Courtship rituals …

Christian Century, Dec 12, 2001

WHY IS IT necessary to debunk "the ritual that once shaped how women and men related"? ("Courting confusion," Aug. 15-22). Quoting further, the dissolution of older rituals "was no doubt a necessary step toward egalitarian relationship." I have passed my 79th birthday, but I was once as dumb as anyone at "channeling and reflecting on erotic desires."

I didn't discover the "socially prescribed forms of conduct" until after I had broken or bent them. I entered college in 1938, but the girl that I had met in 1937 consumed all my thinking. I reasoned that I must get a job. I needed to be married to her. Here's where that umbrella called "tradition" comes in: Responsibility must be awakened; it must be breathed. It must be around you. Marriage means: Get a job. It wasn't easy. But we were married 53 years until my wife's death in 1994.

"The old courtship rituals cannot and should not be retrieved." Did I miss something?

Richard R. Hively
Charlottesville, Va.