If you are not giving your girlfriend a smooch now and then, the odds are pretty high you aren’t going to marry her, in which case both of you are wasting your time.  First and last relationship advice from me.
Stupid Puritan Tricks
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
And don’t you dare dance, either!
How on earth would you know this is the girl (or this is the boy) without a kiss?
One of the most vivid and enduring experiences I have ever had (mentally replayed often even more now that she’s no longer on earth) is that first kiss with my wife of 47 years. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Some people need to get a life.
Kissing, dancing, whitewater rafting – whatever you do together while dating can be extremely dangerous to a marriage.
The issue is not so much moral as prudential. These exciting things are not generally evil in themselves, but are dangerous because they are exciting. The very real danger is when men and women confuse excitement (enjoyment) with love (sacrifice). There is plenty of evidence that our society can no longer tell the difference between excitement and love.
I believe this confusion is what leads to epidemic divorce among Catholics and others. When the excitement is diluted by the inevitable responsibilities of life, how can commitment compete with courtship? In terms of what is more enjoyable, courtship has the edge. It is like comparing a work week to a vacation week. Both are necessary, but vacation wins out for enjoyability.
Our western culture has ruled that enjoyment is the paramount virtue. However, marriage cannot be all excitement any more than life can be all vacation. Thus the epidemic of abandoned marriages, and also marriages resented by the spouses because it lacks the (unsustainable) excitement of courtship. This should not be taken as a recommendation against marriage. Instead it is an exhortation to understand that marriage performs work in ways that courtship does not. It is more important and fruitful than courtship in the same way that either earning and building involved in work is more significant than the pleasure of vacation. In conversation, we ask what somebody does for a living long before we ask where they go on vacation. There is a reason for this. We understand that what a person is willing to work at is more defining than what they do for enjoyment.
So dance, and kiss, but don’t fall into the dangerous trap of thinking marriage to be mostly dancing and kissing!
On the other hand, Puritans did originate bundling which probably insured continued growth of the colony.
Many a Miss would not be a Mrs.
If wine hadn’t added a spark to her kisses. 🙂
Kissing as affection seals the relationship.
Well, I can recall kisses in my hormonal youth that were certainly occasions of sin. How could they not be?
Here’s some shorts by that YouTube Catholic guy who has the saintly receipts on this debate:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0GMnbxr1llw?feature=share
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OFszQwL2E4k?feature=share
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SkivM8q5An4?feature=share