To be sure, some people “played the field,” and, in the pre-war years, dating on college campuses became a matter more of proving popularity than of proving suitability for marriage.
A generation later, courting couples began to go out on “dates,” in public and increasingly on the man’s terms, given that he had the income to pay for dinner and dancing. In polite society, at the beginning of this century, our grandfathers came a-calling and a-wooing at the homes of our grandmothers, under conditions set by the woman, operating from strength on her own turf. Until what seems like only yesterday, young people were groomed for marriage, and the paths leading to it were culturally well set out, at least in rough outline. Those who reach the altar seem to have stumbled upon it by accident….
For the great majority, the way to the altar is uncharted territory: It’s every couple on its own bottom, without a compass, often without a goal. People still get married - though later, less frequently, more hesitantly and, by and large, less successfully. Today, there are no socially prescribed forms of conduct that help guide young men and women in the direction of matrimony….
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