The Demise of Courtship
"Marriage has its own meanings, which we are free only to accept or reject"
Last week I introduced the theme of marriage and the radical claim—to some—that discerning an ideal partner for marriage is in fact the most crucial decision that the average person will ever make in their lifetime. Now from a Catholic perspective marriage is not the highest calling objectively speaking—that would be religious life, or participation in the sacrament of holy orders in the priesthood. However, there is a big difference between the best thing seen in itself, and the best thing for a particular individual.
As our Lord tells us in the Gospel, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” We know simply by experience that it is a minority who are called to the priesthood and religious life, and thus under normal circumstances the majority of the human race is called to pursue marriage. While marriage is a Christian sacrament among the baptized, it is also a natural institution, given from the very beginning to our first parents (see Jesus’ words concerning the indissolubility of marriage in Matthew 19 for example).
Since this is the case, it seems to be no small thing to emphasize the need for young men and women—and sometimes older!—to have a reliable and efficient means to pursue this end. In the age of internet dating, social media, and countless smartphone apps that promise to connect anyone with any number of hypothetical romantic partners (not to mention the more salacious ends to which these apps are often turned), there is a longstanding custom that has fallen almost completely out of our common experience: courtship.
Speak the language of courtship to any passerby on the street and they’ll look at you like you’ve got two heads. Whether it has been explicitly rejected as a relic of a more primitive and naïve past, ridiculed as ineffective and unfitting for the modern age, or whether it has simply been forgotten and thought to have died a quiet and lonely death, the very idea of courtship has fallen out of the common lexicon shared by citizens of the modern West. The problem with this line of thinking, however, is that it is all too obvious that what we’re doing as a society to find husbands and wives—even just stable relationships—is absolutely not working.
Now it will help at this point to step back and ask a very simple question: what do we mean by courtship? Discussing this question, the authors of Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar are very clear:
Not all activity by which a man shows erotic or sexual interest in a woman, or a woman in a man, qualify as courtship. We use the term “courting” in more or less its original meaning, which goes back to the sixteenth century: “to pay amorous attention to, to woo, with a view to marriage.” (“To woo”: “to solicit or sue a woman in love, especially with a view to marriage.”) Courtship was and is therefore distinguishable from flirting and seducing, from trysting and having an affair, and, to speak in modern idiom, from “hooking up” or even from having or being in “a relationship”: these activities, whatever their merits, do not aim at marriage (5).
This is a crystal-clear definition of what it means to speak about courtship. In certain social circles the language of courtship is simply used as a kind of shorthand for the activities of dating, typically with a veneer of conservative or traditional morality thrown in for good measure. But what Kass & Kass mean by courtship is something much more serious and intentional. As they write:
“by courtship we mean that collection of activities aimed at (1) finding and (2) winning (3) the right one (4) for marriage. Finding means more than hunting out or locating; it also means finding out if the located one is really right. Winning means both gaining and reciprocation of exclusive amorous interest and affection and securing consent and decision to marry… The meaning of courting will thus depend on the meaning of marrying” (5).
This last point is crucial, for this is a truth that lies at the heart of the modern crisis in dating: there is an intrinsic link between the meaning and activity of courtship and the meaning and activity of marriage that has been lost, abandoned, and rejected. Couples in the 21st century will often date and be “in a relationship” for many years (sometimes a decade or more!) without the question of marriage on the horizon. This is not true for all, surely, but more and more frequently the concept of marriage for romantically involved couples is not assumed to be a final destination. In other words, there is a total disconnect between romantic/sexual love and interest, and the reality of marriage and family (to say nothing of children).
Now it is hardly the fault of the current generation that they no longer approach adulthood with ideas of courtship and marriage in mind. There are no longer stable cultural forms and traditions into which young people can insert themselves, no agreed-upon rituals and customs that young people can embrace and enact in their own lives. Indeed, the very idea of marriage has been eroded to such an extent that the average American teenager is probably as likely to discover the lost city of Atlantis as they are to discover the true meaning of marriage all on their own. But as Kass & Kass remind us: “One cannot really answer the question, “Why marry?” or even “Whom to marry?” without some sense of what marriage is and means… [and] the truth of the matter may be that the marriage has its own meanings, which we are free only to accept or reject” (6).
The value of courtship is that it operates with a robust idea of marriage, and all that it entails, helping to guide individuals on the path to discovery (of both themselves as well as the opposite sex). The last century has seen the demise of courtship, but the despair of our contemporary situation may just be the catalyst that allows something of the old ways to become new again.
In the next installment of our series, we will dive into questions about the many obstacles to the recovery of courtship, as well as the practical import of what it means to try and recover this worthwhile pursuit. Until next time…
Loved that article! Keep up the good work!
My wife and I only dated for 6 weeks before getting engaged and it’s because we both knew what marriage was and what we were looking for!
I pray the rosary every day and it feels like Mary hand picked my spouse for me! It is So important be prayerful when dating.