Chapter 3 - Dating

Dating: A socially accepted construct where boy meets girl (or boy), boy and girl (or boy) either like each other or they don’t and they are free to explore something casual, serious or nothing at all with no strings attached.

Courtship- A backwards, old fashioned and outdated practice of only meeting with someone of the opposite sex in a romantic way if you intend to marry them. These meeting of course must happen with both parents permission and with a family approved chaperone present at all times to ensure no sneaky hanky panky would occur.

Of the two, which method do you think I grew up with?

If you answered courtship, ding ding ding, guess what, you answered correctly.

Let’s talk courting.

When I was 14 I was informed by our youth group that we would be holding a special meeting to talk about courting and dating.

I of course at the time was less than thrilled as I had my mind already set that I would never court anybody let alone think of marriage (unless of course we were talking about ‘Jim’ because let’s face it who wouldn’t want to marry that hunk). I mean why should I want a man when from what I could tell, all a man could do for me was hold me back.

Yet here we are, 14 years old and sitting next to my 15 year old best friend ‘Beth’ at a dating seminar.

Honestly, I can’t recall much of the information I was given at that seminar, but I can tell you the main points I remember.

Firstly, dating is “worldly” (Worldly being a term associated with sinful and the opposite of what we strove to be)

Secondly, Dating encourages young people to have sex before marriage - which if you read the previous chapter you would understand was a big no no

Thirdly, Courting is safe

Fourthly, Courting protects us from lust and temptation

Fifthly, in order to start a courtship you must be ready for marriage

And finally- Me, a 14 year old girl, was ready for marriage (as according to the questionnaire we completed)

Wow! What a roller coaster.

Maybe Jim and I had a chance still..

I want to spend some time breaking all of this down because to be perfectly honest, out of all the bullshit we were subjected to, this has potentially affected me the most.

To some degree it still affects me.

But to understand why it has had such a huge impact on my life we need to go further back.

Let’s go back to 2006.

Life at this point is generally pretty sweet. Sure we’ve had some hiccups on the way, but life is monotonous and cruises along in the same routine.

My brother (who is 11 year old Peta’s idol) is currently in a courtship with his then girlfriend - let’s just call her Barbara.

My brother ‘Ron’ and Barbara are the first couple in the church to trial the courtship method. Wow! What an honour. Or so we were told.

My father who was the assistant pastor was more than proud that his son and Barbara would be the exemplary Christian couple in the church and demonstrate the effectiveness of the ‘courtship method’.

Not to mention - their courtship had all the usual trimmings of sitting down with both members’ parents to discuss if the two were suitable for each other and to determine if both parties had intention to marry.

They did.

Just a tiny bit of pressure to put on two 18 year olds who simply found each other attractive.

So here we are, cruising along when all of a sudden something shifts.

All of a sudden I notice there is a lot of whispering going on.

A lot of private conversations and stern faces

A lot of crying can be heard and little 11 year old me starts to wonder what was happening.

That’s when it happens.

A family meeting is called.

Out of all my memories in the church I think this one saddens me the most.

Picture this - you’re 11 years old and called into a family meeting. You know something serious is going on but can’t figure out what it could possibly be.

You enter the lounge room and see your dad sitting down with a stern look on his face, your mum is next to him looking uncomfortable and teary and all of your siblings are sitting down looking nervous. You notice your brother has his head hung and his girlfriend is sitting next to him looking upset.

Your mind starts racing thinking about what could possibly be going on - have I done something bad? Is someone dying? (Again with the death preoccupation, sheesh), are any of my friends leaving the church? What could it be?

That’s when my dad starts talking. He says something has happened and he’s extremely upset and disappointed. He then goes on to state that my brother and his girlfriend has committed fornication (heavens forbid) and are getting married in one weeks time.

11 year old me is at this point somewhat confused because I still didn’t grasp the whole sex thing, but I knew that fornication was possibly the worst sin you could commit.

My dad then goes on to explain that because Ron and Barbara have done such an awful thing (paraphrasing here), their marriage must be conducted in secret. He also stated that not one of us girls -me and my sisters- or any of our extended family were allowed to attend the wedding because their shameful marriage is not something to be celebrated.

We were also informed that we could not discuss the wedding proceedings at all with anybody and instructed on what to say should someone ask about it.

My dad then asked Ron if he wanted to say anything.

I still vividly remember this scene - my big 19 year old brother crying and apologising to me and my sisters for not setting a good example.

My heart broke for him.

I remember crying a lot during that meeting. My tears however were not for the fact that my brother had done something bad, but rather for the fact that I hated seeing him ashamed. I hated that my big brother, my idol, was getting married and I wasn’t allowed to be a part of it.

I hated that my dad was so upset and angry with him.

It was a travesty to say the least.

So there you have it - the courtship method.

Force teenagers into serious relationships and prevent them from exploring any physical intimacy. If they’re too horny and this doesn’t work however there is always plan B - threaten to cut them off from the family unless they get married and publicly shame them to really get the message across.

My poor brother obviously fell into the plan B category.

He and Barbara were secretly married, my brother was only 19 years old at the time and told they must leave our family home to go and start their own family.

If they chose not to marry they would be indefinitely cut off from the family and not permitted to even talk with us.

The public shaming was also executed at a church meeting. The pastor announced that all the kids must leave the room (I was allowed to stay because I already knew what was going to be said) and then proceeded to state that Ron and Barbara were now married. He also remembered to say that they had fornicated and therefore their marriage was shameful, but the members can still congratulate them if they feel to.

And if all of this wasn’t enough, I recall another young couple started a courtship shortly after this. I remember hearing publicly on more than one occasion that this other couple was the first “successful” courtship in the church because they managed to keep their hands to themselves. Or at least didn’t get caught.

Fuck this memory makes me angry.

Quite frankly, It makes me feel like hitting the shit out of a boxing bag.

And before you start to think that I’m overreacting, I’ll just inform you that I haven’t even gotten to the best (or worst?) part of this story.

Are you ready for a plot twist?

Because here we go.

While the pastor was in the background telling my dad how to deal with the Ron and Barbara situation, he himself was carrying a big dirty secret.

Let’s fast forward 2 years.

I’m 13 years old at this point.

My dad asks me and my 15 year old sister to come and sit down because he wants to talk to us about something.

He starts by saying that we are allowed to form our own opinions on what he wants to tell us but that we should consult the bible to back up our opinions.

That’s when I’m hit with it.

A piece of information that still rattles me.

Cue dramatic music.

Buh buh buh drum roll please!

The pastor has two wives.

Hang on a minute!! Two wives?!

So that lady that I was told was adopted into the family was actually his second wife? And that’s okay?

I think if 13 year old me swore I would’ve said something like “what the actual fuck”.

Let’s time travel back to 1999.

The pastor is in his prime. His church is flourishing and growing and he is finally starting to see some results from his labour. His empire is growing - as is his ego - and life is good for him. So far he has managed to build his mansion from his tithes money, he has a loyal wife and kids and he has total control of his church. Just the way he likes it.

At this point he has his right hand man (my dad) essentially running the church, and he can sit back and relax and enjoy the generous donations of his loyal flock.

Life is good.

But.

There is always a but.

He’s still a man, and men have urges.

Men sometimes have uncontrollable urges (at least that’s what I was told) and he is not immune to the bite of the love bug. Or the lust bug in this case.

Ever since he’d laid eyes on, let just call her Jezebel, he’d felt that urge. That hunger for something you know you shouldn’t eat. He was desperate for a taste of that forbidden fruit and he had to find a way to take a bite.

It started out seemingly innocent. A one-on-one counselling session. A late night bible study here or there. A hand on her back while she was being prayed for.

Innocent.

Or sinister?

I’ll let you be the judge.

There had been some rumours flying around about Pastor and Jezebel (people finding them alone together in all hours of the night) and he had to find a way to squash them before they got out of hand.

Not to mention that we are in 1999 and the world will be ending next year (I’ll talk about this more later).

No, the desire is too strong, and he’d been starving himself long enough.

So, he started doing his research.

How can he find away to fuck his mistress and keep his empire intact?

Suddenly, a light bulb goes off.

He will marry her.

He will marry her and find a way to present it as biblically acceptable.

He will also get the support of his closest supporters and make them feel special for knowing his secret.

Yes, he will tell his inner circle that God has given him a clear order- he must take Jezebel as his second wife, and he is not permitted to tell anyone about it unless they specifically ask him.

He is only allowed to tell people who can handle the weight of this order and who he truly trusts.

At least that’s the dribble he fed my dad.

And my dad believed him.

So blinded was he by his love and respect for him that he couldn’t see the manipulation. At least not yet anyway.

The presentation was so convincing, he’d found ample amount of evidence in the bible to back up his reasonings and if anything didn’t align he could easily twist it into something believable.

He put on his sad grave face while he spoke about what he must do, to further portray what a burden it was to have to marry Jezebel.

He came up with some mysogynistic bullshit about how women have a need to be married because they can’t support themselves and this poor woman had remained single for so long and deserved a husband. What a gallant thing to do - marry the unmarryable woman. Forget the fact that you already have a wife and three kids at home depending on you.

And just for the cherry on top - to make it seem legitimate- you will find a way to conduct your own wedding ceremony. You are a marriage celebrant after all, so it shouldn’t be hard to convince your supporters that it’s legit.

Never mind that’s it’s actually illegal in this country.

So it was done.

They were “married” in a real fucking weird ceremony.

According to my dad (who attended the ceremony) it was a very bizarre and uncomfortable experience. Exactly what you would expect from a polygamist cult. Sorry, “polagyNist”’because polygaMy refers to either men or women having multiple spouses and obviously women were not allowed to have multiple husbands. So Polygany it was - men being allowed to have multiple wives and women being forced to put up with it.

Now before I get carried away on my feminist rant, let me tell you about the wedding ceremony.

Allegedly, there were only a handful of people present. The pastor’s first wife walked the soon to be second wife down the aisle and they each carried a candle. At some point during the ceremony the first wife took the flame from the pastor’s candle and lit Jezebel’s candle. A symbol that she graced the new union of this woman to her husband.

That’s some pretty culty vibes right there.

And just when you thought this couldn’t get worse, the pastor reported that his first wife helped get the second wife “ready” for the wedding night.

Read into that as you will.

So the happy couple were “wed” (although not legally because a celebrant can’t marry themselves) and the entire family went on a honeymoon together.

Everything has all gone according to plan.

Pastor has managed to keep his empire and have his bit of sugar on the side.

Everything is set up for year 2000 where he can have his harem when the world ends.

Jezebel moves into the mansion in a downstairs room and the new “happy” family would maintain the lie that she just felt like “one of the family” when people asked why she had their surname.

It was the perfect play and he’d won. Check mate.