The End of Courtship, Part 1: a commentary

In a recent conversation, I posed the question, "What sets me apart from other girls?" The answer surprised me...because it was rather bland. Though token thoughts were offered, ultimately, nothing was offered.

For the first time in human history, mature women by the tens of thousands live the entire decade of their twenties — their most fertile years — neither in the homes of their fathers nor in the homes of their husbands; unprotected, lonely, and out of sync with their inborn nature.

A century ago, things were much different.

In polite society, at the beginning of this century, our grandfathers came a-calling and a-wooing at the homes of our grandmothers, under conditions set by the woman, operating from strength on her own turf.

I write a lot of entries on dating...not because I have some aspirations to be an informal social theorist or the like...but because I am in the midst of it. I want to get married. I'm not saying tomorrow, but I greatly desire to find a Godly man who will be the spiritual leader of my home. He will make me and our children feel cherished; he will see me as God sees me - as one of a kind.

One of the problems with dating today is that it has turned from courtship, in which two people yearned for each other, to advertising. Today, we sell ourselves; we are commodities on an open-market; free-trade princples are the rule.

Those women and men who get lucky enter into what the personal ads call LTRs — long-term relationships — sometimes cohabiting, sometimes not, usually to discover how short an LTR can be. When, after a series of such affairs, marriage happens to them, they enter upon it guardedly and suspiciously, with prenuptial agreements, no common surname, and separate bank accounts....

A fine woman understood [way back when] that giving her body (in earlier times, even her kiss) meant giving her heart, which was too precious to be bestowed on anyone who would not prove himself worthy, at the very least by pledging himself in marriage to be her defender and lover forever.

Defender and lover forever...how fantastic. I dream of the day that a man tells me that he wants to be my defender and lover forever. There are two men in my life that will never leave my heart...even if they leave this world, I know they are still with me: my father and my brother. I know that both of them love me beyond reasoning (for real love cannot be lowered to the level of mere logic)...I am their daughter and sister. I pray simply that someday, a man will cherish me enough...love me enough...be able to see the woman that is uniquly me...to be my defender and lover forever.