About dating longer
As Christians, we get into dating relationship with the purpose of marriage. We believe that marriage was ordained by God (Genesis), and that marriage is also an illustration of the love that Christ has for the Church (Ephesians 5). Marriage is a beautiful relationship that God designed and we ought to take it very seriously.
Hence, we during dating period, we should take the time to get to know our partner to determine if we can find any "deal breaker" that will end the relationship. It takes time to get to know a person. My analogy is poor, but I work as a Software Tester, and it is impossible to test a product 100%, so we try our best to test it within the time given to us, ideally we want to find all the "show stopper" bugs, so that we can release guaranteeing the product will be ok. Similarly, we want to date well so that we can find and sort out "deal breakers" so that the marriage can be smoother.
Another argument for this is that when a couple starts a dating relationship, there is a "honey moon" phase, where emotions are strong, and the couple sees sunny days, rainbows, butterflies and flowers even when in reality we are in a Canadian winter day. So it takes some time to "cool down" before the couple can maximize their objective thoughts regarding their relationship. As well, there are probably not much heated arguments during that "honey moon" phase. It is part of our sinful nature that we will hurt each other in a relationship or disagree on things, so understanding conflict resolution as a couple is a very helpful exercise to grow as a couple.
I personally come from divorced parents, and experienced the consequences of a broken family. It's not pretty. As a Christian, I have a firm conviction that divorce is not a choice, therefore I think the decision to be engaged has to be made very carefully. In most cases, carefulness involves taking time to think about it and getting more information (to mitigate risks).
But, I also think that having a prolonged time of dating can be dangerous because it can show insecurity or lack of commitment as a couple to move forward.
About dating shorter
I will go back to the illustration of marriage, which is Christ loving the church and dying for the church (Ephesians 5). Christ died for the church, not because the church loved him or the church could add more value to Him. We know that when we were sinners, enemies of God, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8), and that God loved us first (1 John).
So we can see from these that love is not purely emotions, but it is driven by a will. A will to do something (an action) on behalf of its object (from a sermon from Voddie Baucham). Christ loves us even when we were his enemies!
Going back to the relationship aspect, a man chooses to love a woman even though he might not know all the possible "deal breakers", but he will still love her even if a "deal breaker" is known because love is a conscious choice he made.
"Momentary Marriage", a book by John Piper, emphasizes in the aspect of covenant, which involves serious commitment. Even during marriage, there will be difficult times, when we will know more of the shortcomings of our partner, but one learns how to love despite these shortcomings. Loving a person is not just about the "good" things of our partner, it is also about the loving him/her in spite of the "bad" things.
This view focuses on the commitment aspect, and when a couple starts dating, it is expected that their commitment is as close as to be ready for marriage, hence there is really not much point of dating. And a prolonged dating period can be seen as having more "room" for the couple to bail out from this commitment.
Though this view seems to have a lack of emotions, I don't think this is the case at all. Though love is driven by a choice, it is also accompanied by emotions that confirm the choice made.
Any conclusion?
This is really hard to answer because there are many factors that we didn't take into account:
- maturity, age, life stage
- parents' viewpoint
- life vision
- character compatibility
- spiritual depth
- serving roles
- etc
There are more questions that are interesting to answer:
- How well you need to know the other person before going towards engagement?
- What factors (or deal breakers) will lead a couple to break up?
I think that the question of how long one couple should date before getting engaged has to be really treated case by case. Though there are safe guidelines to follow, they might not be a must. There is a need to have a conviction that a marriage relationship can only survive by the grace of God, marriage has to be Christ-centered, otherwise it will fall apart as adding 2 sinners into an intimate relationship does not make it easier.
I personally will ask myself these questions:
- Am I willing to lay down my life for this person? (no matter how long you date, you just cannot know a person entirely)
- Am I willing to share in her burdens and life baggage?
- On a very dark day, can her smile make my day the brightest?
