Dating history

The beginning of the dating history is relatively close to our times. Nowadays, the concept of dating is so frequently used that many people might think dating happened from the beginning of the mankind. But the truth is that dating is an invention of the 20th century.

Before dating, so before the 20th century, the society knew only about courtship. Until 1830 the courtship was a way of encouraging marriage. There are plenty of examples of harassed bachelors and most of the times being single was associated with being lazy. Love was never a priority, but something that developed after the marriage, not before. The sexual passion, or worse, the premarital pregnancy, were clear signs of weakness.

But in time, the courtship became more formalized and started to focus on the idea of romantic love. Love became an acceptable basis for marriage and the courtship began to be linked to a personal and not a family matter. Many times the suitors’ love was tested and the idea of marriage and making a home were strongly connected.

In the beginning of the 20th century, the romantic love became even more romantic and the courtship became increasingly formal. The young man and woman had to be formally introduced before speaking to each other and most of the times the courting activities were done in the girl's home. With the growing cities attracting more young people, the working-class youth started courting in public. Young couples started going out, but ironically, they saw that this brought them less privacy and time to get to know one another. But in time the sexual expression in courtship began to increase.

After 1920 dating meant, as it means today, an informal male-female interaction with no specific commitment. No rules imposed by the community, but by the peer- group. Along with the emancipation of women, dating started to become an aspect of the culture, but also a fact connected to the need for money, because going out meant spending money. The most popular dating activities were dancing and movies.

Slowly, dating and courtship for marriage split in the public conscience. Dating became focused on success and increasing one's popularity and courtship meant finding a mate. But men started to spend more money and they begin to claim something in return: premarital intercourse.

In the early 1950s, dating started to begin earlier, in the junior high school and going steady became popular, bringing new rituals, the exchange of telephone calls and dates each week, together with a greater sexual intimacy. The parental reaction to going steady was negative. In the 1980s the resurgence of youth culture and the generation gap encouraged young people to define themselves as different from their parents, fact that increased the liberal view of sexuality and sexual behavior. Today dating is frequently followed by cohabitation and almost half of the young people live together at some point before the age of 30.

Dating history

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