The history of courtship
How did we get from courting to copping off? TheSite.org finds out.
Courting
Back in the olden days it was different. A male suitor actually went a-wooing at the home of the woman he sought as his wife. He brought gifts, sat and listened to her play piano or sing, all under the watchful eye of other family members, usually her parents.
Women held the power over courtship. The mother would decide which men could call on her daughter, and later the daughter could invite men she had met at dinners and dances. After a time, the man would ask her father if he could marry her, and if agreed they would walk down the aisle together.
Dating
Dating began at the beginning of the 20th century, implemented by upper class women who were moving into academic and professional circles. They demanded the right to be able to dine out with a man and not damage their reputation. They also craved the freedom that going out on a date gave them, away from the prying eyes of their parents. They would sneak out to the dancehalls to meet who they wanted.
Lower class couples started to date rather than court for economical reasons - as people migrated from the countryside to the cities to work in factories rather than farms, they also had to cope with cramped living conditions or boarding houses, and without a parlour for the men to call to, going out was a more suitable option.
The shift from courting to dating also shifted the power in the relationships; as men were the ones who paid for the dates, they were the ones in control. Rather than women inviting men to call, men invited women out on dates. The whole etiquette had changed, and by the 1950s books told girls never to invite a man to her home, or elsewhere, as this would be breaking THE RULES.
Today
In the UK we don't really do dating anymore; instead we 'pull' or 'hook-up'. We tend to go out drinking/clubbing en masse where we'll pull another person within a couple of hours and then stumble somewhere, be it the toilet, the taxi or one of your beds, to shag or at least attempt it. Then we'll go out the next week and do it all over again. "I'm not interested in romance," says Katy. "I would rather meet someone who makes me laugh a lot and likes having fun than who likes going to dinner and buying flowers. It's so corny."
We may hit it off with our new lover and turn it into a relationship, even attempt the whole romantic dinner date thing as a follow up. "My boyfriend started out as a bit of a drunken pull in a club social and he ended up staying the night with me," says Meryn. "In the next two weeks we went out to the cinema, pub, and had a romantic meal in a restaurant."
The discarding of dates and courtship rituals has plenty to do with the decline of marriage today. Without the marriage at the end courtship feels meaningless, and if you know you'll be getting sex anyway why bother with anymore niceties than a poor chat up line and a couple of drinks?
But not everyone likes the way things have developed. "I believe strongly in romance and courtship," says Danny. "Relationships with meaning cannot, in my opinion, develop over such a short space of time."
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