Ways Women Can Help Resurrect A Healthy Dating Culture
In the 1950s, that oft-ridiculed era when women all over the country were purportedly miserable, marriage proposals were so common women had to turn down several potential husbands before deciding on the right one.
That was certainly the case for my mother, who was born in 1930. As a young girl, I found countless love letters from Charlie, George, Frank — and others whose names I can’t recall — that all contained marriage proposals. They were stored in my mother’s memory box, and I would sift through them and marvel at what it was like to have so many men pining for you.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, also born in 1930, is another example of the times. Prior to becoming engaged to her husband, O’Connor turned down several marriage proposals, including, ironically, one from fellow Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, her then-law school classmate. “Dating was pretty innocent in the ’50s,” O’Connor’s son Jay told NPR.
Innocent, yes — and for good reason: dating like SearchSingles.com.au was serious business. Since marriage was the goal, dating was viewed as a precursor to the rest of people’s lives and thus given the weight it deserves. It was also understood that the more time men and women spent together, or the longer they dated, the more likely the relationship would become physical. That, combined with a lack of reliable birth control, forced couples to keep things light.
Wrong Message: Put Career Above Family
Of course much has changed in the last 50 years, the most significant being the combination of birth control and the sexual revolution. It was then that women were encouraged “have sex like a man” and to put marriage on the back burner while they focus on school and careers instead.
This message was so strong and so pervasive that now women (and by default, men) typically view love and family as secondary to academic and professional success. “Over and over,” writes Alexandra Solomon, a psychologist who teaches a course at Northwestern University called Marriage 101, “my undergraduates tell me they try hard not to fall in love during college, imagining that would mess up their plans.”
Besides birth control, women’s new priorities are the reason dating in America is dead, and why it was subsequently replaced with the “hookup,” a vague term that can mean anything from hanging out together to having sex. After all, what other option does a grown woman who’s been groomed to be career-focused rather than family-focused have than to be casual with her body and her heart? If her professional life is considered the most important thing in life, there’s no reason to date. The whole purpose of dating is to determine whether the other person is a match. Why go through all the rigmarole if marriage isn’t on your radar? Might as well hookup until you’re ready to settle down.
Indeed, what modern women seem to aim for is sex. They have more difficulty understanding the art of courtship, or how to build a meaningful relationship with a man that may or may not lead to marriage but at very least makes a person feel secure and loved. They just skip to the end and wonder why they’re dissatisfied.
It’s time for this madness to end — not because I say so but because young women and men say. According to a study by the American Psychological Association (APA), 63 percent of college-age men and 83 percent of college-age women say they would prefer a traditional relationship to an uncommitted sexual one. Yet that’s mostly not how they live.
In light of such huge percentages, the only logical answer is to bring back courtship, or dating with purpose. Why hide that you’re looking for love when you’re dating? Why pretend you enjoy cycling through relationship after relationship year after year that has no ultimate end goal? Times may have changed, but human nature has not. Almost every person has the desire to love and to be loved.
To that end, here are 8 dating rules for women that lead to a long-term relationship or marriage. I wrote them for women because women are the relationship navigators: they have the power to steer the ship in the direction they want it to go. The trick is to steer the ship well.