Dating Articles
Dating and Courtship History
Dating and courtship traces their roots as far back as man have been on this earth. Whether you believe in the big bang theory or the Bible, evidence of men and women dating and being together can be found everywhere you look. While we may not know everything there is to know about the first humans, it has been speculated that many of the first couples came together not by choice but by capture. Tribes where women were scarce went raiding other villages for brides, taking them captive and making the women their own. Of course, this also started plenty of battles and war and the new couple would have to go into hiding to avoid being discovered. Hence the practice of the honeymoon was born. Capture eventually led to arranged marriages.
Chivalry was practiced in the medieval times and many knights wanted to win the hand of their fair lady. Love became important as many young men and women bucked against the practice of arranged marriages, but it was not the deciding factor as it is today. Men would sing to their prospective brides, read them flowery poetry, and where their favours in combat. Chastity, honour and virtue were held in high regard through the ages.
Dating practices in the Colonial United States were brought over from England when the first settlers arrived in the new country. Most of the population was involved in building homes, farming the land, and simply just trying to survive. Parents no longer took the time to find a suitable husband for their daughters and arranging a marriage. Instead, they began to focus on getting their daughters married as soon as possible so that the couple could begin their own family and bring more people into the town to help with the ever increasing workload. For this reason, young, unmarried men were also pestered to find a wife. A suitable husband was one who care for and support his wife and family. Couples were actually given a little more freedom to court and the length of the courtship was decreased because of the needs of the time.
Love at this point was not a consideration when a couple was courting. It was believed that love would develop between the couple as time went on. Parents also still had a hand in whole process, prohibiting their sons from leaving the family home due to labour issues or withholding inheritance until the timing for the marriage was deemed right. Most coupled knew each other from town activities, such as church, town picnics, and other gatherings. While couples in Colonial times still had ample opportunity to be alone, most refrained from sexual activities until after marriage. That doesn’t mean premarital sex didn’t happen. On the contrary, it did, rising to 30% during the 1770s. Social pressure increased and the number dropped dramatically because it was ‘impure’.
By 1830, the roles between men and women began to change. Couple married less for economic support and more for what authority the members of the relationship could undertake. It was at this time that gender roles came to the forefront of society, and marrying for love was becoming less a childish notion as many men and women looked for partners who were open, sincere, loyal, and, especially for the women, able to care for her both emotionally and financially. Men were the authority in the family, especially when it came to things outside the home and business matters, for in the 1800s most men still ran their own businesses or cultivated their own land. Women gained more authority over the home and the children, becoming true ‘domestic goddesses’, and as those duties were taught to and passed down to their daughters, boys and girls began to see less and less of each other in social settings, thus bringing about the need for formal courting to once again begin. It is interesting to note that social status and the varying levels of wealth found during this time in America did not play a part in the two roles the man and woman played in the family.
It was during this time that tradition of the bride wearing a veil and gown came into practice. It was a symbol of purity and with courting being so structured at the time, most brides were definitely pure when they wed. If they weren’t, it was a secret kept between themselves and their future spouse. Expressions of love and affection, which included chaste kisses, were frowned upon in public, but behind closed doors, couples were probably very passionate. Women who were spoken for received engagement rings upon the approval of their parents, which eventually led to marriage.
As the country changed and men and women were separated more and more at school, work, and home, dating began to change. In the beginning of the 1900s, the idea that a woman’s purity needed to be kept intact brought on the need for couples to have chaperones while they were together. If the chaperone wasn’t in the same room, they would usually be very close by where they could listen to the conversation and ensure that nothing naughty was going on.
How formal did dating become in the early 1900s? Men and women were formally introduced by a mutual acquaintance, usually a friend of the parent’s, and then the mother of the woman would ask the young man to come call on her daughter. This usually consisted of tea with the young man and woman and her mother. Romantic love was a large part of marriage at this time and is the basis of the way men and women still court or date today. Because many couples of the lower and middle class could not entertain the suitor at home due to the size of their home, they dated outside and in public. Wealthy couples usually ‘dated’ by partaking of activities around the woman’s home, although they also began to date outside the home, starting the true tradition as we know it today. Sex during this time was actually not looked down upon as long as the young woman was having premarital sex with the man she intended on marrying.
These practices of the early 1900s have lasted well into today. Although most young people are more open about their dating, many things found in the past still hold true. For example, most young women still wait for the man to ask her out, parents still insist on meeting a young woman’s date, and break-up’s are still emotionally draining on everyone involved.