In mainstream American culture, people start dating between the ages of 12 and 20. Everyone’s experience is a bit different, and the dating process is a disorganized experiment. They date and break up for years on end, often into their late 20s or even early 30s. The idea is to gradually become more skilled at selecting the right mate. A proposal before two or more years of dating is considered reckless, and cohabitation before engagement is an increasingly mandatory step to test the couple’s ability to live together.

Religious communities are deeply suspicious of this system. Adolescent dating may teach singles how to find and attract a marriageable mate, but it often leads to premarital sex. Traditional societies try to reduce promiscuity by strongly discouraging dating before singles are ready for marriage. This protects young people from unwanted pregnancies, STDs and the moral implications of promiscuity—but it also stunts the development of the skills young religious people need to land a husband or wife on their own.

What’s a religious community to do? Evangelical Protestants, Catholics, Mormons and Orthodox Jews share roughly the same traditional ideal of marriage, but each has radically different ways of pairing off. Simply put, Mormons and Orthodox Jews have developed alternative methods for socializing their youth—there’s little use for secular dating in those communities.

But Catholics and evangelical Christian singles—though their faith is deeply at odds with secular dating norms—are nevertheless stuck fending for themselves in their quest to find a spouse.

posted by Eve at 2:12 PM | link

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