What is the difference between courting a woman and 'dating' a woman (or, rather, a girl who may be chronologically adult)?
Courting is *explicitly* aimed at marriage. When a man is courting a woman, he is *explicitly* announcing that he thinks she is a suitable marriage partner; the fact of the courtship is to get to know one another well enough to decide whether to make the mutual commitment.
On the other hand, 'dating' isn't aimed at anything. Well, at its (limited) best it isn't aimed at anything (*); usually it is aimed at getting her (**) in the sack for no-committment sex.
(*) "Let's see where this goes" is not a plan, and it rarely leads to success. Men and women being men and women, "where this goes" generally turns out to be the back seat of a car, or some similarly ridiculous place to "make love". And that generally leads to getting married to an unsuitable person, which then generally leads to divorce.
(**) Edit: I don't mean to imply that women don't also try to use men for less than noble ends, including using them as walking dildos.
Monday, March 20, 2017
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4 comments:
The problem with this outlook is that if you think she is right for marriage in the first place, then you may as well just skip the courtship and marry her. On the other hand, if you aren't so sure, then you may as well 'date' her and find out.
Drew, there are times when you refuse to free your mind of the perverse cultural conditioning in which we were all reared, and this is one of them.
"if you think she is right for marriage"
Courtship is aimed at determining whether one is willing to commit one's life to this other person.
'Dating' is aimed at ... well, not that.
"if you think she is right for marriage in the first place, then you may as well just skip the courtship and marry her."
If you have determined that you are willing to commit your life to this person, then you should do just that. That is, a "long courtship" is a waste of two people's lives.
And, if you have determined that you are *not* willing to commit your life to this person, then you should 'fess up and stop wasting the other person's life.
"On the other hand, if you aren't so sure, then you may as well 'date' her and find out."
If you "aren't so sure" that you're willing to commit your life to this other person, that means that you already know that you're not really. Wasting more time isn't going to change the underlying problem(s).
Great post, Ilion. I quite agree. Courtship is more formal and respectful. To my mind, dating is just an avenue to getting laid.
When I was a young adult -- that is, before Drew was even born -- to say that you were "dating" someone was still ambiguous enough to not necessarily imply that you were using that person as an Orgasmatron(tm). These days, to say that you were "dating" someone is always understood to more-than-imply that you are (to put it in supposedly neutral sociological jargon) sexually active with that person, the implied part is that the two of you are mutually "faithful" ... at least until something better comes along.
"Dating" isn't about deciding whether you will commit your life to the other person; "dating" is about keeping your options open. That is, it is about *not* making a commitment but still getting one of the benefits of commitment.
BUT, the issue I've discussed in the OP was always there.
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