Virginity pledges and letting your Dad decide who you marry

Here's another one of those stories that show how different some people are from me:

Among those virginity pledgers, courtship has become the trend du jour. The brainchild of Josh Harris, a 33-year-old Christian evangelical and author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, courtship is the antihookup. No nooky. No commitment flake-outs. No playing the field. You see a stranger at the local mall or church barbecue, and then—if you both feel that certain spark—he asks your father if he can “court” you. Lauren’s parents, Randy and Lisa, are on board, to say the least.

I can understand dissatisfaction with the more standard methods of finding a spouse. But I hardly think this method is more likely to succeed. But who knows? Maybe the data will prove me wrong. I found this story via Pandagon, where the poster and commenters are of course horrified:

The father approved the “courtship” in the spring of 2006, so basically they got married as strangers. But that’s pretty much how it has to be, it would seem, because really getting to know someone before making a commitment runs the high risk of actually wanting to get to know them sexually.

One commenter points out:

But Lauren is happy with her marriage, because she figures that her husband won’t cheat on her.

Of all the logical leaps by fundies and right-wingers, this one puzzles me the most. Not to mention that if Lauren thinks that saving herself was the surest way to avoid post-marital temptation, she hasn’t met me yet is in for a big surprise.

I agree that thinking virginity pledges are a prophylactic against later infidelity is indicative of a pretty wacky model of human sexuality. (Not that premarital promiscuity is some sort of proof against cheating either--I think this also wrong. I wonder what the leading statistical indicators for fidelity/infidelity are.)

There's also the chilling moment where the male suitor, Brett, finds himself attracted to Lauren and her sisters, and decides that he could picture himself marrying any one of them:

Meanwhile, Brett also decided that Lauren and her two teenage sisters were “gorgeous.” The idea of a permanent commitment entered his mind.

“I thought, Am I crazy? I’m graduating in three months and possibly moving away,” he says. “But I could see myself marrying one of those girls!” Brett, too, began to pray. The future pilot soon found himself being “guided toward Lauren.” Two months later, he arranged to meet Randy at a coffee shop. There Brett said, “I’d like to start a relationship with one of your daughters.” He thinks he specified Lauren.

(Emphasis added.) Um, oh dear. I can see finding a trio of sisters hot. But going to the father and asking to court one of them, and not being certain which one you specified, hardly seems to indicate sufficient knowledge of your potential partner. This Pandagon commenter is reminded of a certain character from Jane Austen:

“Having now a good house and a very sufficient income, he intended to marry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. (snip) Mr. Collins has only to change from Jane to Elizabeth — and it was soon done — done while Mrs. Bennet was stirring the fire.”

Mr. Collins. One of the great romantic heroes in literature? Not so much.

But then again, maybe the point of this "father in charge" system is to keep people in ignorance about each other until marriage. As Lady Bracknell from The Importance of Being Earnest states:

To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.