Let’s get into this based on yesterday’s reading assignment. I’ll try to make my assessment as un-five-paragraph-English-essay as possible.
Why the case for courtship? In Kass’s words:
“…First, because I believe in marriage, both for its unique opportunities for erotic fulfillment, deep friendship, lasting intimacy and personal growth, and for its indispensable contributions to the well being of children. I do so, second, because good marriages depend on good choices, and choices are more likely to be good if they are prepared by the activities of courtship.”
So two important premises that, in and of themselves, can be overlooked or denied by our generation:
- Being married is – to put it simply – better than being single. More fulfilling. Better for your personal development. Better for children.
-
The process of courtship is the way (according to this author) to best make the incredible decision of who to marry.
One of my favorite parts of this piece is the story Kass tells about her student who, when asked the question, “what’s the most important decision you’ll make in your life” said, “deciding who should be the mother of my children.”
I may be jaded by too many years in NYC, but that wouldn’t be my gut reaction to that question. What career I should pursue? Where I should live? IF I should even have children? – those might be my answers. I admit that despite desiring to be married and hoping that marriage will be life-long and incredibly fulfilling, I am not marriage-minded. I am individual minded.
Apparently this isn’t entirely my fault. Kass says that our generation is ill-prepared to get married; we haven’t been well-educated on what makes for marital success. Frankly I think I’m going to be fine because I never missed an episode of The Cosby Show but I can’t speak for the rest of you.
According to Kass the issue is that, “today there are no socially prescribed forms of conduct that help guide young men and women in the direction of matrimony.” I know – what’s a prescribed form of conduct that used to guide people in the direction of matrimony… Aristocratic courtship processes, arranged marriages, and – likely – fervent religious standards. I’m not sure I’d go back to that but it’s true we’re relying on social mores and Mom’s advice these days.
Highlight reel: a good marriage is insanely important, we don’t know how to get one for a number of reasons, the answer is about to be courtship. Everybody with me?
Why Courtship argument one, nut-shell version: because look how shitty things are without it…
The sexual revolution succeeded so all the barriers to casual sex are “gone”: moral inhibitions, parental disapproval, fear of pregnancy, social shame, religious condemnation. Society supports this (i.e. condom distribution) and media exacerbates it (i.e. Secret Life of the American Teenage). Calm down – I’m not saying this is wrong. I’m saying this is.
Problem is – according to Kass – we’re not happy – especially if we’re women. I’m generalizing for the purpose of this not being 5,000 words but the gist is that our generation while morally and physically fine with casual sex and “hook up” culture isn’t happy or fulfilled by the results. I can’t say I disagree with that… Fun, exciting and liberating are different than satisfying and inspiring happiness.
Ask yourself how many fulfilling relationships you’ve had since graduating high school – made you happy, made you stronger, changed you positively as a person? Now ask yourself how many guys you’ve “dated/seen/hooked-up with.” These are experiences too – yes – and often experiences that have value in some way shape or form. But if the question is “is hook-up culture working out for you?” my answer would be no.
Kass goes into an arm of her argument around cohabitation that I’m going to gloss over because it’s part of the bigger issue of “process” and “pacing” to get to a true bond. You can imagine what she says (or read the whole article). The only thing I’ll say is that Kass’s suggestion that men and women move in together with different goals is interesting. For guys, she says, it’s about convenience and quicker access to the women. For women, it’s a down payment on a proposal. I don’t know how true that is, but it speaks to the greater issue of the differences between guys and girls and how that affects relationship dynamics.
Highlight reel: We’re sexually liberated, comfortable with our independence and open to exploring relationships and sex from whatever angle we choose, but this a. doesn’t make us happy and b. doesn’t help us understand or find the right person to marry.
Why courtship argument number two: because it works (because of how men and women inherently behave and relate)
First – what really is it: “Human courtship is that collection of activities amimed at (1)finding and (2)winning(3) the right one (4) for marriage.”
Things we need to know to figure that out include what is “the right one” for me and “what is marriage.” I’ll admit I’m stuck on the former but that may – according to Kass – be because I don’t understand the latter. Tricky.
In comes courtship – “traditional courtship took romantic or erotic love as its starting point, but sought to discipline it in the direction of marriage. The need for such discipline derived from the recognized promise and perils of sexual desire and the fickleness of erotic love.”
This essentially means courtship is a cold shower. No, really.
“The process of courting provided the opportunity – and the obligation – of enacting the kind of attentiveness, dependability, care, exclusiveness, and fidelity that the couple would subsequently promise each other when they finally wed.”
Fine, so a cold shower and then a processed audition for worthiness. Essentially the courtee says, “you want to date me, eventually sleep with me and maybe marry me?” fine – show me what you got. So then I guess a cold shower and a really long test drive.
I love this part: “Courtship, a wisely instituted practice, was meant to substitute for any lack of personal wisdom. It pointed the way to the answers to life’s biggest questions: Where am I going? Who is going with me? How – in what manner – are we both going to go?”
Courtship is like, “you might be too dumb to see that this person is completely wrong for you, so you should let them practice being married to you so you can see that…” Ha!
Which brings us to the part I have the hardest time with – “The roles in courtship were sexually distinct: the man wooed, the woman was wooed; as in a dance, each quite self-consciously took up the appropriate part.”
Aanndd now I want to ignore the entire argument because it makes me mad that my role is to be courted not to play an equal part in the courting process. Here’s where the men-are-from-mars-and-women-are-from-venus stuff comes in. But while it makes me feel like women have no control, the opposite is apparently true.
In courtship – women have a lot if not most (but sort of all…) the control. And it’s not just “you want to sleep with me? Prove your worth it” it’s, “I am a woman am inherently governed by a different kind of bonding more aligned with a deep, symbiotic friendship versus instant sexual connection so I’m going to help you – man – get to that point too because it’s that deep bond that makes for a good marriage.”
Does that make sense? It’s not that pre-marital sex or pre-marital cohabitation is wrong or bad. It’s that if rushing things without the process of really, purposefully dating (today’s courting) happens we can think we’ve found a/the right one but really still be making decisions based on lust, like, passion not the deeper stuff.
After waayy too many words and two too many metaphors – that’s the point of Kass’s argument:
-
Finding the right parter is about a long and purposeful test drive
-
We don’t (usually) do that these days because we’re more independent and sexually liberated
-
And so we give each other a kind of “access” that rushes things, skipping the process of forming a bond
Do I think you can have a lasting and fulfilling marriage if you sleep together on the first date? Yes, I do. Do I think you can have one if you move in together before you get married? Also yes. My issue with this article is that it suggets that a very specific courtship is mutually exclusive to good marriage. I don’t think that’s true, but I do agree with a lot of the thought process around why it works.
Which, once again, it brings me to the question I’m terrified to tackle. What if the sexual revolution got reversed? How would that happen? What would that look like? And how would we all come out on the other side?
But that’s for another 5,000 word morning…
2 comments
Comments are closed.
I’m not gonna lie, I haven’t read the article yet. I have it up on my screen, but it’s long… and I have to look like I’m working at work! 🙂
But I find this very interesting:
“…the gist is that our generation while morally and physically fine with casual sex and “hook up” culture isn’t happy or fulfilled by the results.”
There is a very interesting book at there that talks about this idea. “Unhooked” by Laura Sessions Stepp (www.laurastepp.com). It’s a great read. I think anyone who finds this trend of hook-ups interesting will get a lot out of it.
This subject has been huge on my mind lately. I feel like, when people are nearly-perfect for each other, many things don’t go wrong no matter what rules we follow, but that finding someone nearly perfect is so hard that we need rules to minimize hurt.
What happens in typical relationships/arrangements is this: 1) physicality happens early on and casually 2) bond develops 3) awkwardness happens because bond happened without knowing much about each other.
We have a natural tendency to get so close and then fall back and I think courtship is just a rulebook that has us do “unnatural” things to keep us sane. Sanity, after all, is not natural. But we desire it.