#3 - Sweet 16 and Never Dated

“My beloved young people, you should be serious-minded. Life is not wholly for fun and frolic. It is a most serious business. You will do well to grow up as children, associating with both girls and boys for those first years. When you get in the teenage years, your social associations should still be general acquaintance with both boys and girls. Any dating or pairing off in social contacts should be postponed until at least the age of 16 or older, and even then there should be much judgment used in selections and in the seriousness.

“Young people should still limit the close contacts for several years, since the boy will be going on his mission when he is 19 years old. There should be limited contacts and certainly no approach to the intimate relationships involving sex. There must never be any sex of any kind prior to marriage”

“Marriage—The Proper Way,” New Era, Feb. 1976, p. 5

Links:
Group Acivities: A Basis for Wise Dating
Idea List: The Do's of Dating

Spencer W. Kimball:
“Every boy should have been saving money for his mission and be free from any and all entanglements so he will be worthy. When he is returned from his mission … , he should feel free to begin to get acquainted and to date. When he has found the right young woman, there should be a proper temple marriage. One can have all the blessings if he is in control and takes the experiences in proper turn: first some limited, social, get-acquainted contacts, then his mission, then his courting, then his temple marriage and his schooling and his family, then his life’s work. In any other sequence he could run into difficulty”
Spencer W. Kimball, “Marriage—The Proper Way,” p. 5

Hugh W. Pinnock:
"Choose your friends carefully. Associate with young men and young women who are straight and who will assist you to be responsible. Help your friends decide to go on missions, to attend Church meetings, and to enjoy righteous activities. You who are sixteen and older and are dating, make sure the girls you date are just as good when you return them to their homes as when you picked them up."
Hugh W. Pinnock, “Your Personal Checklist for a Successful Eternal Flight,” Ensign, Nov 1993, 40

George P. Lee:
“Every young man and young woman should pray before going out on a date.”
George P. Lee, “Staying Unspotted from the World,” Ensign, May 1978, 27