Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    arranged marriages?
    
    you married who your parents told you to?
    
    I know my grandmother and grandfather on my mother's side courted with
    their parents' permission.  I also know she was seeing several
    gentlemen in a courtly manner (not manor, they weren't that wealthy ;). 
    Her parents let her choose who she wished to marry.  But this wasn't
    always the case then.
    
    -Jody

    One afternoon, when my grandmother was 13 years old and outside playing
    with her friends, she was told to come in the house.  She was bathed,
    dressed, taken downtown and married off to my grandfather, a man in his
    early 20s, whom she had never met until that wedding.  Yeow.  She stayed 
    with him his entire life, until his death in the late 50s.
    
    Sandy

    I was wandering down the corridors of my ancestors here and came to the
    realisation that in 5 generations of women in my direct line, the only
    one that dated was my mother!
    
    I never dated, I sort of went from being friends to living together.
    [and the last time that happened I ended up getting married]
    
    My mother's mother got married when she was 28 to a man she knew from
    her church.  She knew him rather well; they'd actually taken a few
    vacations together.  Prior to meeting him, she'd had several gentleman
    callers, but none of them were to her taste.
    
    My father's mother met her husband travelling on the train between
    her parents home and nursing training.  They seemed to travel at the
    same times a lot, and then he began to call.
    
    One of my great-grandmothers announced to her parents, at aged 14, that
    she was going to marry an older gentleman of the town [I believe he was
    46 at the time].  Then she told him that it was high time he settled
    down and that she would settle him quite nicely.  According to her
    diary, he was a bit non-plussed. I can well imagine.
    
    Another married, at 20, a man of 25 after lengthy familial
    negotiations.  The contract was a piece of work!!  They met each other
    to 'see if they would suit' during the period that the contract was
    being hammered out, but it was clear that neither one of them had 
    a say about it once the terms were agreed upon.
    
      Annie

    I read it a year or two ago but my (lack of) memory embarrasses me 
    and I can only enter this (the text of a note I entered in another 
    conference's book note):

    (I'm sure you'd read all about when dating started...)   

    I just started reading "Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality
    in America", by John D'emilio and Estelle B. Freedman.  The review 
    blurb (one of many on the cover of the book) from Washington Post 
    Book World reviewer Jonathan Yardley says:
    
    "The country's sexual and domestic histories have run on parallel
    courses, in which social and political institutions have gradually
    replaced the family as the chief enforcer of the culture's totems
    and taboos.  This has meant that standards previously enforced --
    or relaxed -- within the confines of the home have by now become
    the public's business: have become, in a word, politicized.  Not
    surprisingly, as sexual standards have become matters for public
    debate, sexual behavior itself has moved into the arena..."
    
    CQ

The following is a general discussion of dating in the U.S. in the
period from 1840-1920.  This is all stuff I know from reading in various
places, but i can't cite any particular source.

"Arranged marriages," in which the principals played no part until they
were apprised of the fact that they were betrothed, did happen, but that
was not the most common procedure in the U.S.  It was generally done in
the more well-to-do society; the hoi polloi were left more to their own
devices and the dictates of what the people read into Queen Victoria's
mores.

Dating occurred long before the 1920s.  But it was usually a carefully
controlled situation in which a man would call to court a young woman.
Their courting would be conducted under strict rules of propriety, often
in her parents' parlour or on the front porch.  There would be an older
person - parent or other relative - within easy call to ensure that the
bounds of good behaviour were not strayed beyond.

One example of the ways propriety was observed is a 19th-century musical
instrument called a courting dulcimer; it is a pair of plucked dulcimers
made siamese-twin fashion so that they can be played by two people who
are seated facing each other with the instrument resting on their knees
between them.  This design serves two purposes.  It ensures that the two
people are not improperly close, as they certainly would be if they were
embracing, and it also provides a way for the chaperon in the next room
to ascertain that hands are not straying - you can't pet and play at the
same time...

If after a certain time the young man determined that the woman was what
he considered a good match, he asked her father for her hand.  If he met
her parents' criteria and also (in most cases) pleased the woman
herself, an engagement was arranged.  Betrothals typically lasted for up
to two years, during which time the couple would continue to see each
other under very slightly relaxed conditions.

Dates outside the woman's house might be arranged in company with her
family, as perhaps a visit to Coney Island.  Less frequently, the couple
might actually be allowed to go off on a picnic - daytime only!  Such
private dates were usually not permitted until after a betrothal was
announced.

-d

    In Spain, in those days it meant... to take a walk in the park with
    your chaperone, and try to see "who" was around...
    any young man interested in a woman would try to befriend any member of
    her family to be introduced to her and then...go from there,then he would
    "talk" to the girl's father to get permission to "court" her if he
    liked her and... things became serios after that... very very difficult
    to get cold feet.  (not a chance of fooling around till after the
    wedding took place!), of course there are always some exceptions, but
    those type of exceptions were considered bad sins, and a shame to any
    family, so women were very careful to keep their virginity and their
    reputation intact or untarnished.
    "dating" used to be an art... and something every joung lady looked
    for,  the lad would court the girl in a patio, through a balcony full
    of flowers... and within view of a chaperone or any of her family member
    and be there, talking sweet nothings, for hours... it used to be sooo
    romantic!
    I find that these days is... so crude...or devoid of romance...
    a date, or second date, and bingo, to bed to be done with! I think we
    are robbing ourselves from some very harmess but very beautiful moments
    in our young lives...
    Up to this day I remember talking "sweet nothings" with my honey in
    English, right in my father's office... and Dad was totally in the
    blind! boy, it FELT GOOD! it was great... my courtship was not as
    romantic as the beginning of the century, but it was a sweet one that
    kept the flame up till our marriage and thru almost 30 years till our
    days....
    
    None of my family has had arranged marriages, normally mothers or
    family friends would point "suitable" candidates and would start
    introducing people together to get acquainted, etc. etc. etc. 
    (definately, not our current dating agency fees methods...)
    "suitable"
       

I gather this concept of "no fooling around till marriage" was most *in theory*
rather than in practice, even in more repressive times.

D!

    Depended on social standing of the family, mostly.  The higher the
    class, the less likely that young women would be allowed the
    opportunity to be without chaperonage long enough to get "in a 
    delicate condition".
    
    Most opportunities for young adults to meet members of the opposite sex
    occurred during what we would refer to today as "group dates".  Could
    be a sleighing or skating party in the winter, or a haying contest in
    the summer.  Community events of any sort - dances, church meetings,box
    socials, fairs - all served as ways to meet and talk with members of
    the opposite sex.  It's possible to get to know someone well enough
    that way to know you want to talk with them, in her front parlor, in
    more depth to see if there is sufficient compatability for a marriage.
    
    It's also instructive (to me at least) to reread Laura Ingalls Wilder's
    accounts of her courtship with Almanzo, whom she eventually married. 
    Seems like much of their 'dating' probably occurred when he was giving
    her rides home for the weekend from her teaching job, when she was
    about 17.
    
    Alison

    After my grandfather's death in 1954, my mother found a packet of love
    letters written by my grandmother (who died in 1939) to my grandfather
    before they were married.  They were around 20 yrs. old and by the
    sound of the letters it would appear they were dating.  It sounded as
    though she definitely pursued him to some extent, although from her
    pictures she was quite pretty.  This would have been in the late
    1890's.  It was obvious from the letters that she was crazy about him,
    but I thought it was neat that he saved her letters for his whole life.
    (She probably would have liked vaxmail...) :-)
    
    Lorna
    
    

    I still have 2 years accumulation of "love letters" from my husband
    when we were going steady... and we've moved many times, including
    overseas assignments, those letters have "moved" and been with us for
    over 40 years...
    
    I'll problably give them to my children, as keep-sakes, before I die...
    or be put in, with me, when I go...
    

    There was also a time when it was important for young women to have
    many dates.  The objective was to outwardly impress the rest of
    the crowd how popular one was.  Popularity was the goal.  No matter
    exactly who the date was or if one liked him.  The purpose of dating,
    at least for these college women, was to imply that she was very
    popular and had many dates and had to keep a calendar full of dates.
     She was never to accept a date for the immmediate week-end from
    a guy, until she checked her calendar and then to tell him she was
    not available until at least next week-end.  She had to suggest
    that she was very busy and popular with the guys.
    
    I think this is a lousy game, and think it still exists today.
                                                                  

>    
>    I think this is a lousy game, and think it still exists today.
>                                                                  
I agree, however, according to one of my male friends who is fond of
ruminating on the male/female relationships and the reasons for what
we do, there may be good reason behind the tactic.  It is what John
calls the "envy factor" in the list of reasons why a man finds a
woman attractive.  According to John, he has taken an informal poll
of all his male friends [ages range from 20 - 65] and they all admit
that they are pleased when their peers envy them for their female
companions....and that the more they perceive that they are envied,
THE MORE ATTRACTIVE SHE BECOMES TO HIM.  Perhaps, the old
ploy of "seem busy with other dates even if you aren't" was just a
way to increase the male's interest by convincing him that the
female is greatly desired by his peers....