How did it come to this?
The divorce rate is 50%, but it wasn’t always like this. It used to be so rare that anyone who went through a divorce was a social outcast. Now it is so common place we do not even blink an eye at it. How did it happen? I have a theory, and although this is not a new problem, I think I might have the reason for why America has such a high rate when it used to be so small.
The old fashioned dating - courting. Many today don’t know what courting even means anymore. What was it? The courting system went a little like this. Within friends or acquaintances, if a man found himself attracted to a woman, he would begin to date her, now the use of the word ‘date’ here is much different than how we would define it today. Dating, in the courting system, would be hanging out together with friends or family, you were never alone with each other while you were dating. Then, when it got more serious, the man would go to the father of the girl and ask his permission to court her daughter. This would be the equivalent of dating some one in today’s standards (without the sex). In many cases, in the courting system the permission to court was more along the lines of a pre-engagement engagement. You would truly have to be serious to ask a father to court his daughter.
Modern dating cuts the middle section out and goes straight to the courting, but this is not the only difference.
The age old question, even in the old fashioned days of courting, is, ‘How do I know who the right one is?’ This question led to other questions such as, - Is there only one right one? What if I choose poorly? What if...? Our modern dating society has slowly answered these questions, and has been hurting ever since they answered it.
How will you know who the right one is unless you ‘look around’, ‘date around’, or even ‘sleep around’? That is how our culture has answered that question. When you go shopping, you look around to find the one you like, if you don’t like the purse you have, get rid of it and find you one you do like. That is also the way we have answered the question of ‘What if I choose wrong?’ If your marriage goes badly, there is a quick fix, get a quicky divorce and your free to marry again.
Not only does this mentality justify the evils of divorce in the eyes of our culture, but this ‘going shopping’ mentality to dating sets us up for failure. How? It sets the pace, just as divorce increases the chances of a second divorce, so a break-up sets the pace for the next relationship. It is a lesson in how to fail in a relationship.
This cyclic dating system emphasizes sex and feelings over all else. It turns the direction of the relationship from love to lust. Not only do we still not know how to find ‘the one’, even if we do find the one, we do not know how to love, for we have lost that in this process of shopping around for a sex that will last.
The answer is commitment. Even statistics prove that those who work through troubled times are happier 5 years later than those who divorced when troubled times came. Commitment says, I don’t feel like loving you right now, I’m not even sure if you deserve to be loved right now, but I am going to do so anyway because you are my wife/husband.
Our culture says love keep commitment alive. They have it backwards. Emotions can be fickle. If a feeling of love, which many have misplaced or replaced as lust, keeps commitment alive then is it any surprise that the second that love is not felt anymore the marriage is ended? But the other way around, the true commitment to the one you love regardless of IF you feel it at the moment or not will get you through tough situations, troubling times and fickle emotions.
Commitment keeps love alive and it is not and never will be the other way around.
Jared Williams
The old fashioned dating - courting. Many today don’t know what courting even means anymore. What was it? The courting system went a little like this. Within friends or acquaintances, if a man found himself attracted to a woman, he would begin to date her, now the use of the word ‘date’ here is much different than how we would define it today. Dating, in the courting system, would be hanging out together with friends or family, you were never alone with each other while you were dating. Then, when it got more serious, the man would go to the father of the girl and ask his permission to court her daughter. This would be the equivalent of dating some one in today’s standards (without the sex). In many cases, in the courting system the permission to court was more along the lines of a pre-engagement engagement. You would truly have to be serious to ask a father to court his daughter.
Modern dating cuts the middle section out and goes straight to the courting, but this is not the only difference.
The age old question, even in the old fashioned days of courting, is, ‘How do I know who the right one is?’ This question led to other questions such as, - Is there only one right one? What if I choose poorly? What if...? Our modern dating society has slowly answered these questions, and has been hurting ever since they answered it.
How will you know who the right one is unless you ‘look around’, ‘date around’, or even ‘sleep around’? That is how our culture has answered that question. When you go shopping, you look around to find the one you like, if you don’t like the purse you have, get rid of it and find you one you do like. That is also the way we have answered the question of ‘What if I choose wrong?’ If your marriage goes badly, there is a quick fix, get a quicky divorce and your free to marry again.
Not only does this mentality justify the evils of divorce in the eyes of our culture, but this ‘going shopping’ mentality to dating sets us up for failure. How? It sets the pace, just as divorce increases the chances of a second divorce, so a break-up sets the pace for the next relationship. It is a lesson in how to fail in a relationship.
This cyclic dating system emphasizes sex and feelings over all else. It turns the direction of the relationship from love to lust. Not only do we still not know how to find ‘the one’, even if we do find the one, we do not know how to love, for we have lost that in this process of shopping around for a sex that will last.
The answer is commitment. Even statistics prove that those who work through troubled times are happier 5 years later than those who divorced when troubled times came. Commitment says, I don’t feel like loving you right now, I’m not even sure if you deserve to be loved right now, but I am going to do so anyway because you are my wife/husband.
Our culture says love keep commitment alive. They have it backwards. Emotions can be fickle. If a feeling of love, which many have misplaced or replaced as lust, keeps commitment alive then is it any surprise that the second that love is not felt anymore the marriage is ended? But the other way around, the true commitment to the one you love regardless of IF you feel it at the moment or not will get you through tough situations, troubling times and fickle emotions.
Commitment keeps love alive and it is not and never will be the other way around.
Jared Williams
