MODERN day dating patterns have changed from generations past, accord- ing to the Center for Christian Studies' "Wandering Towards the Alter" forum on dating and courtship. The seven week forum, ending next Wednesday, was based on a Mars Hill Audio Series hosted by Ken Myers. This discussion affects students directly, because this generation has a tendency to marry later based on statistical evidence than its two predecessors. Contrary to Myers' opinion, delayed marriage, with better family planning, is not a bad trend.
Courtship has dissipated into group functions resulting in short-term relationships. Myers postulated that dating is now used for fun, amusement and a competition for popularity. He argues that the breakdown of form in courtship leaves couples wandering toward the alter with troubled pasts and broken hearts. We stumble into long-term relationships without meaning because they aren't subject to family approval and traditional values.
Dating has lost an integrity of form, but the consequences aren't all bad. A new form of socialization is better adapted to short-term relationships where students can meet many people. Through several short-term relationships, students can find personalities with which they are most compatible.
Modern dating leads to a delayed marriage because students seek to solidify their careers and settle into long-term living arrangements. Both men and women at the University generally are motivated people committed to pursuing successful careers outside the household. The first few years after graduation commonly are used to find students' niches and settle into new locations. A long-term relationship at that juncture can suffer through these changes as each person chases different dreams.
Meeting people in a college setting allows for distance in sharing the most intimate details of one's life. This is good for short-term relationships. Neither partner is on his or her home ground and there is little family entanglement in such a personal matter. A strong system of dating at the college level draws people into commitments that must survive through the challenges of early adulthood maturation.
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The college pattern of social behavior sometimes leads to accidental long-term relationships as a result of pregnancy or disease. For this reason, the bar scene's displacement of dating will destroy society unless people learn that abstinence or safe sex are tantamount to a successful short-term relationship.
A later marriage benefits both partners because it leaves room for greater individual development. Personalities and lifestyles are not formed fully until students react to the pressures of life in their careers. At this time, each partner has reached economic independence, and marriage bridges the gap between the two individuals. If long-term relationships are delayed until after settling into careers, two people are likely to be more compatible. In college, a student can become involved with someone who holds wildly different long-term plans. The people a student meets and dates after graduation will be more compatible because they most likely will be in the social circle of the graduate's adult life.
A delayed marriage also makes for older parents, on average. This trend will allow for more parental maturity, and hopefully better child-rearing. The pressures of raising children are better handled by people who already are adapted to independent adult life than by young people adjusting to adult life. Much of these pressures, and the economic difficulties of starting a household, are some of the forces driving marriages apart. Later marriages would only alleviate these difficulties.
The strain between marriage and career is noteworthy at the University, with many future successful career men and women. A natural opposing urge among students is to seek long-term companionship through marriage. The Biblical story of creation states that a man will leave mother and father to become one flesh with a woman. Men and women were created for one another, at least anatomically for reproduction. However, seeking a career as a priority over marriage has emerged as a modern adaptation to circumvent previous generations' high divorce rates and the deterioration of the family.
This generation is safeguarding against the trend of high divorce by going through early life trials before finding their natural companionship.
(Matt West is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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