I Kissed Dating Goodbye – part two

The book is back.

First I want to deal with something that came up in the comments. In NZ we don’t really have a culture of dating, especially among those in their teens and early twenties. Young people tend to meet each other in group situations and would become a steady couple with out going out somewhere on a romantic ‘date’. I think this arose when our relationship patterns began changing post World War Two. Harris talks about this in a US context on pp.29-30. In the States they had many more place to go and eat out. In New Zealand there were very few places to eat out, let alone those that young people could afford or felt comfortable in. So a pattern arose of meeting people through clubs and dances and not really ‘dating’, as in a couple going somewhere for a ‘get to know you’.

This practice links in to today’s post about IKDG. In my last post I said I would cover the pattern for romantic relationships that Harris proposes. The NZ way of ‘doing’ relationships bears some resemblance to what Harris advocates.

His main message is don’t think about being romantically involved until you are ready to get married. Relationships that can’t end in marriage, eg because the couple are too young, are a waste of time. Age is only part of the equation. Financial stability is another, as is Christian maturity.

Because very few men can support a family at 16 this idea cuts out relationships until people are in their 20’s. Culturally we follow this pattern somewhat. Most people form a serious, usually life long, relationship  in their early to mid twenties. The difference would be with Harris’s approach that this would be their first and only serious relationship.

This raises a question. What are you supposed to do before you are ready for marriage? Harris suggests that unmarried people become involved in serving in their church. Not only does this mean that the single person uses their time wisely by serving the body of Christ but it also gives them opportuities to socialise in group situations. By working along side other Christians young people can observe the character of others, and learn to be friends with member of the opposite sex. The idea is to treat each other like brothers and sisters, which Christians, are in Christ.

NZ cultural practices support this idea somewhat. Groups are the way young people met. What is different about Harris’s idea is that he advocates not forming romantic attachments until the young person is ready to marry.

In the next post I will cover what Harris calls ‘courtship’ and touch on why IKDG is so controversial.