Maybe you've heard of the Duggars. They're the Arkansas family that totals 20 people: parents Jim Bob and Michelle and their 18 children, ranging in age from newborn to 20 and all with "J" names.

Clearly, this family is not normal by today's standards, which is obvious to the world at large now that their world has been broadcast in a TLC reality series. In addition to their size, they also have very conservative Christian values including some against dating as it's typically done. Their oldest son, Joshua, and his wife, Anna, met at a conference for homeschoolers and had what they call a courtship, meaning that marriage was the intention of their two-year relationship from the beginning. Prayer and their families played a huge role in the process, and the couple were never alone together or did more than hold hands until their wedding day.

Courtship, of course, isn't a new idea, and it seems to have regained some following among Christians in recent years. Still, it definitely isn't the norm, nor is it what my dating experience has been. But as extreme as it might seem, I can see the value in it, especially in a world where relationships are so often thrown away and broken hearts are treated like rites of passage as normal a part of growing up as getting your driver's license or going to college.

I think the only reason this particular kind of pain is seen as so inevitable, however, is that most of the world approaches romantic relationships in a way that makes it so. We're taught by our culture that it's normal and right to give yourself completely, emotionally and otherwise, to someone who hasn't made a complete commitment to you basically, to try out a person for marriage (or maybe just for fun) and then to leave (or be left) if things, for whatever reason, just don't seem to be working. Often, to marry someone without having this kind of pseudo-marriage relationship first actually is seen as irresponsible like buying a car without test driving it. But people aren't cars, and treating them like they are can be wounding.

That's why I see wisdom in approaches like the Duggars'. They're restrictive by today's standards, but in that restriction, I see freedom: freedom from the threat of disease or unwed pregnancy and maybe even from the pain that can come with giving your heart completely to someone who hasn't vowed to value it forever.

Not that I'm assuming the courtship approach always ends in marriage or even that it's a realistic approach for me, as someone in my mid-20s living on my own rather than a teenager living with my parents. But maybe the principles behind it ones of restraint and of not treating relationships recklessly are applicable even in lives like mine that don't look much like the Duggars'.