Her Hand in Marriage: Biblical Courtship in the Modern World

"The modern dating system is bankrupt..."

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"...It does not train young people to form a relationship but rather to form a series of relationships, hardening themselves to all but the current one. Recreational dating encourages emotional attachments without covenantal fences and makes a joke of a father's authority. The disrespect children have for their fathers in this area is an echo of the disrespect fathers have for their own office."

The Fourth Book in the Family Series

In this book, Douglas Wilson argues that biblical courtship provides a wonderful freedom. It involves familial wisdom and godly protection. Grounded upon the involved authority of the father, courtship delights in its public connection to the lives of families. Sexual purity is a great inheritance for a newly married couple, and part of a father's job is to guarantee and protect that heritage.

This book is a part of Douglas Wilson's series of books on the family, which has helped many people trying to deal with the everyday messes that come with sinners trying to live under the same roof. This book on courtship does not offer so much a surefire method for good marriages as remind us of the scriptural principles governing romance, marriage, and the family.

"There are three things which are too wonderful for me, Yes, four which I do not understand: The way of an eagle in the air, The way of a serpent on a rock, The way of a ship in the midst of the sea, And the way of a man with a virgin" (Prov. 31:18-19)."

From the Introduction:

"Because our contemporary practice of recreational dating has failed so miserably, many Christians are hungry for alternative methods. 'Just tell us what to do!' In this arena, as elsewhere, the Christian life is approached as though it were a paint-by-numbers kit. But nowhere is this kind of 'connect the dots' thinking better calculated to bring disaster than in the realm of courtship. We are men and women with sons and daughters, not social engineers playing with interchangeable, interconnecting tinker toys. This simplistic but destructive mentality is revealed in questions like, 'How many times must a young man come over before the young girl’s father should allow him to sit next to her at the dinner table?' The author of this small book frankly confesses that the answer is none of his business, and that he doesn’t really care. Seek to understand the principle, and appropriate methods will follow." -From the Introduction