The LDS Guide to Dating and Marriage, Part 5: 'Quickie' Courtships

[Previous entries in this series:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4]

LDS courtships (at least inside of Utah and Idaho) are notorious for being very, very brief. Ask around in any local ward (single or married) and you’ll hear about any number of couples who can count the period of time between meeting and getting engaged in weeks (sometimes days), rather than in months or years.

(One couple I know pulled the neat trick of getting engaged before they had ever dated…more on them later in the series)

This seemingly cavalier attitude of LDS youth towards jumping into marriage (or at least into engagement) has caused no small amount of scorn and/or amusement from the secular world—although, truth be known, there are just as many couples outside the Church who jump into sexual relationships with their partners just as quickly after knowing each other for a few days (or hours)…the only difference is the lack of a marriage license. (Is this better or worse? See below...)

What factors lead to this 'quick to engage/quick to marry' phenomenon inside of LDS culture? Two of the factors have been discussed already in this series::

(1) The “recommend and a pulse ” attitude discussed in Part 2 —where the standards for a suitable companion are so basic (and low…) that it might only take a few days to see if your partner meets them. After that, why wait?

(2) "The One" theory (discussed in Part 3): Similarly, believers in “The One” are just as likely to jump into relationships quickly, since, obviously, if he/she is your predestined, perfectly matched, companion then you don’t need to waste time getting to know them in this case, either.  After all, every day you wait is one less you could have spent being married to your soul mate!

There are other possible factors at work, though, which may make LDS couples more susceptible to very fast-moving relationships:

(3) The Eternal Family:

LDS culture has placed great emphasis on marriage and the family—and not without reason. Families are the foundation of the plan of salvation, and are one of the primary keys towards reaching our fullest potential in the eternities. Marriage should be emphasized in the Church…and it is, although not without some ‘side effects’. One is the perhaps unavoidable stigma from not being married, which is felt in all corners of life by single saints and one of the key elements that may drive someone to rush into things when given the opportunity. If the emphasis on marriage does (in practice) create a stratification of Church members--those who 'belong', and those who are on the outside looking in--then it's natural for those on the outside to want to 'belong' themselves...as soon as possible. This is an issue the secular world does not deal with as much, since outside of the Church the expectation to marry is not as great--for men or women.  Someone who does not marry during their entire life is much less likely to feel a particular burden or failure.

Inside the Church though, members don’t have that luxury...  While Church leaders constantly emphasize (correctly) that women who do not have the opportunity to be married in this life should not feel they are of less worth as a person, and will still have all the blessings in the eternities they are worthy of--there can still be a tangible sense of failure and disappointment from (and around) many women who remain single for any significant length of time.

And if you’re a single guy in the Church? Well, you can forget about getting any sympathy from anyone…

Many singles who are approaching (or passed) the age of 30 have a very difficult quandary—the egg on the rooftop problem revisited: how to find a suitable mate without falling prey to desperation and settling for too little. It's understandable, then, that this feeling of being an outsider in the Church might make a frustrated single saint jump into a new relationship very quickly.

(4) Self-esteem and status

Similarly, the social aspects of marriage and engagement within LDS culture can play a role outside of sacrament meeting. Being ‘attached’ is a representation of one’s desirability, and of one’s perceived value—the “Look, someone likes me!” effect. The boost of self-esteem just having a boyfriend or girlfriend produces is often strong enough to keep a couple together, just for that feeling of companionship. Socially, guys and girls who have a 'steady' possess much greater status among their peers.  (Sometimes, oddly enough, someone having a boy/girlfriend will make them seem more attractive to others than they did when they were unattached.)

This isn't exclusively an LDS issue, since the need to feel loved (or liked, at least) is universal. The manifestations of it are slightly different, though. A guy who has a different gorgeous girl on his arm every week, or a girl who has numerous suitors surrounding her--who plays with them all, but commits to no one--may be considered the social ideal in the secular world.  Not so in the LDS world, where the emphasis on covenants and commitments means someone who 'plays the field' won't reach quite that same level of status, because in LDS society one doesn't date just to date (or to have sex...).  LDS dating is for the express purpose of finding a spouse, and if someone is dating constantly--but noncommittally--many outside observers would probably think he/she is either afraid of commitment, or there's something "wrong" with him/her such that no one sticks around for long.

Either way, dating around doesn’t have quite the same status as being in a committed relationship among Latter-Day Saints--which means you have to be able to 'finish the job'. Being engaged means 'someone likes me...and thinks enough of me to be by my side for eternity'--a significant distinction from someone just dating you for fun.  Are there relationships out there that have persisted (even to marriage) simply because one or both of them just liked the feeling of 'having someone around'? I wouldn't doubt it...

(5) The 'S' word

There's an obvious factor in the brevity of LDS courtships that shouldn't be ignored. The LDS law of chastity precludes sexual activity before the marriage license is signed--therefore, it should be no surprise that many LDS couples feel compelled to move that day forward as soon as possible. Contrast this with the secular world where couples can be engaged for two or more years, seemingly in no hurry to tie the knot--and why should they, when most of them are already sleeping together and possibly living together too?

While the impact of sex on a relationship seems clear when considering why LDS couples might have short engagements, it doesn't quite explain why LDS courtships would be so short. Would sex really be a factor in deciding to get engaged to a guy/girl you met a week ago?  You can imagine that a couple who's been together for a while would feel the urge to remove the chastity barrier as soon as possible, but it doesn't quite follow that this would cause that same couple to get engaged quickly after they've barely met. It seems that sex offers only an incomplete explanation for the haste in which some couples jump into a committed relationship together...

Or does it?

Is it possible that there's a significant number of Latter-Day Saint youth out there that are so hormonally driven to start sexual activity as soon as possible--but who are not willing to actually break the commandments to do it--that they marry the first person they can find...basically just to have sex without feeling guilty? A while back, I might have said no, but I've heard some singles talk about sex in such a focused--and impersonal--way that I wouldn't doubt the simple prospect of legalized sexual activity would carry a big influence on their decision to get married in the first place.

This idea creates a whole boatload of issues for discussion: if these couples really got married just for the sexual aspect--would they actually have been better off just breaking the law of chastity to begin with, without creating a brittle (yet 'righteous') marriage because of it?  On one hand, sexual sin is one of the most serious sins in the sight of God--but on the other hand, a relationship built entirely on physical attraction and urges seems almost inherently doomed to fail (remember Working Theory #2, though...).  A broken marriage would in most cases be far more devastating to all the parties involved than just a standard breakup.  Are the spiritual consequences of sin or the secular consequences of divorce more worthy of fear?

I don't have an answer for this one... If I had to choose, I might lean towards the 'don't get married first' philosophy, in that it is easier to pick up the pieces and start over (i.e. repent), and there's less 'collateral damage' (especially if there are children involved...)  On the other hand, as mentioned previously, the reasons one gets married in the first place cannot absolutely predict the success or failure of any one marriage.  Even if a couple gets married for the 'wrong' reasons, they still have the potential to be satisfied and happy--and they wouldn't have the sexual sin issue hanging over their heads, either... 

Next: The 'secret' to getting to know someone...