Essay On Rite Of Passage

A rite of passage is a ceremony and marks the transition from one phase of life to another such as childbirth, transition from adolescence to adulthood, courtship and marriage, parenthood, divorce, old age and death (Crapo, 2013). There are many rite of passages in our lives if we choose to mark and celebrate them. Let’s discuss courtship.

Cultures handle courtship and mate selection in many different ways. In the United States, Courtship has always been placed at one end of a continuum, with a permanent partnership (traditionally marriage) as the ultimate goal. The earlier forms of courtship, leading men and women to the altar, understood these deeper truths about human sexuality, marriage, and the higher possibilities for human life. Courtship provided rituals of growing up, for making clear the meaning of one's own human sexual nature, and for entering into the ceremonial and customary world of ritual and sanctification (Kass, 1997). Courtship downplayed the dating game where each breakup left you with verbal and bodily scares taking out of your heart, mind, body and soul. The practices of today's men and women do not accomplish these purposes, and they and their marriages, when they get around to them, are weaker as a result. For instance, the United States tops the chart in terms of divorce rates with an
Early adulthood focus is on good education and full-time entry employment which increases the likelihood of courtship. Successful completion of higher education and entry into full-time or white-collar employment has a long-lasting influences on courtship and marriage prospects (Ishida, 2013). As compared to the United States, the divorce rates in Japan are about half than US divorce rate. Could this be due to a stronger emphasis place on the courtship rite of passage? Further study and analysis would need to be accomplished to determine