage can positively move forward. They don't stand there gaping as if to say, "Pass if you dare." Once there is a betrothal, there will be a marriage. There are not multiple gates and no chance for a young man to get the gate slammed on him. There is no gamble for the young man really.

I hope you will go over and read the entire article. It was especially painful for me to read how a young man's own parents can be the ones closing gates for the most insignificant of reasons and without scriptural support for their actions. The problem with gates is that they are continually looking for reasons to close. Their job is to restrict access. Otherwise they wouldn't be gates. But we shouldn't be looking for reasons to deny marriage to our sons and daughters. Marriage is something that fathers should be actively pursuing. May we be faithful.

More Thoughts on Betrothal - Who has a Say-So?

Here are some more thoughts I posted on betrothal over on an internet discussion forum for Christian women:

I do not believe that the Bible requires, recommends or commands that either the groom or the bride approve of the marriage. I believe that it is completely moral and scripturally acceptable for fathers to arrange a marriage. While I don't have any particular verses to back this up, since it is not possible to prove a negative, I do have some principles gleaned from the betrothal of Christ and the Church that leads me to that belief.

What I see in Scripture is that we have no say in whether or not we are chosen. We are chosen both by Christ and by the Father, according to what Jesus and Paul tell us. Because Jesus and the Father are one, it is sometimes difficult to translate directly their roles into earthly situations. Sometimes God is behaving as a Father, sometimes as a Son, sometimes as a brother, sometimes as a friend, etc. He uses all of those roles to teach us things about Himself and they can't always be cut out and separated so that we can see exactly how WE should behave as a father, son, brother, friend, etc.

So, God the Father, acting in the role as our Father, betrothed us to His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ paid the price for the bride and has therefore entered into a covenant to marry her. Christ and the Church are not yet married, but have entered into an unbreakable betrothal covenant, and when He marries His bride, the covenant will be fulfilled. She cannot remove herself from the betrothal, nor did she have any say in being placed into the betrothal.

Because earthly marriage is supposed to be a picture of the marriage of Christ and the Church, the process by which those marriages come about should also be a picture, or rather that process is a part of the complete picture of what God is doing in regards to finding a bride for his Son and building a Kingdom. To ignore the process is to miss much of the purpose for God giving us the picture in order for us to understand Him better and to know Him more. Every thing that God has done in history so far IS the process! The marriage hasn't happened yet, only the betrothal, and even that isn't complete as more are being added to the bride. (And it seems that more will continue to be added right up to the moment that Jesus comes for the bride)

I realize that many (I think most) of the ladies here do not embrace reformed theology that teaches that God alone is responsible for saving us and that we have no part in it and no choice. Since that is what I believe, it forms very heavily my beliefs about earthly marriage.

Scripture gives some examples, but no direct commands. In the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, we see that Isaac had no say at all in who was chosen for him. And Rebekah also did not have a choice. The deal was made by her relatives.

Genesis 24:51
1Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife, as the LORD hath spoken

I will also address the "Well, that's just cultural" argument before it arises. :D

This practice (of marriages being arranged or the very least approved by the fathers) has existed in every culture, ancient and modern, up until perhaps 200 years ago or less. The change in western cultures to women choosing their own husbands was based on a turning away from the biblical teaching on authority, not on any new discovery of some sort of God-given right to do what you please. God not only endorses and embraces the betrothal system for His own family, He established it before the foundation of the world. If it was good enough for his only begotten son, it's good enough for my sons and daughters.

From a purely pragmatic view (which wouldn't matter a hill of beans if it contradicted Scripture, but is worth noting nonetheless) the modern, western method of finding a spouse has been nothing short of disastrous for families and for women in particular. To quote a non-Christian who occasionally stumbles onto some truth, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, "I don't support arranged marriage. But concerning most of the women who call my show; their parents couldn't possibly have picked worse husbands for these ladies than whom they chose for themselves!"

As a side note, in our household, we will allow a veto from a daughter. While we don't believe it is required, we don't want to add any more difficulties to her sinful mind when the tough times come. As in, we don't want satan handing her the argument (lie) that she doesn't have to obey this husband because she didn't even want to marry him in the first place.

What is Betrothal?

Below is the response I gave on an internet discussion forum to the question, "What is the difference between courtship and betrothal?"

Betrothal is not a "process" so much as it is an event and statement of the status of relationship between two people.

So if I ask how are you related to that man over there, you might answer, He IS my father, or he IS my brother, or he IS my husband, or, in the case of betrothal, he IS my espoused husband. Betrothal creates a relationship between two people. It begins with a covenant, historically and biblically between the groom/husband and the father of the bride. The covenant is fulfilled when the husband returns and takes the bride to wife.

There is no reference in Scripture of which I'm aware where the marriage is a covenant. The marriage is the fulfillment of the Betrothal covenant.

Betrothal has nothing to do with a couple getting to know each other and that is not a necessary element of it. In many cultures and in the accounts in the Bible, there is no "relating" going on between betrothed people. They "get to know each other" AFTER the marriage.

It was not uncommon for the bride price to include jewels, so we see betrothed women having been adorned with rings and bracelets. These would have served to let others know that a woman was taken. In ancient cultures a single woman would never adorn herself with jewels (unless she was a harlot). It served much the same purpose as our culture's engagement ring. Once a maiden was betrothed, her "status" was different, even though she would continue to live in her father's house and function pretty much the same as other single women until her husband came for her. There was no dating or courtship.

Both courtship and dating are terms that refer to how a couple get to know one another before marriage. Some families practice them, some don't. Some cultures practice them, some don't. Neither term or practice seems to have any biblical endorsement or prohibition.

It is interesting to me that there is no requirement that the woman/bride be involved in the betrothal. This also contributes to the difference between reformed and non-reformed theology in the sense that the reformed believe that God chooses the bride for his Son and the bride does NOT choose the Son. She is "chosen", whether she wants to be, or not.

I Kissed Courtship Goodbye

While I don't espouse the theory of evolution when it comes to origins, I must admit that "evolving" is the best word I can find to explain my understanding of marriage and the process used when a man takes a woman to wife. And honestly, I hope I'm close to arriving at some sort of truth on the matter, because the journey has been painful and exhausting. It is my sincerest hope that my youngest children will be able to have a simple and joyful understanding of this long before they are ready to use it and that it will be substantially unchanged throughout their lives and the lives of their children. In other words, I hope it will be something that transcends cultural practice and becomes a part of their biblical worldview.

This blog post cannot even begin to operate as some sort of tutorial on the subject. It will be more like a brief summation of where I'm at right now, with some glimpses into where I've been. I once purchased a book covering the topic of children in the worship service. I bought it because I desired for my own children to remain with me during the service and I was having a disagreement about it with the pastor. While I understood my reasoning, I'd hoped the book would offer some more scriptural backing for my position. As it turned out, the book contained many more reasons for keeping children in worship than I could even understand, and most of those reasons were based upon covenant theology. The problem was, it was a small book and it was presuming the reader already had a basic understanding of covenant theology, which I did not.

And so it is with betrothal. Without a truly biblical understanding of betrothal and how God went about choosing a bride for His Son, much of what I'm going to say about betrothal for us humans will seem foreign. At the same time, rejecting betrothal as being God designed, and failing to study it in the Bible results in bad theology, primarily the rejecting of reformed theology. (Loosely defined by the 5 main points outlined by Calvin.) In modern marriage we have the woman choosing the man as much as the man chooses the woman and so modern theology teaches that man chooses God as much as God chooses man. And we wonder why our churches and families are in shambles.

Let's look for a minute at modern coupling, starting with dating. Dating is a recreational activity, started as young as age 12. Assuming 12 year-olds are not looking for life partners, there can be no other purpose in dating for those not yet ready to marry. Of course, it turns out that dating is actually good preparation for modern marriage, which could be described as "serial monogamy." Dating consists of two people getting to know each other until they know enough to realize that they don't really like each other. Or until someone better comes along for one of the parties. This goes on, swapping one partner for another until getting to a partner who, after a reasonable amount of time, doesn't make a person want to puke, so he/she marries him/her. Or some people just go on dating different people because they enjoy the recreation and lack of commitment and never choose to marry at all.

Many in the Christian community have rejected dating as a means to finding a spouse and have substituted in its place "courtship". Like dating, courtship consists of a man and a woman spending time together for the purpose of getting to know one another, and, if it works out right, they get married. I have heard it said that the express purpose of a courtship relationship is marriage rather than just having fun. But, like dating, courtship can end at any time with either party declaring that they don't think the other is "the one God has for me." In other words, just like dating, they break up and move on to someone else. To me it seems exactly the same as dating with all the same pitfalls and dangers. The ONLY difference is that the parents of the man and woman are supposed to be guiding the couple and the couple is supposed to be avoiding hanky panky and keeping themselves "pure".

Both dating and courtship make the same fundamental mistake in relying on emotions and feelings to be the main determining factor in marriage. In other words, even if the couple are an otherwise perfect match, if she doesn't "like" him, there will be no marriage. And for some reason, whether or not she likes him can only be determined by her spending lots of time with him? As if we tend to like people more after we have spent lots and lots of time with them? Generally the opposite is true, people that we liked very much at first tend to lose their shine when we really get to know them.

Besides, if spending time together is the best way to know whether a couple will be compatible in marriage, then why not just shack up? Then each can be absolutely certain that the other isn't concealing anything. If you say that shacking up is off limits for Christians, then where should the arbitrary line be drawn? Is it ok to be alone together? To hold hands? To kiss? To be affectionate and talk mushy? How can it be determined that they know each other well enough to make a decision?

I can already hear the questions now. "But, but, but, if they don't get to know each other, then how can they decide whether they should marry?" That is the wrong question. The question should be, "How do we know if a couple should marry?" Should it be based at all on "getting to know each other"? I think not. At least not in the personality, do I like him, sort of way. Instead, let the father discover for himself whether the man is qualified to be a husband to his daughter. The man looking for a wife should have a pretty good idea that this young lady will work for him before he ever approaches her father, and a few pointed questions to the father can probably clear up any ambiguities.

And the young lady, what part does she play in this? Not much. The father comes to her and says, "So and so wants to marry you. I think he would be a good husband for you. What do you say?" She says either "yes" or "no". If she agrees, the father enters into a betrothal agreement with the man, which includes a recitation of the bride price, which goes to the bride whether they marry or not.

A transition to this system as "normal" will be difficult. It will require teaching our children from infancy that Daddy will take care of getting a husband for the girls and that the boys must not ever speak with a woman about marriage, but are to restrict themselves to speaking ONLY with the father of a women whom they are ready to marry. Maybe I'll even evolve to the point that the man's father should pick out a prospective bride for his son, too.