One of the primary areas of interest to humanity at all times is the area of relationships between man and woman. The fullest relationship in this area is the traditional marriage relationship. Therefore, the process by which two people reach the marriage state also has an obvious importance. Many different customs and moral guidelines have governed this area throughout the history of humanity, with varying results both in pre-marital relationships and in marriages themselves. In the present day in Western civilization, it must be admitted that these results are what might be called mixed. They might also be called disastrous. The custom of dating, in all its forms, has been the primary courtship custom for some time, and in some ways this has worked well in the past. However, in the present time in the United States and Canada common observation reveals that there seems to be little or no order in dating and courtship, which traditionally would be considered pre-marital relationships. Indeed, dating relationships do not appear to lead to marriage with any significant reliability or predictability, and the whole area of relationships between men and women seems to be in a state of disarray. Pregnancies outside of marriage, long-term sexual relationships outside of the ordering influence of marriage, dissatisfaction and distrust between men and women who are supposedly in loving relationships, widespread fear of commitment and marriage, and widespread divorce among those who do marry are just a few of the obvious concerns which confront modern humanity in this area. It is the purpose of this essay is to examine some possible implications of the theological anthropology of Pope John Paul II--as articulated primarily but not exclusively in The Theology of the Body--for the societal approach to courtship and dating, and to speculate on possible specific consequences of this anthropology for the custom of dating. This will not necessarily lead to changes that can easily be implemented on the level of the individual, but perhaps may still indicate a direction in which people of good will may turn their efforts to change societal mindsets on the custom of dating.[1]

Although in a certain sense courtship customs can be seen in every civilization at every time, the beginning of courtship as it is known today in Western civilization occurred with the move away from arranged marriages, which brought the choice of marriage partner more explicitly into the sphere of the prospective partners. In the areas of North America, now the United States and Canada, this change began to occur almost from the beginning. The arranged marriage, in the fullest sense of the term, was never as common in this country as in some areas of the world, and over the past two hundred years parental influence has steadily been declining. With the increasingly free choice of young people in the area of marriage came a gradual growth in the importance of factors such as mutual attraction, affection, and love, as opposed to the more "practical" factors of social status and economic benefit which had dominated to some extent when these decisions were made by third parties. Both the free choice of the spouses and the rise of these personal factors made it necessary that greater occasions should be provided for the close acquaintance of prospective spouses. In the twentieth century, this gradually resulted in the social and moral acceptance of contact between boys and girls in general during adolescence, and of increasingly exclusive and private contact between those considering marriage. Thus developed the custom of dating.[2] Still, as late as the 1950s there was widespread moral disapproval of any form of exclusive dating, in the sense of consistent and relatively unsupervised contact, for people who were not capable of and interested in marrying in the near future.[3] However, following this point there was a rapid decline in standards in this area. Virtually all types of male-female relationships, at virtually all ages, became at least more acceptable than they had been in the past. As marriage decreased in importance and cohabitation became more common, the proximate possibility of marriage inevitably also declined as a standard. Today, exclusive and heavy dating is usually acceptable basically at the beginning of adolescence, if not earlier, and in some circles virtually any level of intimacy is acceptable as part of these dating relationships.[4] Acceptance of the current situation in dating is widespread, but certainly not universal. One can find spirited and intelligent dissent from the modern dating culture. This is no more than one would expect in view of the fact that this culture has led to consequences that are radically at odds with traditional morals. However, much of this dissent appears to take the form of an appeal to the past. The dissenters from the popular dating culture wish to go back, and this is very understandable. The brief summary just given of the development of courtship and dating in the United States showed clearly that there were standards in the past where there are no standards now, and in many ways presumably things were better in the past then they are now. Therefore, no one should be surprised when one finds an article on courtship in a prominent scholarly journal beginning with the sentence: "Anyone interested in improving relations between men and women today and tomorrow must proceed by taking a page from yesterday."[5] However, is this evidently true, and will such an approach ultimately be effective in bringing about change on a broad scale? Since a statement like this seems to be a natural and almost instinctive reaction, and thus probably represents a common strand of thought, this is an important point, and deserves careful consideration before proceeding further with this analysis.

It is only realistic to acknowledge that there is almost always a certain inherent uncertainty about the possibility of a beneficial return to the past as such, and this seems particularly true in the area of courtship customs. Historical circumstances have changed greatly in the recent past. The reality is that courtship has always been obviously linked to sexuality. In the past, the simple practical risk of pregnancy was enough to discourage much sexual activity in the unmarried, and by extension to discourage imprudently close relationships. This simple fact alone would obviously determine much of the nature of most pre-marital relationships. However, in this century contraceptives have become more effective and more widely available than they ever were in the past. In particular, the introduction of the Pill into general use shortly after the middle of this century had a revolutionary effect in this area, ushering in a supposed paradise for those who believe in the separation of procreation from sexual intercourse.[6] This marked a truly central, and ultimately disastrous, moment in human history. The anthropologist Ashley Montague has compared the historical and anthropological significance of this event to the importance of the invention of fire.[7] This is an exaggeration by a man who wishes above all to praise the alleged benefits of easy contraception, but the basic point that the development of easy contraception was a revolutionary moment in the history of humanity is entirely true. It is certainly true that there may still be many young people who do not in fact consistently contracept. However, contraception need not be universally practiced in order to have universal effects. The rise of contraception split the procreative from the sexual, and it should be obvious to all that this split has had revolutionary effects on attitudes about sexuality. It was inevitable that such shifts in attitudes would in turn revolutionize approaches to courtship. After such a dramatic change in human attitudes and mindsets about courtship, it seems unlikely that an appeal to return to the past, as such, will have much if any appeal to the modern mind. In view of this, it is at least highly questionable whether a simple attempt to return to approaches to courtship that were effective in the past will be the most effective way of improving the state of affairs in the post-Pill "paradise."

In addition to the question of whether a return to the past is practically possible, there is also the question of whether it is in itself the most desirable option. Customs on courtship and related areas of life have changed. It will be difficult to change these customs again, but clearly some such change is necessary. However, there does not seem to be any particular reason to think that it will be any easier to change such customs to match those of the past than it would be to change them to match some other standard. Would it not be most reasonable to attempt to determine what kind of an approach to courtship would be best for the human persons involved, and try to implement that? This is precisely what can be attempted in light of the anthropology of John Paul II. In his catechesis he never makes any appeal such as "Let us act as we did in the past." The message, rather, if it is to be reduced to such a short formulation, is that we must act as we should have acted in the beginning. Human beings should conform themselves to the real nature which God gave to them in creation, a nature which for the Pope in his theological anthropology is understood primarily through his reflections on human experience in the light of the truths of Scripture, and in particular through his meditation on the creation narrative in Genesis. Only in conforming themselves to their true nature will human persons find the road to true happiness.[8] This is true of all of human life, and the Pope particularly emphasizes that this is true in the relationship between man and woman, so presumably it is true of courtship. It may very well in fact be the case that in following this truth many aspects of past customs will be resurrected. However, this should be based upon the objective truth about human persons, not on the past as such. By doing this, one can also increase the subjective appeal of the message, since it is clearly an appeal to human persons, and in this case particularly to young people, to live in the way which will be most fulfilling for them, and not just in the way which people chose in the past.

If one bases an approach to dating and courtship on the anthropology of John Paul II, what would such an approach look like? That is the question to be answered here, primarily by reference to various aspects of the fundamental meaning of the human person as gift according to the Pope. Of necessity, this answer must be very general and highly speculative. However, it still seems worthwhile to attempt to reach some conclusions on this topic. For this purpose, consideration will first be given to promiscuity, both because it is the major moral question in the modern dating scene and because it is an issue which very clearly shows the centrality of self-gift, and then to various more positive points on possible characteristics of a courtship system based on the anthropology of John Paul II.

Promiscuity and the acceptance of promiscuity are perhaps the most obvious and measurable symptoms of the changes that have occurred in attitudes about pre-marital relationships. Clearly, Catholic moral teaching forbids such promiscuity. However, what rationale for this is specifically developed in the thought of John Paul II? According to the Pope, meaning of the body is fundamentally nuptial, having the character of gift. In the creation account, at the point when man is seen as both man and woman in creation, the meaning of the person as gift can be seen, since each exists for the other, so that the other is no longer "alone."[9] For each person, "the expression of that gift--and for that reason the expression of his existence as a person--is the human body in all its original truth of its masculinity and femininity."[10] The act of conjugal intercourse, as the total gift of the body to the other, is intended to fundamentally signify in the language of the body the gift of each to the other, and the acceptance of each by the other. This gift and acceptance is distinct from lesser forms of self-gift and acceptance of the other in that it is to be total, and thus it must be permanent and irreversible. It must be total to reflect the reality of complete interpersonal communion between man and woman in Eden. To the extent that each self is not completely given and received, the relationship becomes vulnerable to the obstruction of this interpersonal communion through the use of one spouse by the other. Marriage is what provides this total, permanent and irreversible commitment to gift of self and acceptance of the other. "The persons--man and woman--become for each other a mutual gift. They become that gift in their masculinity and femininity, discovering the spousal significance of the body and referring it reciprocally to themselves in an irreversible manner--in a life-long dimension."[11]

It is clearly impossible to give oneself totally to several different people. Therefore, what makes promiscuity promiscuous, so to speak, is the dishonest signification of total self-gift to more than one person. Moreover, this means that in the broad sense "promiscuity" applies even in the case of successive relationships, which considered in themselves are monogamous. Even one monogamous relationship that is not based on a truly permanent and irreversible commitment is promiscuous in its fundamental nature, because it includes the willingness to engage in a similar relationship with another person while the other partner is still alive. If one truly gives oneself, then there is no other self to give, and no possibility of taking back the gift while the other is still capable of receiving and holding it (in other words while the other is alive). Promiscuity by definition removes the full meaning of the gift from masculinity and femininity, and thus from the sexual act. Thus, the desire to express love through sexual intercourse, while natural, inevitably frustrates itself unless it is restrained until it can be fulfilled in an exclusive and permanent commitment. The act, if engaged in with more than one other person, becomes self-falsifying and no longer in fact expresses the love which it was intended to express, and which human beings instinctively feel it should express.

It is perhaps worth emphasizing here that what has just been said is not to be understood as a statement that those who have engaged in promiscuous behavior are thus somehow excluded from the possibility of self-gift in the future. The precise problem with promiscuity, as has just been indicated, is that it is a lie. Indeed, in a certain sense it is the ultimate lie in relationships between men and women. Thus, promiscuity does not involve real self-gift. Therefore, while not denying any of the myriad psychological and spiritual problems which may result from promiscuity, and certainly not denying the objective moral evil involved, one can say that from the perspective of the Pope a life of promiscuity, once left behind and rejected by the person in his or her actions, does not incapacitate the person for self-gift.

Having considered the main moral problem relevant to modern dating according to the principles of John Paul II, it is now appropriate to look at the possible broader consequences of his thought for dating and courtship in general. In considering dating in a more general way, it is important first of all to be clear about the purpose of dating. Historically, for the purposes of both sociological analysis and moral evaluation, dating has been defined as an aspect of the courtship ritual, and thus remotely or proximately prepatory for marriage. Although the custom has taken on an increasingly recreational aspect, this basic connection has remained at least in theory.[12] Even today, and even among those at relatively young ages, there is still often an intention, however unrealistic, of eventually pursuing marriage, or at least a long-term relationship among those not convinced of the value of marriage.[13] What precisely this will mean in the perspective of the teaching of John Paul II will now be examined, but this basic principle of connection must be taken as established in advance as something desirable, because without it one no longer has any clear definition of dating or courtship, and thus no solid perspective from which to analyze the custom.

Questions concerning dating begin with questions concerning general contact between boys and girls or men and women, and to what extent this should be limited among young people. There does not seem to be any strong basis in the thought of John Paul II for discouraging all contact between boys and girls even in a public group context, although this has been customary for much of history in Western civilization.[14] In fact, if anything one can find a counter-argument to this custom in John Paul II. The argument in favor of this custom has generally been that such contact from an early age may prevent boys and girls from growing up completely in the characteristics of their own sex. (The issue of a possible remote or proximate occasion of sin is not commonly raised until one reaches the level of private and/or one-to-one contact).[15] However, this argument appears to lose a crucial premise if, as John Paul II indicates, the relationship between the sexes is from the beginning foundational for all human relationships, and each sex finds its full meaning in the context of an understanding and appreciation of the other: "femininity finds itself, in a sense, in the presence of masculinity, while masculinity is confirmed through femininity."[16] From this perspective, the best situation would appear to be one of a more balanced contact between the sexes than has sometimes existed in the past. On the other hand, this does not mean that the limitation of opposite sex contact among young people is not appropriate. John Paul II also emphasizes the aspect of original solitude in creation, in which man--ultimately meaning both man and woman--is first of all alone, and then receives the other. Although "it is not good that man should be alone," this original solitude nevertheless makes clear the nature of the other as gift from God, and the unique status of the other as an equal being of the same nature, with whom total communion is possible.[17] While the implications of original solitude certainly could not be said to be clear, it seems reasonable to speculate that, if the life of each human person to some degree reflects the same principles as existed in the original creation (as seems implied by John Paul II's understanding of the original state of creation as normative for humanity), there should be some separation of the sexes early in life, and perhaps particularly in the early part of adolescence, which ordinary experience reveals as the period when young people usually grow the most in their understanding of the otherness of the opposite sex.

Beyond general contact with the opposite sex, the issue of one-to-one contact arises, and the discussion enters more directly into the sphere of dating. One of the major potential departures from modern dating customs, apart from more strictly moral issues, arises at this point. Modern practice permits dating at virtually any age. When it is only a question of contact with the opposite sex, there is no substantial difficulty in this area. However, what is the purpose of individual contact between boys and girls? John Paul II makes clear that from the beginning the paradigmatic one-to-one relationship between man and woman is marriage.[18] Based on this, individual contact with the opposite sex does not necessarily seem wise for those who are not in a position to contemplate marriage in the foreseeable future, a group which includes virtually all adolescents in modern American society. This is not a question of limiting freedom, but of only entering into relationships that reflect reality. When the potentiality of marriage is not a reality, the legitimacy of relationships that mimic marriage in this way is at least highly questionable. This does not mean that no individual contact between the sexes should be allowed at all, since individual contact in some cases does not bear any close relationship to marriage. Friendships between boys and girls can certainly exist on a similar level to friendships between those of the same sex, and of course individual contact in a public context may be natural and harmless in the course of such friendships. Such contact would not constitute a dating relationship by any common definition. However, the distinction of masculinity and femininity is founded in creation and cannot be erased, as John Paul II emphasizes.[19] Given this, it is unrealistic to deny that a friendship between two people of the same sex is never exactly the same as an opposite-sex relationship, and the same rules cannot be applied to both types of relationships. Thus, if a relationship between a boy and girl resembles a dating relationship in its exclusivity, or if the frequency of the individual contact matches that of what are considered dating relationships, then the nature of the relationship is at least problematic.

Before proceeding on to an analysis of legitimate dating relationships, there is another aspect of close opposite sex relationships in the young, namely the aspect of shame and vulnerability. In a way, these are two separate aspects, but they seem to be very closely connected. The Pope has analyzed shame very carefully, principally in the area of sexual shame. Although John Paul II analyzes shame in The Theology of the Body, his thought in this area is developed more fully along similar lines in his work Love and Responsibility, which he wrote as Karol Wojtyla. This earlier work will thus be used primarily here, since his earlier treatment of shame seems entirely compatible with the principles laid out in The Theology of the Body. In this area it is noteworthy that he recognizes a clear positive aspect in shame, in that it defends the values of the body as male or female and masculine or feminine from being objects of use or lust for others. In particular, this supports the importance of modesty.[20] Thus, in non-marital relationships any overly sexual character, even if it only consists in provocative dress or manners of acting, lowers the defenses of the person and makes the person vulnerable to objectification, as an object of use or lust, by the other. The person is not made desirable as a person, but rather only as possessing sexual values, which are an object of use for the other, even if only in thought. Such use of the person must exist precisely apart from and in opposition to a recognition of the value of the complete person, because according to the personalistic norm as articulated by Karol Wojtyla, "the person is the kind of good which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end."[21] Thus, the practice of modesty in general, and particularly in the sphere of courtship relationships, is an important part of guaranteeing that the person is valued as the person should be valued, in other words that the person is loved. "Sexual modesty is not a flight from love, but on the contrary the opening of a way towards it. The spontaneous need to conceal mere sexual values bound up with the person is the natural way to the discovery of the value of the person as such" [italics in original].[22] This also points to what can legitimately conquer shame: love. When the person is loved totally, the sexual values, which are of course good in themselves, no longer need to be defended from improper use by the other, and shame can thus be eliminated in that relationship. However, outside of the permanent commitment of total self-gift, it is false for any man and woman to claim that their mutual love is really total and unconditional, and therefore the defense of shame is still necessary, although naturally to varying extents.[23]

The problems of dating relationships without any possibility of marriage have already been discussed. This area changes completely among people who have reached an age where they may legitimately be seeking a partner in marriage. Even if changeable circumstances such as economic conditions or other commitments temporarily make marriage impossible, these people have a real interest at least in the search, so to speak, since such conditions obviously change, sometimes predictably and sometimes not. Regular and extended individual contact can thus be justified. However, there is still the question of exclusivity. For the present purposes, exclusivity will be understood as the unacceptability of either partner in the relationship dating any other person. This is again not so much a moral question at this point as it is a question of the reality of a relationship. If a person really has focused his or her consideration of marriage on one particular other person, then certainly exclusivity is warranted. Otherwise, there does not appear to be a basis for exclusivity. After all, exclusivity is an essential aspect of marriage, but it does not appear to be necessary for any close relationship with a person of the opposite sex. It has already been explained in analyzing promiscuity that it is precisely the totality of self-gift in marriage requires this exclusivity.[24] On the other hand, while the totality of self-gift is seen particularly in conjugal intercourse, which is restricted to marriage, John Paul II also emphasizes that the spouses are to live out this total self-gift in their entire life together.[25] In this aspect, pre-marital relationships can to some degree mimic marital relationships, so that greater commitments--in terms of time for example--and a more complete openness to the other are of course natural as a relationship proceeds. Clearly, common sense dictates that in serious relationships this process will ultimately lead to a natural exclusivity. When this stage of exclusivity is reached, the man and woman will presumably become more and more a part of one another's life, always remembering the restrictions that the absence of the true commitment of marriage places on this development.

It must now be recognized that what has just been said concerns a very serious and presumably late stage in the relationship. There does not appear to be any other stage between this and the official (though revocable) commitment to marriage in the near future that begins the engagement period. How else could the relationship enter a clearly new and more serious stage once it has become exclusive? This stage can only be said to begin when the man and the woman know each other well enough to focus their hopes of marriage entirely on one another. Since one would hope that a decision to focus on each other in this way would not be made on slight acquaintance, it is at least possible that the longest and most substantial part of the relationship will precede this "pre-engagement" stage. It is not even necessarily the case that this stage of exclusivity will be particularly long. As importance as exclusivity is in marriage, and as necessary as some previous experience of exclusivity with the other is, it is only one aspect of self-gift. The human persons in any relationship are of primary importance. Clearly, knowledge of the other person is more important than a knowledge of the experience of exclusivity, and this knowledge of the other would, as has been said, hopefully be fairly deep before a couple enters the final pre-marital stages. In a way, then, the key parts of a relationship leading to marriage would appear to be, not the latter stages in which marriage is in very immediate view, but the parts leading up to these stages, and careful thought should be given to these earlier parts of a relationship.

Modern custom has made dating, even in the early stages, a relatively exclusive thing. After a few dates, it is not customary for a man and woman to date other people.[26] However, absent the issue of sexual fidelity (which only emerges here because of pre-marital sexual activity, which itself is obviously unacceptable according to the Pope's anthropology, as was discussed in the section on promiscuity), and without a complete focus on one person as a potential marriage partner, there is no reason for such exclusivity throughout most of a relationship. There may be factual exclusivity in any given case, since it is easy to imagine a man and woman who in fact do not know more than one person with whom they wish to have a relationship which is potentially prepatory for marriage, but this is only a circumstantial exclusivity, which has little meaning for the relationship in itself.

Depending on definition of terms, some might say that a non-exclusive relationship is not a dating relationship at all, since it is sometimes the case that a man and woman who think of their relationship as a friendship, and not as a friendship which is potentially prepatory for marriage, meet each other alone on a relatively frequent basis. This type of relationship is not problematic for young adults in the same way as it was earlier said to be for those who are too young to contemplate marriage on any realistic level, because the man and woman in this case are within realistic range of marriage, if they were to decide that they wished to pursue that course. This is not generally called dating, and yet it does not appear to be obviously distinguished from the non-exclusive dating which is being suggested here, except perhaps in that the latter may be explicitly incorporated in the minds of the participants into their search for a marriage partner. This may be only a semantic issue concerning the range of application of the word "dating," but at the same time it does lead to consideration of an important point: the relationship of friendship to marriage.

In the anthropology of the Pope, the marriage relationship signifies and involves the meaning of the human person as gift more fundamentally than all other human relationships. Indeed, marriage is the original human relationship, the human relationship first willed by God in creation to bring forth the reality of mutual self-gift in the world. However, the meaning of the human person does not only become gift when the person is married. This is from the beginning the meaning of the human person. The nuptial meaning of the body applies to every human being, not just those who are married. The Pope describes this nuptial attribute as "the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift and--by means of this gift--fulfills the meaning of his being and existence."[27] He then quotes Gaudium et Spes 24 in saying that "man 'can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself.'"[28] Clearly, self-gift is the essence of all true loves, including the simple love of real friendship. The very will act of putting the good of another above one's own good involves self-gift. Marriage, then, is not unique in that it is a human relationship of mutual self-gift, since all true friendship will have this character to some degree. Rather, marriage is unique in that it is the most fundamental human relationship of mutual self-gift, and in that it is a human relationship of total mutual self-gift--a kind of human relationship which in God's plan for creation can only be realized between a man and a woman. This means that every human friendship, to the extent that it is a human friendship, participates to some degree in the category of self-gift. In fact, since the communion of persons not only includes but is constituted precisely by mutual self-gift, it is safe to say that the deeper and fuller any friendship becomes, the more fully it can be characterized as mutual self-gift.[29] A friendship between a man and woman is also always characterized by the relationship between masculinity and femininity, which links it even more closely to the marriage relationship. If the man and woman in question are of an age, situation, and so forth, which would permit them to marry each other, then this link, as a practical matter, becomes even closer and tighter. The obvious conclusion from this is that friendship is the best and most important preparation (and not merely a prerequisite) for marriage. This is not a truism, as some moderns might initially think. First of all, the importance of friendship in marriage has not been emphasized for much of human history, though it is supposedly increasingly recognized in modern times.[30] Secondly, even this modern recognition clearly is not based on a deep anthropological understanding of marriage as the sign of gift, and thus in a sense paradigmatic for all true human friendship. This may be why the modern understanding of these matters places so much importance on dating relationships as opposed to simple friendship in the preparation for marriage.

If friendship in itself is the best preparation for marriage, the importance of dating as a custom is dramatically lessened. Distinctions between those who are dating and those who are "only" friends become less important than custom has made them in modern society. From this perspective, it is not clear why such distinctions should ever be important until the stage of exclusivity. Perhaps it is true, as some might claim, that dating is not dating if it is non-exclusive. If dating is defined in this way, then dating should properly be limited to the pre-engagement stage. What is important is the development of an unusually close and deep friendship between a man and a woman. Up to a point, a man or woman may possibly develop such a friendship with more than one person of the opposite sex at the same time. Certainly, such friendships may very well not lead to marriage or even approach marriage. This does not change the fact that this should be an important, and arguably the most important, stage of any relationship that will in fact lead to marriage.

Even at first glance, such an emphasis on friendship over dating has a couple of very practical advantages. First of all, it may remove some of the impatience of those who are too young to participate in this process, if the process is understood only as a development of friendship up until a relatively late stage. The young, after all, can also develop friendships with the opposite sex, although not in the same way, and this may leave them more willing to increase their pursuit of these friendships gradually, if the popular importance attached specifically to dating can be diminished. Secondly, the non-exclusive nature of such developments of friendship will prevent the feeling and reality of wasted time in long exclusive dating relationships which eventually break off rather than leading to marriage. Doubtless further consideration could reveal other advantages, and perhaps apparent disadvantages as well, since it is arguably the case that in a fallen world all human approaches will have disadvantages. Most importantly, however, this approach would correspond more fully to the reality of the human person, basing itself on the reality of true friendship as self-gift, and marriage as the totality of self-gift, according to the anthropology of John Paul II. It is not apparent that the same can be said for the dating customs in the presentday.

A number of general conclusions have been reached here about possible consequences of the anthropology for John Paul II for the custom of dating. Obviously, promiscuity must not be a part of dating. Less obviously, contact between the sexes among young people seems appropriate and necessary, but only to a limited extent, which does not include dating as we know it. In the stages directly prior to marriage, on the other hand, close and exclusive contact between the prospective spouses is naturally desirable as preparation for marriage. Perhaps most importantly, however, the anthropology of John Paul II does not appear to support the importance attached to dating as we know it in our society. This should not necessarily be very surprising. Dating is, after all, only a custom, and a relatively recent one. Modern society presents certain great advantages in the preparation for marriage. Men and women are now allowed to interact more freely than they have been at many times in the past, and thus hopefully to know each other better. If the most important prepatory stage for marriage is simple friendship, then clearly this freedom of interaction is a great advantage. However, this advantage is actually diminished by an over-emphasis on the exclusive dating stage in relationships. The development of a real and deep man-woman friendship, ultimately of a communio personarum between the two, which is not dependent on exclusive dating, is the most important preparation for marriage. It is the development of such interpersonal communion, through a process which may possibly only include dating in the modern sense as a last short step, that most effectively brings a couple to the commitment of marriage, in which each becomes total gift for the other.

Bibliography

Bonacci, Mary Beth. Real Love. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996.

Cate, Rodney M. and Lloyd, Sally. Courtship. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1992.

John Paul II. The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan. Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1997.

Kass, Amy A. and Leon R. "Proposing Courtship." First Things 96 (October 1999): 32-41.

Shivanandan, Mary. Crossing the Threshold of Love: A New Vision of Marriage in the Light of John Paul II's Anthropology. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997.

Stack, John. Courtship Patterns in the United States: A Moral Evaluation. Rome: Pontificalis Universitas Gregorianae, 1957.

Wojtyla, Karol. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Willetts, H.T. Revised 1981 ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993.

Notes

[1] This essay is not in any sense intended as a full explanation of the theological anthropology of the Pope. Some principles of his thought are used as bases for conclusions here, and yet are mentioned only in passing. Fuller explanations would greatly lengthen the essay, and lead it well beyond the scope of its original purpose. Thus, some previous familiarity with these principles will be helpful, although not absolutely necessary, in grasping the points made in this essay.

[2] Rodney M. Cate and Sally Lloyd, Courtship (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1992), 25-31.

[3] John Stack, Courtship Patterns in the United States: A Moral Evaluation (Rome: Pontificalis Universitas Gregorianae, 1957), 56-57.

[4] Cate and Lloyd, 30-31, 156.

[5] Amy A. and Leon R. Kass, "Proposing Courtship" (First Things 96, October 1999: 32-41), 32.

[6] Mary Shivanandan, Crossing the Threshold of Love: A New Vision of Marriage in the Light of John Paul II's Anthropology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 178-180, 275-277.

[7] Shivanandan, 276.

[8] John Paul II, Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1997), 26, 32-34.

[9] John Paul II, 60.

[10] Ibid., 61.

[11] Ibid., 70, 356.

[12] Cate and Lloyd, 30-31.

[13] Mary Beth Bonacci, Real Love, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 90.

[14] Stack, 27.

[15] Ibid., 40.

[16] John Paul II, 49.

[17] Ibid., 35-37.

[18] Ibid., 86.

[19] Ibid., 47-48.

[20] Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, trans. H.T. Willetts, rev. ed. 1981 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 174-181. John Paul II, The Theology of the Body, 115-117.

[21] Wojtyla, 41.

[22] Ibid., 179.

[23] Ibid., 182-184.

[24] John Paul II, 70, 356.

[25] Ibid., 363-364.

[26] Bonacci, 243.

[27] John Paul II, 63.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid., 46, 56, 59.

[30] Cate and Lloyd, 28, 30.