US Bad Dating Culture

[MrMan]

The US gets much of it's culture from England, historically at least. The bride's father pays for the wedding. We use the same language. Our legal system was adapted from theirs. We inherited a lot of it. (I say 'we' because I am from the USA.)

I have occasionally seen movies (not read all the books) from Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. Jane Austen wrote around 1800s. Back then, marriages among middle and higher social classes were often decided upon based on family importance and monetary issues. Her books promoted the idea of marrying for love. The culture was probably shifting on this, and I think her writings were probably influential in the shift.

In her novels, how did people meet and court? Young singles would be invited to go to someone's house on Sunday afternoon. The girls would demonstrate their education by playing the piano (forte). I believe they were also taught to knit and do art. These were the girls in 'society', and even the poorer ones may have had a maid. There were also balls, where a host would open a large home and the young single men would ask women for dances. Dances in the movies were rather complicated.

The Charles Dickens novel turned into a film was decades later, but also involved young men and women gathering in someone's home listening to singing and piano and talking a bit.

The young men and women have to be introduced to speak to one another if they are acting within social norms. They are not to be alone or else it ruins a woman's reputation. Someone else must be present as a chaperone. Girls can come out in society in their teenage years.

Regarding the ethics of dating, if a man is honorable and he notices one of the girls develops an 'attachment' to him, that is an ethical consideration as to whether he should marry her. Not leading a girl own and hurting her feelings is also an ethical consideration. But they do not seem to marry just because of a one-sided attachment.

Finally, a man decides he likes a woman, declares his love and intentions to marry to her. Then he speaks with her father to get permission. If the father consents, they marry.

This was a pretty good system. It could be a bit rigid and also a bit snobby-- in the movies. But the courtship culture was focused on marriage. It was not designed so that a woman could easily lose her virginity. Virginity was protected and respected. Courtship was very marriage focused. Men and women, if they were following social norms, were looking for life-long marriage partners. They had to get to know each other around other people being with them, but this deterred sleeping around.

Also, the girls tended to be young and the men a bit older, and men were in charge and generally had more say over wealth since they got the estates and titles and such if they were in line. So if they married a naive teenage girl, they could get them at an age when the girls might be moldable to the man's expectations. Wives were expected to obey and submit to their husbands in this era. And divorce as taboo. The combination of those last two things could help set expectations that could minimize a lot of strife in marriages.

The system was arranged in such a way that young people could actually find partners. The girls want to be married and were excited to find a potential partner.

Compare this to the US now. Dating is not as marriage focused. Some people date with honorable intentions looking to marry. But some people date for entertainment. And because sexual immorality has become accepted, dating becomes an institution in which it occurs. Men, having their temporary thirst quenched, may be less likely to push toward marriage. Then many of the women get diseases or get pregnant out of wedlock. Dating can be an end in itself, also, as some date for entertainment. But dating is expensive, so younger people just 'hang out', the men not really expressing romantic intentions, necessarily. It could be a friend thing. But it's cheaper to do some no-cost activity and hang out together.

Dating also becomes an institution in which fornication occurs. Women should be saving themselves for marriage. It should be less desirable in a man's mind to marry a 'second hand woman' than a virgin, at least if she is dishonorably second-hand---on purpose and not a widow. Men should wait until marriage. There is less incentive for women to marry if they can get their emotional needs met by a long-term 'boyfriend.' I read the boyfriend was basically invented in the early 20th century and was promoted by women's magazines, and became the husband replacement and eventually for a lot of women a full-fledged sexual partner. And if men can get sex through dating, there is less incentive to marry. There is research to show that women who've slept with men other than their husbands are more likely to experience 'marital disruption.' Some people think dating a lot gives them a better idea of what to look for in a partner and potentially a better marriage. Especially if they are sleeping around, their thinking is wrong. You can learn the traits of a good partner, lean on the experience of parents or others who are older and wiser, and get married. Mental maturity is a good thing if a woman has a good mindset, but a young, flexible-minded, moldable, girl has advantages as a wife, also. She can have good traits but not be the perfect wife yet when you marry her. Flexibility can help her become a good wife under a man's direction if he knows what a good wife should be like.

I lived in Indonesia where they do have dating, but the cultural expectations are marriage-focused. The girls tend to get married off at around 23. If they graduate college, then they tend to get married not long thereafter. It seems some kind of dating-- sometimes where the young man and woman go places together calling themselves 'friends' until one proposes marriage-- is how most of the city ones I met got married. But I know some Indonesians got a little help from parents. In some people-groups certain cousins are taboo to marry (e.g. same family name) and some are allowed, and they will match up unmarried cousins with other relatives.

One of my wife's cousins was married to this other cousin, not too close of a cousin, I think. I'd seen her around. She was probably five years older than he was, and still unwed. She was thin and not bad looking, too. But she hadn't married. I remembered a Jeff Foxworthy family-reunion-to-meet-women redneck joke and asked my young male cousin-in-law to tell me his love story with his wife. Did he see her at a family get together and fall in love. He said in Indonesian, "Don't be like that older brother. It's not like that." He told me this was something they decided to do that brings the families closer together, or something along those lines. It was odd to me as an American that a man wouldn't say he loved his wife, or at least just be quiet on that point instead of implying that was not the case. But talk of 'falling in love' was probably embarrassing for him. I was kind of giving him a little bit of a hard time with the question.

I lived in Korea, and at least at the time in the mid-1990's, my understanding is that they get a lot of social 'help' finding someone and getting married. At the time, boys and girls went to separate schools from age 7 to the end of high school. Many of them went to college (my students generally were that type.) In college, there were the senior male students who had studied two years, gone into the military, and come back to finish up. A student born in the next Chinese year or later was your 'senior'. 'Friends' could be the exact same age. Younger people were 'juniors.' So when freshmen came to school, their 'seniors' would set them up with other students on blind dates called in English 'meetings.'

So a Freshman, his 'senior', and a girl meet somewhere for coffee or whatever. If they like each other, they date. If not, they try to get other 'meetings' set up. They can go on a few a week until they find a mutual match. If that works out long term, they may end up married.

If you don't marry in college, I suppose there may be social network to set you up on a date. But if you get older as a Korean, then family gets involved or you hire a matchmaker. There a sort of exaggerated joke, that probably had some truth to it about your aunt or grandma taking your picture around and showing it to other aunts or grandmas, discussing these things at bus stops. I think the meeting at a bus stop part was the joke. They do that, but probably with people in their social network. "I have this wonderful niece. She is so beautiful. And she graduated from Seoul National University. She is single" "Oh really! Wow. My grandson graduated from there two years ago." That might get back to the parents and turn into a blind date.

I heard that once mom and dad were involved, these things moved quickly toward marriage. It became high stakes. So a 'meeting' mom and dad set up is a meeting to basically consider arranged marriage. After a relatively few meetings, things could start advancing toward marriage. Koreans try to match up people based on status and education and various other things.

I knew a Korean woman with a PhD. I wondered if she had educated herself out of the dating market. A man or his parents might want a woman on the same level or just below social status or income wise. Her father's boss's son had a masters degree and apparently a prestigious business job and they were talking about matching them up.

So if the parent like you, and you aren't outgoing enough or even good-looking enough to get a girlfriend or a wife, her parents may say, "What you mean he not good looking? He looks like So-Te-Ji... You never seen that singer without the mask? Me neither, but they have the same eyes? Looks are not important. He works hard, has a good job, and has a nice family, and he will treat you well."

In the US, if you aren't suave and confident enough to start a relationship with a girl you are in trouble, unless you are just so attractive to a girl and she's forward enough to ask you out. Blind dates? Some people feel uncomfortable being set up, or they feel like others will think them to be losers. The online blind dating seems more common, but it doesn't seem to work. Girls want the best-looking guys, but the personality and attention aspect of attracting them doesn't work, so men's profiles just sit there online, or they interact with girls who are there to get affirmation from men in the form of messages and likes.