The courtship model is exceedingly difficult when:
1) many families are broken 2) fathers are absent (in reality or functionally) 3) parents have ungodly goals for their children 4) delayed maturation has greatly decreased the availability of good spousal candidates
This fourth issue makes young marriage difficult.
You either have to choose from the available candidates or delay getting married until you can find a more suitable candidate.
Hence, even those pursuing a young marriage can find themselves marrying much later than expected.
Consequently, both men and women, including those that are pro-marrying as soon as possible, entering relationships for the purpose of marriage are rarely teens.
They have cars, careers/jobs, and even their own apartments/houses.
These are 20+ year olds with ton of freedom.
There is weird disconnect from reality when it comes to this topic with Christians. They are imagining teenagers getting to know each other on the front porch swing of one their parents houses where they still live.
That still happens but it’s just not the norm any longer.
Also, I’ll add that see some very unhealthy things encouraged in many courtship relationships.
For example, there is very strong chivalric impulse that encourages the pedestaling of the woman.
Another problem that is common is an overbearing father who requires the male suitor to more or less emasculate himself to “win” the daughter’s hand in marriage. These things aren't intrinsic to courtship but they are often present for whatever reason.
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Most (not all) modern forms of courtship fail to produces strong marriages because:
1) Many fathers are more interested in using the “courtship” as an opportunity to posture their toughness as a man than building a low-key relationship with potential suitors...
...Thus, the only guys that are generally willing to stick around and put up with the shenanigans are weak needy guys with few options. All the high quality guys have plenty of options. So they don’t have to put up “little men.”
2) It throws off the power equilibrium where the woman has all the "power" directly or by proxy through her father. For the young man to explore the relationship, he has to make an exclusive commitment to courting her....
Wokeness and the Souls of our children: A Megathread
1/ I asked, "Why are so many grown children are going woke even though they came from healthy Christian homes?"
Pastor Rich Lusk answered:
I get asked regularly why I address “woke” issues so much from the pulpit…
2/ It’s for the sake of the kids, to inoculate them against the garbage that’s out there but it’ll continue to be a problem no matter what we do - even if we preach on these things, get our kids in solid Christian educational environ, etc., it will still be an issue for us.
3/ And that’s because wokeness is the spirit of the age.
And there will always be people who rebel against the truth because they’d rather fit in and go with the flow.
Worldliness is what it is, and some in the church will always be led astray.