What Courtship Is Really About

There has been quite a hubbub over courtship lately, engendered by Thomas Umstattd’s blog post, Why Courtship Is Fundamentally Flawed. Douglas Wilson has responded here and here.

I thought I would bring a different perspective to the topic by relating a phenomenon I have encountered as a pastor:

A Christian in their 60’s, 70’s, or even 80’s, loses their spouse of many years, with whom they have raised children to adulthood, who are now raising their own children. The widowed Christian finds themself lonely and falls into a whirlwind romance with a similarly aged member of the opposite sex. This sends their children into full panic mode, because the love train is barreling down the tracks, there are warning signs everywhere that it is not a good match, and their formerly wise parent is acting like a sixteen year old. The children would love to see their parent remarried, yes, but to a godly Christian suited to them, who can be enthusiastically embraced as part of the whole family. But that’s not what happens. The widowed Christian proceeds ahead at warp speed and gets married. The warning signs turn out to be the tip of the iceberg. The kids watch as their parent draws more and more distant from family, friends, and church, and ends up basically disconnecting from all their former relationships. The children are left feeling like they have lost both parents. Meanwhile, newly married life turns out not to be as advertised. The elderly Christian ends up more miserable than they were when they were all alone.

I have seen this scenario play out at least half a dozen times. I have seen it happen, not only with Christians of many years, but with church elders of many years.

If you asked the children what the moral of the story is, they would tell you that their parent should have involved them in the process and should have committed not to get seriously involved with anyone who doesn’t get a thumbs up from the kids.  (A funny thing about this is that if the parent does involve the kids, the kids watch over the process like hawks!)

This puts a different light on “courtship,” which is not necessarily the most felicitous word, but it is the only one we have for basically saying that when it comes to the opposite sex, people ought not go it alone. Romance is like flying in heavy weather with no instruments. You need someone in the control tower, and you need to listen to them.

There are powerful forces at work. That seems to be the point of the proverb that analogizes romance to an eagle in the air, a ship in the water, and a serpent on a rock (Prov 30.18-19). Those are all things that appear to move by magic. Yes, but the same “magic” that lifts the eagle and glides the ship can also destroy them.

God created the wind, and he created romance. He intends to do wonderful things with both. But those under the forces aren’t in the best position to harness them. They need others who are not under the forces, who are wise and genuinely concerned for their well being and happiness, to help them navigate. That is what courtship is all about (or at least should be).

Can you still have disasters? Yes. No system, not even one God designed, is immune from idiocy, folly, or corruption. Every system is dependent on having good people in place. God designed church government, but it still depends on having wise and godly men in place. And in a fallen world, you are not always going to have the most qualified people involved, and so disasters happen.

With courtship, you can have incompetents in the control tower, but that doesn’t change the fact that you need someone there. Parents as a class, by God’s design, are in the best position to play this role for kids. And kids, it would seem, are in the best position to play this role for suddenly-singled older parents.

Folly in courtship doesn’t surprise God, and it shouldn’t surprise us. The comedic element in Song of Solomon is the girl’s brothers who cluelessly try to protect their little sister: “We have a little sister, and she has no breasts.”  “I have breasts like towers!,” she responds (Song 8.8, 9). Shakespeare had nothing on Solomon.

Why is this stuff funny? Because we have all seen it. But the point of the story is not to cast God’s means of protection to the wind. The point is, if you are in the control tower, don’t be Constable Dogberry.

1. 

   Renee says:

   August 22, 2014 at 7:07 pm

   This is very wise counsel. The person in “love” is blind and hard of hearing when it comes to seeing behaviors or picking up tones in the voice that indicate a darker side than the laughter and smile that is portrayed in the dating phase. Those detached from the romance are often able to see through the facade to the false foundation. My dad was widowed at 58 and very lonely after my mom died. He whirl winded himself into a a marriage that lasted 20 years My step mom was hard on him and hard on the family. The last years of his life were confined to the selfish demands of a woman who had the outer shell of a charmer, but was quite self centered and demanding. He was a man of honor and though he was often worn out he took very good care of her until she passed away. Sadly he died from cancer a few months later. Before he married her, my siblings and I tried to warn him about her dark side, but he didn’t listen. He felt he had lived a long time and could read people well, but when it comes to matters of the heart, no matter how old the participants are, the person under the spell of love is ignorant to the signals of future pain and disappointment.
2. 

   Valerie (Kyriosity) says:

   August 22, 2014 at 9:21 pm

   The main gist of the post is great. I think you’re too hard on the brothers though. Does the text indicate that they are the Shulamite’s brothers? They appear to me to be talking to her about their sister. And she doesn’t seem to respond negatively to them; rather, she’s willing to assign one of their categories to herself (“I was a wall”). What do you think of this take on the brothers?