Until recently, I didn’t know how to articulate this. Thank you mom for unwittingly putting this concept into words for me about a month ago. If one ever hangs out with my family much, especially over dinner, you will hear about an eight week course, specifically when we talk about prospective guys dating the Menter girls (My sisters). The girls, of course, keep claiming that they have an equivalent for prospective sisters-in-law, no doubt postulating that it would take much less than eight weeks to cover everything that these women must know about the family (due to the inate inability of guys to multitask). One sister voices anxt or even resentment over the prospect of such courses, but perhaps it is because she doesn’t quite understand the concept behind these courses. It is not to prolong the dating process or an example of brothers not trusting their sisters to make healthy decisions or even merely a chance to get to know them, as would seem obvious.
So then, what is their purpose? It is, in a word, protection. I believe that a brother who has his sister’s best interests at heart can help in gauging a man’s intentions and do it in a much quicker fashion than his sister. No, I’m not just being sexist, there is this thing called emotions that often cloud judgment and it is widely accepted that women are more succeptible to this than men. Have you ever noticed that the more people are in on a secret the harder it is to keep? Or the more people you lie to the easier it is to be caught in it? (I only know this from observation, not experience. <~_~> In just this way is genuineness and integrity discovered.
My mom asked me one sunday morning what was the point behind the “eight week course” thing we talk about all the time. it appeared to me that she thought it was a rhetorical question so I said my piece and waited for her response. She said that guys learn this and how to treat a lady from the actions of their father towards their mother. When a father protects his wife, even from his kids, and treats her like a queen, the sons emulate this and are shown how to treat women. As the saying goes, “you can tell how a man will treat his wife by looking at how he treats his mom”. Furthermore, you might also be able to tell how a man treats his mom by looking at how his father treats his mother.
Needless to say, the eight week course is as much for the brothers’ benefit as it is the sister’s or her beau’s. The idea is not that there is an eight week course with classroom and appointed time etc, as much as it is our way of articulating that we care about and want to take interest in who our sisters date. As such, we want to get to know the prospective brother-in-law, whether it be in a crash course of varying lengths or simply living life with him alongside our sisters. I find that a reciprocal eight week course misses the protection parameters of these courses. However, I would expect all my siblings to befriend any woman that I become seriously attached to. Also, I would expect to be forced to enroll in such a course taught by a brother of that woman.
JA Menter 3
I watched a good movie last night.
