Helpers Meet?
A Symposium on Dating, Courtship & Marriage
That Could Be Arranged by S. M. Hutchens
Not-So-Blind Date by Jocelyn Mathewes
Three’s No Crowd by Kevin Offner
Father Knows Maybe Not by James Hitchcock
That Could Be Arranged
by S. M. Hutchens
Since our own children are of marriageable age, questions about the dating culture concern us. The family has agreed, with many others, that dating as traditionally practiced is not a good thing, and that it should be replaced with courtship supervised by the parents.
But because courtship implies a very advanced state of commitment, the intention to practice it appears to lead to a good deal of “hanging out”—regular gathering with a mixed-sex group of the same age—which has serious ambiguities of its own, particularly in that it so often leads nowhere. There is a huge distance between hanging out with other Christian young people and formal courtship that few young couples wish to take. The chasm to be leaped would seem most naturally filled by—dating.
Young people at the highest point of their sexual attraction and desire are emphatically different from the playfellows of earlier years, and the attempt to gather as if they were simply advanced playgroups seems to me to have an unwholesome and unpromising artificiality about it.
One can see, in light of modern experimentations in these matters, why in traditional societies marriages are arranged by the parents. A return to this in some form is perhaps the next step in the right direction for groups of Christian families that wish to leave the dating culture as (it has turned out to be) one of the fundamental dynamics of family life.
But for this, children will need to be educated from their earliest years that (1) we are Christians, and think and do many things differently than the surrounding culture, in which pagan influences predominate, and (2) your parents will be choosing your mate.
The culture of romantic love and its eroticism will oppose this with all its might, and the law will, of course, not cooperate. The children can break from parental authority and its choice if they insist.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on marriage from the online archives
32.1—January/February 2019
Divine Love & the Love of Man & Woman Surpass Mere Consent by Anthony Esolen
21.1—January/February 2008
John Chrysostom’s Discovery of the Blessings & Mysteries of Marriage by Mike Aquilina
29.1—Jan/Feb 2016
on Marriage, Moral Corruption & the Christian Duty of Witness by Regis Nicoll
more from the online archives
28.5—Sept/Oct 2015
Remembering Angka & the Idolatry of the Khmer Rouge 40 Years Later by Les Sillars
32.2—March/April 2019
Finding Him Again Through the Patriarchal Group by Anthony Esolen
26.1—Jan/Feb 2013
on Abortion as a Matter of National Welfare by W. Ross Blackburn
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
