Many people are open to both short-term and long-term connections in the dating world. Despite what you may read about hookup culture and dating fatigue, many singles are still interested — and in some cases, only interested — in dating for marriage.
Courting is a term often associated with traditional dating for marriage. But no matter what your romantic goals are, courtship can and should be a part of your relationships.
Courtship is the time that a potential couple spends deciding whether to pursue a romantic relationship.
The courting process can include romantic dates and kind gestures that express care for a partner, whether before a relationship begins or once they’re in it.
The practice of courtship has taken many forms throughout history. I’ll walk you through the different iterations of courtship and how it functions today.
Historical Context
When talking about courting in the historical sense, it means the brief time before a couple would marry. Different cultures had different traditions associated with courtship, but it was usually more about finalizing a marriage than establishing romantic love.
Evolution of Chivalry in Ancient Civilizations
In most ancient societies, the courtship process was primarily performed between a male suitor and the father of a woman.
In Greece, the young man would present gifts or perform skills for the father, in the hopes of impressing him. If the father chose a husband for his daughter, they would marry; the daughter’s consent was considered irrelevant.
Still, people did value romantic love, though it was often outside of marriage. In ancient Egypt, early love poems — many about the poet’s wife — suggest that romantic love within future and present marriages was valued by many.
Courtship in Medieval Europe
In Medieval Europe, the Church heavily determined sexual and romantic morality for the masses. Sex was expected to take place within a marriage, and even when a couple was married, they were expected to follow strict morality rules about when they could and couldn’t have sex.
While one might expect that young arranged marriages were the norm, this was only true for nobles and wealthy people, who married to exchange property and secure heirs. The poor were largely able to marry for love, or at the very least, be more involved in their courtship process.
In the medieval period, ideas about knightly chivalry began to appear in popular lore — the “knight in shining armor” saving his damsel in distress. While this form of romantic courtship is largely a product of fiction, it may have influenced people’s hopes for romantic love and led to slightly more respectful treatment of women, at least within the noble class.
Puritan Values in Early America
While Puritan Americans had strict religious views, an important keystone was their emphasis on romantic love within a marriage. Once a male suitor got a woman’s parents’ blessing, the young couple could begin a courtship process that prioritized their truly getting to know each other before marriage.
Some Puritan families even allowed young couples to “bundle,” in which the couple could spend a night together without having any sexual contact. In the process, a bundling board lashed to the head- and footboards separated them. Further, a woman would wear a bundling stocking, a garment resembling a tight-fitting, gunny sack, to bind her legs closed for the night.”
As the young United States expanded westward in the 19th Century, marriage was a tricky and practical affair. With far more men than women on the frontier, women had more say about who they married, and many young men would look for brides by using personal ads in the paper or try to arrange to bring a woman to marry from the East Coast.
Traditional Social Expectations & Gender Norms
Throughout history, courtship has been a delicate process of successfully securing a marriage while ensuring that both parties and their families maintain their honor and respectability within society. It was deeply important that both families approved of a courtship before it began.
Economic and social considerations influenced courtship, both for the young couple, who were deciding if their financial futures were compatible, and for their parents, who may be offering a dowry or expecting to financially rely on the man’s earnings. Just like today, finances could make or break a relationship.
Courtship was also one of the clearest moments in life of performing gender roles for men and women. Men had to prove their honor as a man and ability to provide for a future wife and children. Women showed their chastity and readiness to obey the men in their lives.
Throughout the 19th Century, courtship and etiquette guides were in vogue, teaching young men and women the proper way to behave in courtship and beyond. These guides were important in ensuring both honorable marriages and good class standing in the years to come.
Modern Courtship
While Western couples have generally had some level of say in their marriages for a while now, most modern couples are marrying strictly for love, with familial approval as more of a nice-to-have than a must.
Greater Emphasis on Personal Choice
For most modern couples, love is a baseline expectation for a serious relationship, let alone a marriage. Most people would never consider marrying someone they didn’t already love.
But until recently, love wasn’t always seen as necessary for a marriage. Couples would hopefully grow to love each other over time, or at least create a working partnership for the sake of their families. Marriage was seen as a decision that affects a community, rather than a private affair concerning two people.
Arranged marriages aren’t just a part of history, though. Many non-Western cultures still have arranged marriages in which families are heavily involved. While couples will sometimes only meet a few times before marriage, some couples may have arranged introductions with their partners, then proceed with a more extended courting and dating period before marriage.
The Role of Technology in Courtship
You might not think of sending a like on someone’s dating profile as courting, but in a way, it is. Online dating means that for many couples, liking a profile or sliding into Instagram DMs is the way to win over a potential partner.
Technology can make it easy to approach many people at once, which can make each DM or match feel less significant. This can make it more difficult to move any individual relationship offline and forward.
Hookup Culture
Hooking up isn’t taboo for single people these days. In fact, it can be the main dating goal for young singles. Just as the cast of “Too Hot to Handle.”
Hookup culture dramatically complicates courtship, which traditionally has been for the purpose of marriage. Now, the lines between moving toward a serious relationship and something casual can get pretty blurred.
I’m not saying situationships have ruined dating. But they’ve definitely made it more complicated.
Redefining Gender Roles
As romantic relationships have become less formal, gender norms within courtship have become less firmly set. Women may pursue men or be more interested in sex. Men may want to be romanced.
And once relationships begin, there is less of an expectation of set roles being played by each partner. Most relationships are increasingly egalitarian, or at the very least, moving toward that goal.
Inclusivity in Courtship
Traditional courtship ignores a sizable minority of people: those within the LGBTQ+ community. Because gender roles and expectations have never quite fit for LGBTQ+ people, they pursue romance and courtship in ways that make the most sense for them. Courtship is based on what feels right within the relationship, not predetermined rules.
Around the world, traditional and modern courtship practices are merging to create romance that feels right within each community. That may look like prioritizing a parent’s blessing instead of their permission before marriage or working with a modern matchmaker to find the right romantic fit.
Why Dating Has Changed
Older adults, and even some young people, often romanticize dating culture “before the apps.” They may picture young couples sharing milkshakes at a diner or chastely cuddling at a drive-thru. But the reality of historical dating wasn’t always so peachy, and some changes may be for the best.
Sexual Revolution & Hookup Culture
The 1960s saw the start of the “Free Love” movement. For the first time, young people felt empowered to have casual sex and romantic relationships that may not have been moving toward marriage.
For many people, especially women, this was an empowering change that allowed them to explore their sexuality without shame.
Power Dynamics
As second-wave feminism entered the mainstream in the 1970s, many singles came to question the traditional marriage structure, relegating women exclusively to homemaking and motherhood.
At the same time, more women lived on their own or gained independence from their families before marriage. This meant that a woman’s parents often have less control over her marriage process than they would have in the past, making it easier to date and marry for love.
Psychological Aspects of Courtship
Waiting on men to initiate a romantic relationship can be exhausting and emotionally all-consuming. Women don’t want to wait by the phone anymore, and they don’t have to.
Egalitarian courtship and dating can make it easier for couples to create a secure attachment within their relationship, as they don’t have to always wait on the other person to move the relationship forward or show they care. Each partner is empowered to do that themselves.
Emerging Trends
What constitutes courtship in 2024? While courtship has changed, many romantic milestones have stuck around or become even stronger. I’m talking about dating anniversaries, moving in together, or proposing. Because marriage usually comes later, courtship itself is arguably a longer and more involved process.
Technology Has Great Potential
An increasing number of couples meet online, meaning that dating apps and their AI capabilities will have increasing roles in courtship.
As the technology gets stronger and more singles are online, the potential for apps to suggest precisely compatible matches increases, too.
Changing Views Across Generations
While older generations still had some traditional gender roles and expectations in their dating, Gen Z is getting rid of many norms within courtship. Sleeping together on the first date isn’t unheard of; a sizable minority of women are cool with splitting the bill.
One thing doesn’t seem to be changing, though: According to Zola, only 2% of straight couples reported that the woman proposed.
What Does Courtship Mean in the Future?
It doesn’t seem like traditional courtship is coming back anytime soon (phew!).
As singles move forward, we can only hope that future courtship continues to become more egalitarian, more inclusive, and less heavily rooted in the gender binary.
We’re not getting rid of technology in dating. But many people crave in-person interaction and worry that the increasing prevalence of tech in their social and romantic lives will eliminate personal connection altogether.
While we can’t know for sure what future technology has in store, the pandemic and the years after have shown that most people want technology to enhance their social interactions, not eliminate them. This seems especially true for courtship and love.
Courtship Has Gone Digital
Different people can have dramatically different views about the purpose of dating and pursuing romantic and sexual relationships. Even over the course of one person’s life, their dating philosophy will likely change.
Whether traditional or modern, courtship is an essential part of human relationships and societal norms. It’s how we establish love and build the foundation for positive family and romantic lives. While the word may feel like a thing of the past, courtship is just the way that we try to show our interest and desire, both online and in person.
Courting allows a couple to invest in their romance and show each other how much they care. It’s an extremely personal and important part of any blossoming relationship.
What it means to court someone in a world that values both individual choice and social connection is forever changing. Sending someone a virtual rose on a dating app may be different from bringing a bouquet of roses to her parents’ house, but if it leads to a real love story, that shouldn’t matter.
