Times Have Changed and the Way we Date and Get to Know a Lover Has Too
Once upon a time in America before dating became mating, there was courtship. When it came to coupling, wooing was the name of the game. “Old-fashioned” was in fashion. First dates were formal. Pursuit had a purpose. From holding hands to asking for her hand, courtship took place with the permission, and under the watchful eye of parents. Current courtship behavior may take a few pages from the classical courtship playbook of yesterday now and then, but overall it is an entirely different game and the way people go about the act of modern courtship is very new and different indeed.
Current Courtship Behavior Trends In a Modern World
Gone are the days of going steady, pining and betrothal. Courtship behavior today has seemingly been replaced by things like “Facebooking,” dating around and moving in. Couples simply do not follow the same expected path they once did. While traditional courtship began to change in the 1960s as feminism was on the rise, the radical changes to courtship behavior as we know it today did not come until much later with the emergence of dating as a business. Traditional courtship went out the window and concepts like matchmaking websites, speed dating, lunch date companies, MySpace and Facebook came through the front door. For better or for worse, in mainstream America, traditional courtship has fallen to the wayside to make way for a much more casual and aimless style of dating. Todays courtship became a mutual pursuit between men and women and instead of following a traditional path to marriage, dating became more of a contact sport, and courting became a pastime. The desired destination is still to find a life-long partner; it’s just that the directions have changed. As a commonly used Facebook relationship status says “it’s complicated.”
Wait For Marriage, Not For Sex
Modern courtship behavior finds couples waiting until they are older to get married. Instead of courting as teens and marrying in their early 20s, many couples are choosing to date and work their way through their 20s only to settle down with a partner in their 30s. Could this be a reflection of the higher rates of sex before marriage? Some statistics show that as many as 95% of people have sex before marriage. Surely this statistic shows a shift in courtship behavior. Even those who do couple up early, tend to establish their careers and sometimes even their families before actually getting married.
Courtship To Cohabitation
Today, the majority of couples who get married today live together first. Between 1990 and 2007 the number of cohabitating couples jumped 88%.What was once considered living in sin has become so commonplace that it is now simply considered living. Couples move in together for a variety of reasons – to save on rent, because it’s convenient and ‘we spend all our time together anyway,’ because they aren’t quite ready for the commitment of marriage, because their leases are up at the same time, because it seems like the next logical step. With divorce rates hovering at around 50% many couples choose to live together as a test drive to make sure their partner is marriage material. On the other hand, for some, the grim outlook of marriage leaves them unwilling to take that plunge and prefer to live together as a partnership without the proverbial ‘piece of paper’ making it official.
