The Dating Lessons, Part 2

Different Views

Matchmaking
This is the ancient way of bringing people together for marriage. It didn't matter whether or not the two even knew each other, what mattered was the agreement of arrangement. There were three main ways:
By their fathers - usually was a business deal.
By the matchmaker - a person, usually an older woman, who arranged the match using their experience and intuition to achieve compatibility.
By pick - the man chooses among eligible women.

Courting
A woman is wooed by one or more men and a man woos one or more women. Their relationship is strictly on a communication basis. There is very limited physical contact, if there is any. When a pick is chosen, there's a familiarity period. If the girl doesn't like the suitor, the family will protect her from him and the suitor must move on. This is not necessarily the "dating" that we understand it.

The whole purpose for the above was to make a match for marriage.

Dating
In the 1930s, with the advent of the car and the telephone, courting and matchmaking began to change drastically. The couple would go out on a date to get to know each other. Then if they begin to date consistently, they are considered "going steady" with the purpose of marriage. That's when the boyfriend/girlfriend terms were commonly used. This definition is still true for older adults these days. But dating changed even more in the 1950s and 1960s, when dating became more of an activity that gave couples opportunities for the physical benefits of marriage while not really being married. From then on, it went downhill. Younger people in this generation generally understand dating as that mutated form, the license to develop a friendship to the level of a sexual relationship with no obligations. The attitude of the 1960s and 70s, with the cultural acceptance of casual sex, brought about this collapse of premarital standards. All is not lost, yet, because we still have the intuitive sense to stay with one person for life. At least there are still boundaries, like "dating" one person at a time, although that's breaking down also.

God created us for relationships, but as fallen people, we corrupt it. We desire the idea of dating because we're made for relationships and dating is the generally accepted way to be married. As people of God, we have to have standards for dating, we have to have premarital behavior that glorifies God. Doing so will please Him and our relationships will be blessed because of it.