Comments on: Why do we have to wait until we are 16 to date? https://askgramps.org/wait-16-date/ Moral answers to everyday concerns, curiosities, and uncertainties. Gramps considers all questions on all topics from all sources. Wed, 29 Sep 2021 03:16:25 +0000 hourly 1 By: Robert https://askgramps.org/wait-16-date/#comment-33899 Sat, 14 Feb 2015 20:58:00 +0000 http://en.elds.org/askgramps-org/?p=31853#comment-33899 The counsel to not date until age 16 is really in response to changing social norms. It used to be that there was no “dating” per se. Just courting. Marriage was the sole aim. In our great-great-grandparent’s era, a man about age 19 or 20 would offer to walk a young woman home from church. This would continue for a few months. Eventually, if he were persistent, the man would be invited over by the young woman’s parents (if they approved of him) to visit in the family parlor for the afternoon—-with the parents present. This continued for a year or so. Finally, the man would get the young woman’s father aside alone, and ask for his permission to marry his daughter. There really wasn’t much of a chance for premature sexual encounters under that system. The whole courting process, along with modesty and virtue, kept such things pretty much in check. It wasn’t until the 20th century with its liberal social conventions that the “no dating until age 16” thing was put in place by the Church, as a stop gap measure to replace the old system that had worked so well for centuries.

]]> By: A Happily Married Man https://askgramps.org/wait-16-date/#comment-33896 Sat, 14 Feb 2015 06:26:00 +0000 http://en.elds.org/askgramps-org/?p=31853#comment-33896 Julie,

I might ask you: Why would you want to date before 16? A cute boy, perhaps? While it’s possible people will marry their high school sweetheart, it’s definitely not the norm. Most people break up and move on, so why not wait for another, better group of men with positive, long-term goals? Honestly, you would be better off just going on group dates or hanging out in groups with people your parents are comfortable with and who respect them in return, so you can get some experience interacting with those of the opposite gender.

Once you get to college, you will find there are many, many more men who have serious goals of being a father, a husband, as well as a provider. I believe your best choices lie there or maybe in your young single adult ward as long as these boys have learned to do as Paul says:

1 Corinthians 13:11

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

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