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General Courting

P

P Hartman

New Member
Female
When a man is courting a new potential, what is biblically acceptable as far as courting?

Is it acceptable to kiss and be intimate prior to the potential knowing about the possibility of plural marriage?

Is it Ok for the husband to date with no physical restrictions other than not having sex?
 
I think your husband will need to define 'Courting' or 'Dating' for himself and talk to you about it so you are both on the same page and expectations are not running rampage. You are asking good questions but they can only be answered by your husband and what he thinks is right. Others can share what "rules" or limits they do for themselves but it will be their opinion of what works best in their minds. I would encourage you to think about how you 'courted' or 'dated' your husband and ask if that will be the way it will go with any potential coming into the picture. Of course, additional time/activities must be added into the mix so the wife and any children get to know the potential, too. In my opinion, a man can only make a wise decision about a new wife after he sees how she relates to himself and fits into his family. Hopefully he will be paying attention to those things and not getting distracted by the "new shiny toy" in his life. :)
 
P Hartman said:
When a man is courting a new potential, what is biblically acceptable as far as courting?

Is it acceptable to kiss and be intimate prior to the potential knowing about the possibility of plural marriage?

Is it Ok for the husband to date with no physical restrictions other than not having sex?
Click to expand...
Scripture teaches that we are to flee fornication. Ultimately it is up to us men to know what actions can lead to negative consequences, and I would argue that some kissing is acceptable, but there can be no doubt that becoming intimate with someone whom you have no committment to, does not honor God. Heb 13:4 warns of this. There are places on the woman's body, the man should keep his hands off, unitl a marriage committment has been made. You don't avoid temptation by playing with fire. You avoid it by drawing clear boundaries before you even get involved emotionally with the woman you hope to marry. Dating is fine. I am one of those who read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and at the time, thought it seemed like a good idea, but I know better now, but it is what you do when you are with that person you hope to one day marry, that will define your character.
 
P Hartman said:
When a man is courting a new potential, what is biblically acceptable as far as courting?

Is it acceptable to kiss and be intimate prior to the potential knowing about the possibility of plural marriage?

Is it Ok for the husband to date with no physical restrictions other than not having sex?
Click to expand...

These are good questions, but the Bible is kind of vague on the details. Sex is clearly reserved for marriage, but the line between affection and sex is not clearly defined.

That is why the above advice for you and your husband to talk about it and get on the same page about it (while remembering what you did during your courtship to be fair to your potential wife) is the important thing.
 
A man getting to know a woman when he already has a wife is a bit complicated, mostly because few in this world do that in an honorable way, or view it as an honorable pursuit. Since there are other people involved (wife one and perhaps another or children) it is good if the man is sober and not reckless in his courting. Who he gets to know, what kind of time he spends, what draws him to a particular woman, these are all personal and things he is more likely to be objective about if he doesn't feel judged or micro managed by his wife.
Yes, his choices will impact the family, but they are his responsibility. Freedom to make a mistake makes for fewer mistakes in the real world. Trying to prevent every error only makes men (and women and children too) afraid of failure and likely to suffer "paralysis by analysis." Learning to take responsibility increases ability and confidence in every area.

I'd suggest leaving being his conscience to the holy spirit and focus on being a true support as you figure out new teritory in life.
 
^^^ Double Like ^^^
 
P Hartman said:
When a man is courting a new potential, what is biblically acceptable as far as courting?

Is it acceptable to kiss and be intimate prior to the potential knowing about the possibility of plural marriage?

Is it Ok for the husband to date with no physical restrictions other than not having sex?
Click to expand...

@P Hartman, I like your questions, and I like all the answers so far.

I'm hoping that your second question isn't an actual disclosure about something your husband is doing that is bothering you. If so, he should probably be the one to be asking all the rest of us the question, and then I'd also point you back to @julieb's sage advice about recognizing that courting is a nuanced dance that is predominantly negotiated between the courtees. (I just loved how she reminded us that it's too easy to be critical from the outside and too easy to forget what the courting dance was between the two who are now already long-married.)

Having said all that, we have Scripture to guide us, but in addition we also have our God-given consciences, if we will listen to them -- you know, what God wrote on our hearts. Ethics isn't just an academic field of study. Aside from those of us who are sociopaths, we know in our bones the basics of right and wrong, no matter how hard we may try to run from them. In that context, I'd suggest that one of our most slippery methods of running from interpersonal ethics is the manner in which we define the word 'sex.' The most convenient way to pretend is to limit 'sex' to being defined as penis inside of vagina (some of my former university colleagues would go even further and claim it isn't technically sex if one is using a condom, which just shows you how far some will go to cement delusion in their character). You brought up kissing, so I'll share that I have always taught my children that any romantic kissing worth its salt is without a doubt sexual behavior (talk about a gateway drug!), so depending one how one defines 'sex,' if one includes among the physical restrictions of dating not having sex, and kissing is defined as sex (as mentioned in your third question), then we're already partway toward a pretty firm answer to your second question.

But I'm wondering, even without taking even one baby step toward interfering in the sacred private relationship of another man and woman, if I'm the only one who reacted with automatic rejection to the second question. I certainly can't assert that I'm aware of any passages of Scripture that get down to the specifics of romantic oral entertainment in pursuit of a potential second wife, but isn't it by definition bearing false witness in the realm of personal misrepresentation for an already-married man to physically court a potential additional wife when he hasn't even broached the subject of plural marriage with that potential spouse?

Landmark Education teaches a verbal technique referred to as speaking into another person's listening, which emphasizes tailoring how one speaks such that effective communication will occur due to taking into account how the recipient will actually hear what one is saying (I don't pretend that I always do this, by the way; heck, I don't even know if I'm doing it right now!). I bring this up to highlight what my overwhelming reaction was the first time I read your question last week, @P Hartman: if a married man kisses a woman he's not married to, it would seem he's doing one or another of just two things:
  1. [if the kissee doesn't know he's married], he's leading her to believe he's entirely available (bait and switch); or
  2. [if the kissee does know he's married], he's behaving as if he wants to have an affair with her; i.e., to join him in cheating on his wife (moral disrespect).
The listening into which a man would be speaking in the vast majority of cases would be one in which the thought of being a sister wife in a plural marriage wouldn't even make a dent in a woman's consciousness.

Making this personal, as a matter of integrity I consider it bedrock essential to introduce the whole subject of polygamy well before any physical intimacy occurs. In fact, if I were to even experience that kind of electricity that passes between two people in a way that surprises you the first time it happens with a particular person (which would automatically inspire me to start considering whether the woman was someone I might want to consider courting), I would then ensure that, henceforth, I wouldn't even put a hand on her shoulder until that whole hey-did-you-know-that-polygamy-was-never-outlawed-in-Scripture meme got shared. And here's one of my biggest reasons why: if this is a potential wife, then I do not want to establish any foundation of manipulation in the early stages of our relationship, potential or otherwise. To me, if a woman is worthy to be considered as a potential wife, then she is worthy of being treated from the very beginning with the same level of respect with which I would treat my actual wife -- which would without a doubt preclude turning up the heat without disclosing that I'm open to plural marriage.

All of which is to say that I can't escape the conclusion that it is not "acceptable to kiss and be intimate prior to the potential knowing about the possibility of plural marriage."
 
Keith Martin said:
@P Hartman, I like your questions, and I like all the answers so far.

I'm hoping that your second question isn't an actual disclosure about something your husband is doing that is bothering you. If so, he should probably be the one to be asking all the rest of us the question, and then I'd also point you back to @julieb's sage advice about recognizing that courting is a nuanced dance that is predominantly negotiated between the courtees. (I just loved how she reminded us that it's too easy to be critical from the outside and too easy to forget what the courting dance was between the two who are now already long-married.)

Having said all that, we have Scripture to guide us, but in addition we also have our God-given consciences, if we will listen to them -- you know, what God wrote on our hearts. Ethics isn't just an academic field of study. Aside from those of us who are sociopaths, we know in our bones the basics of right and wrong, no matter how hard we may try to run from them. In that context, I'd suggest that one of our most slippery methods of running from interpersonal ethics is the manner in which we define the word 'sex.' The most convenient way to pretend is to limit 'sex' to being defined as penis inside of vagina (some of my former university colleagues would go even further and claim it isn't technically sex if one is using a condom, which just shows you how far some will go to cement delusion in their character). You brought up kissing, so I'll share that I have always taught my children that any romantic kissing worth its salt is without a doubt sexual behavior (talk about a gateway drug!), so depending one how one defines 'sex,' if one includes among the physical restrictions of dating not having sex, and kissing is defined as sex (as mentioned in your third question), then we're already partway toward a pretty firm answer to your second question.

But I'm wondering, even without taking even one baby step toward interfering in the sacred private relationship of another man and woman, if I'm the only one who reacted with automatic rejection to the second question. I certainly can't assert that I'm aware of any passages of Scripture that get down to the specifics of romantic oral entertainment in pursuit of a potential second wife, but isn't it by definition bearing false witness in the realm of personal misrepresentation for an already-married man to physically court a potential additional wife when he hasn't even broached the subject of plural marriage with that potential spouse?

Landmark Education teaches a verbal technique referred to as speaking into another person's listening, which emphasizes tailoring how one speaks such that effective communication will occur due to taking into account how the recipient will actually hear what one is saying (I don't pretend that I always do this, by the way; heck, I don't even know if I'm doing it right now!). I bring this up to highlight what my overwhelming reaction was the first time I read your question last week, @P Hartman: if a married man kisses a woman he's not married to, it would seem he's doing one or another of just two things:
  1. [if the kissee doesn't know he's married], he's leading her to believe he's entirely available (bait and switch); or
  2. [if the kissee does know he's married], he's behaving as if he wants to have an affair with her; i.e., to join him in cheating on his wife (moral disrespect).
The listening into which a man would be speaking in the vast majority of cases would be one in which the thought of being a sister wife in a plural marriage wouldn't even make a dent in a woman's consciousness.

Making this personal, as a matter of integrity I consider it bedrock essential to introduce the whole subject of polygamy well before any physical intimacy occurs. In fact, if I were to even experience that kind of electricity that passes between two people in a way that surprises you the first time it happens with a particular person (which would automatically inspire me to start considering whether the woman was someone I might want to consider courting), I would then ensure that, henceforth, I wouldn't even put a hand on her shoulder until that whole hey-did-you-know-that-polygamy-was-never-outlawed-in-Scripture meme got shared. And here's one of my biggest reasons why: if this is a potential wife, then I do not want to establish any foundation of manipulation in the early stages of our relationship, potential or otherwise. To me, if a woman is worthy to be considered as a potential wife, then she is worthy of being treated from the very beginning with the same level of respect with which I would treat my actual wife -- which would without a doubt preclude turning up the heat without disclosing that I'm open to plural marriage.

All of which is to say that I can't escape the conclusion that it is not "acceptable to kiss and be intimate prior to the potential knowing about the possibility of plural marriage."
Click to expand...
Nicely done.
I have seen “bait and switch” justified and I am glad to see such a practical answer to it.
 
I want to thank each and every one of you for your well thought out and caring responses to my questions. I think each response has much merit and each one contains very sage advice. I am reading a book right now called "Me? Obey Him?" by Elizabeth Rice Handford. I am about half way through the book and have found it to pretty closely mirror my goals as a wife. I know all of you will be shocked to learn that I am not perfect, though. I do err. :) The part I have struggled with most is addressed in this book and has been a transforming concept for me. The author quotes Numbers 30:6-16. Her premise is that this passage teaches that "a husband is given the right by God to prevent his wife from taking a spiritual step she feels led to take; and, ...that if he (husband) does, God holds him accountable - "he shall bear her iniquity"". I would be very curious if others interpret that bible passage the same way. If this passage is interpreted correctly, it will fully allow me to provide my input on a spiritual level to my husband and, if it isn't followed, let it go and let God handle it. I believe it will also address, quite well, the questions I initially posed. Would love to know if others look at this the same way.
 
Keith Martin said:
@P Hartman, I like your questions, and I like all the answers so far.

I'm hoping that your second question isn't an actual disclosure about something your husband is doing that is bothering you. If so, he should probably be the one to be asking all the rest of us the question, and then I'd also point you back to @julieb's sage advice about recognizing that courting is a nuanced dance that is predominantly negotiated between the courtees. (I just loved how she reminded us that it's too easy to be critical from the outside and too easy to forget what the courting dance was between the two who are now already long-married.)

Having said all that, we have Scripture to guide us, but in addition we also have our God-given consciences, if we will listen to them -- you know, what God wrote on our hearts. Ethics isn't just an academic field of study. Aside from those of us who are sociopaths, we know in our bones the basics of right and wrong, no matter how hard we may try to run from them. In that context, I'd suggest that one of our most slippery methods of running from interpersonal ethics is the manner in which we define the word 'sex.' The most convenient way to pretend is to limit 'sex' to being defined as penis inside of vagina (some of my former university colleagues would go even further and claim it isn't technically sex if one is using a condom, which just shows you how far some will go to cement delusion in their character). You brought up kissing, so I'll share that I have always taught my children that any romantic kissing worth its salt is without a doubt sexual behavior (talk about a gateway drug!), so depending one how one defines 'sex,' if one includes among the physical restrictions of dating not having sex, and kissing is defined as sex (as mentioned in your third question), then we're already partway toward a pretty firm answer to your second question.

But I'm wondering, even without taking even one baby step toward interfering in the sacred private relationship of another man and woman, if I'm the only one who reacted with automatic rejection to the second question. I certainly can't assert that I'm aware of any passages of Scripture that get down to the specifics of romantic oral entertainment in pursuit of a potential second wife, but isn't it by definition bearing false witness in the realm of personal misrepresentation for an already-married man to physically court a potential additional wife when he hasn't even broached the subject of plural marriage with that potential spouse?

Landmark Education teaches a verbal technique referred to as speaking into another person's listening, which emphasizes tailoring how one speaks such that effective communication will occur due to taking into account how the recipient will actually hear what one is saying (I don't pretend that I always do this, by the way; heck, I don't even know if I'm doing it right now!). I bring this up to highlight what my overwhelming reaction was the first time I read your question last week, @P Hartman: if a married man kisses a woman he's not married to, it would seem he's doing one or another of just two things:
  1. [if the kissee doesn't know he's married], he's leading her to believe he's entirely available (bait and switch); or
  2. [if the kissee does know he's married], he's behaving as if he wants to have an affair with her; i.e., to join him in cheating on his wife (moral disrespect).
The listening into which a man would be speaking in the vast majority of cases would be one in which the thought of being a sister wife in a plural marriage wouldn't even make a dent in a woman's consciousness.

Making this personal, as a matter of integrity I consider it bedrock essential to introduce the whole subject of polygamy well before any physical intimacy occurs. In fact, if I were to even experience that kind of electricity that passes between two people in a way that surprises you the first time it happens with a particular person (which would automatically inspire me to start considering whether the woman was someone I might want to consider courting), I would then ensure that, henceforth, I wouldn't even put a hand on her shoulder until that whole hey-did-you-know-that-polygamy-was-never-outlawed-in-Scripture meme got shared. And here's one of my biggest reasons why: if this is a potential wife, then I do not want to establish any foundation of manipulation in the early stages of our relationship, potential or otherwise. To me, if a woman is worthy to be considered as a potential wife, then she is worthy of being treated from the very beginning with the same level of respect with which I would treat my actual wife -- which would without a doubt preclude turning up the heat without disclosing that I'm open to plural marriage.

All of which is to say that I can't escape the conclusion that it is not "acceptable to kiss and be intimate prior to the potential knowing about the possibility of plural marriage."
Click to expand...
I am sure it is much easier for the men whose wives are willing to help them is their attempts to win over that single woman.
 
Daniel DeLuca said:
I am sure it is much easier for the men whose wives are willing to help them is their attempts to win over that single woman.
Click to expand...
I am confident that you are correct on that front. I suppose it would come down to how much the husband trusts that his wife(s) would help him and, therefore, include them in the courting process as well as how much the wife(s) are really invested in helping to make a potential feel comfortable and accepted during the courting process.
 
P Hartman said:
I am reading a book right now called "Me? Obey Him?" by Elizabeth Rice Handford.
Click to expand...
I read that book and liked it except for the end. She lays out a wonderful case....then undermines it at the end by concluding that a woman should obey her husband unless what he asks her to do goes against God's word. o_O
This in effect causes the wife to judge her husband's every action and decide for herself whether or not to obey. This is too backward for words. :(

Sarah is lifted up as THE example for wives to emulate in the new testament. Her story and life is recorded in Genesis. She did not have a bible to read, or a pastor to idolize, or any womens prayer meetings to go and be a "spiritual warrior" at with others.

I have seen the destruction that happens when a wife tries to teach her hubby and be the leader in the home. I see far less godly families and men that feel blessed by their help meets.

Build your husband's house. Criticize yourself.
Debbie Pearl's book "Created to be his help meet" is inspiring and has some true testimonies that will encourage a wife in building her house. She does not understand polygyny is biblical, but no one is perfect.
 
P Hartman said:
"a husband is given the right by God to prevent his wife from taking a spiritual step she feels led to take; and, ...that if he (husband) does, God holds him accountable - "he shall bear her iniquity""
Click to expand...
1). The passage is about her making a vow, an agreement. Please help me understand what you mean by taking a spiritual step.
Could you provide an example?
2). The ending of that passage is stating that if her husband does not repudiate the vow in the day that he hears of it, but later convinced her to break the vow, the sin of her breaking it is upon him.
 
steve said:
1). The passage is about her making a vow, an agreement. Please help me understand what you mean by taking a spiritual step.
Could you provide an example?
2). The ending of that passage is stating that if her husband does not repudiate the vow in the day that he hears of it, but later convinced her to break the vow, the sin of her breaking it is upon him.
Click to expand...

I quoted the author's words and she used the word spiritual step - I assume (and you know what that can mean) she meant that the woman made a vow to God or felt a calling from God, hence a spiritual step? The example the author uses goes like this: A woman feels a burden to do a certain "thing" for God. She makes a vow to do so. In obedience to God's word, she asks her husband's permission to do it. If her husband does not permit her to do it, then God says she is free from her vow. Her husband is now the one who will stand accountable to God for it. If it turns out that his decision was wrong, then the husband will be the one to bear the blame. The author then uses an example of Hannah's vow in I Samuel 1. Hannah promised God that if He would give her a baby boy, she would give the baby back to Him. But it was not until Elkanah had approved the vow that she was able to keep her vow. She did NOT provide an example where a wife's vow was not allowed and the husband was held accountable. I don't know what would have happened if Elkanah had not approved of the vow?
 
steve said:
1). The passage is about her making a vow, an agreement. Please help me understand what you mean by taking a spiritual step.
Could you provide an example?
2). The ending of that passage is stating that if her husband does not repudiate the vow in the day that he hears of it, but later convinced her to break the vow, the sin of her breaking it is upon him.
Click to expand...
It doesn’t say if he convinces her to break the bow but if he forbids her from fulfilling it after the first day.
 
P Hartman said:
I quoted the author's words and she used the word spiritual step - I assume (and you know what that can mean) she meant that the woman made a vow to God or felt a calling from God, hence a spiritual step? The example the author uses goes like this: A woman feels a burden to do a certain "thing" for God. She makes a vow to do so. In obedience to God's word, she asks her husband's permission to do it. If her husband does not permit her to do it, then God says she is free from her vow. Her husband is now the one who will stand accountable to God for it. If it turns out that his decision was wrong, then the husband will be the one to bear the blame. The author then uses an example of Hannah's vow in I Samuel 1. Hannah promised God that if He would give her a baby boy, she would give the baby back to Him. But it was not until Elkanah had approved the vow that she was able to keep her vow. She did NOT provide an example where a wife's vow was not allowed and the husband was held accountable. I don't know what would have happened if Elkanah had not approved of the vow?
Click to expand...
1). A wife’s mission in life is to be an assistant to her husband’s calling, it is what she was created for. Modern religion has made her and her calling equal with him and his calling. This is a bastardization of Yah’s plan. She shouldn’t be making vows about what she feels called to without first sitting down with her husband and discussing with him whether it fits into his overall plan for his family.
Most vows are commitments made to other people, her husband has the right to step in if he sees that she is, for example, overcommitting herself. Or if he had a different plan and her commitment (vow) would interfere with it.

2). Hannah’s vow with Yah was more of a deal with Him that included a vow “If you, then I will....”
Presumably her husband was happy enough to have received a son from Yah and wouldn’t deny her part of the deal.
In reality, this is not a helpful example in that it doesn’t represent real life situations very much.
 
An example that might happen today could go something like this:
Her: Hon, you will be so proud of me! I bought a Jersey milk cow, 300 laying chickens and a whole bunch of feed for them with the $3000 tax return check!
Him: Well, that’s a problem. We have been praying about our ministry and this morning Yah showed me that we are being called to the heart of San Francisco to minister to abused transgender people.
I hope that the guy understands that the deal isn’t a deal until I have had 24hrs to accept it. You did explain that to him, right?

We won’t even mention the possibility of a wife going out and committing the family to 72 months of payments for the SUV that she fell in love with.
 
P Hartman said:
IThe part I have struggled with most is addressed in this book and has been a transforming concept for me. The author quotes Numbers 30:6-16. Her premise is that this passage teaches that "a husband is given the right by God to prevent his wife from taking a spiritual step she feels led to take; and, ...that if he (husband) does, God holds him accountable - "he shall bear her iniquity"". I would be very curious if others interpret that bible passage the same way. If this passage is interpreted correctly, it will fully allow me to provide my input on a spiritual level to my husband and, if it isn't followed, let it go and let God handle it. I believe it will also address, quite well, the questions I initially posed. Would love to know if others look at this the same way.
Click to expand...

I'm sensing that you want validation for listening to Scripture. My suggestion is to read Numbers 30:6-16 7x70 times as often as you read the author of Me? Obey Him?'s opinion about what Numbers 30:6-16 says. Find numerous translations of Numbers 30:6-16. Form your own opinion/understanding of what God is saying in Numbers 30:6-16.

But know this: our Father does not need our service. He expects us to glorify Him, but he doesn't even need that! Perhaps Numbers 30:6-16 is saying something about an escape clause from moral unrighteousness by shifting responsibility from a wife to her husband, but I don't have to study it right now myself to have serious doubts that that is the case. The impulse on the part of wives to meander off into various types of good works that run counter to their responsibilities to be support systems for the direction provided by their husbands is generally fraught with the quality of trying to fill in gaps supposedly not already handled by God's Word and His Law. Again, He doesn't need that from us. No matter how imperfect we may conclude that the world is -- and especially when we feel compelled to redesign it a little bit better than God did -- we should always humble ourselves by remembering that we are no more capable of fully understanding God's Purposes than we would be to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

We wouldn't recognize Ultimate Wisdom even if He were whispering it into our very ears.
 
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