End of the Journey

Now I have come to the end of my journey. I now have the opportunity to voice my opinions (even though I have been putting in input throughout this blog). It is obvious that dating in the modern day has changed drastically since “bundling” in the colonial times. Match.com, eHarmony, and every other match making website has put a new twist to the dating game. What this research has shown me is that there will always be new twist. I guess that is what makes the journey fun. I now realize that I was once very naïve. I was naïve to think that every generation before me had beautiful love stories. I could try to blame the sixties and seventies on the downfall of dating in the modern world, but I am going to hold my generation accountable for our actions. I will not blame the media for why things are the way they are. My generation has to change. Gandhi once said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” If young ladies want to attract a gentleman, she must carry herself in a way that appeals to a decent guy. If girls keep going to the club wearing tight fitting clothing, then they will continue to attract the same type of guys. Guys still confuse me. All my male friends say they want a girl that will have sex with them, but they do not want their future wife to have slept around. That state is a contradiction within itself. Young men of my generation want to get the cake, and eat it too. I feel like they will never be pleased. Gender roles are beginning to switch. There are now many women that have careers in the corporate world, and more men are becoming stay at home dads. Roles being reversed was not even thought of in the colonial times. The music of my era does not help the dating situation. Many male rappers refer to women as bad B******. It has gotten to the point where females are now referring to themselves as bad B******. My mother always told me that a man would only go as far as I will let him. A strong, independent mother that showered me with love raised me; therefor I have a high self-esteem. Sadly, many girls do not have as much confidence about themselves as I do. These young women allow young men to be sub-par gentlemen. Fate. Fate is something that I deeply believe in. I believe fate brought me to Gary’s essay. Without stumbling upon this essay, I would not have been through this journey. I have learned that that every era had their gentleman, but every era had their douche. There were great moments and flaws in all of the eras. I just have to hope that one-day when I do kiss a frog, he will turn into my prince, but not until I have found out whom I am.

-Maraijha

Make Love, Not War

I am going to skip past a couple of decades and jump into the 1960s and 70s. Peace. Free love. LCD. The sixties and seventies deeply effected the way dating is viewed upon today. Americans during this time period were rebelling against everything; the way they viewed marriage, sex, and the idea of family were all topics up for debate. The Vietnam War was factor in the free love movement. Violence from the war made many people back home want to openly express their love with one another. Make love, not war was the famous term coined from this era; there was a lot of love being made. Woman felt the ultimate empowerment when birth control was created. Before birth control, men were in control of sex. Sex depended on whether or not the male had a condom. No condom, no sex. I am just going to assume that it was that way. Birth control allowed for there to be more spontaneity.  With all great things, there will be a downside. Birth control permitted sex without protection, which led to a rapid spread of sexual transmitted diseases. Thankfully, this outbreak is in better control, and my generation is more informed about the consequences of having unprotected sex. Disco was the lifestyle of the time. Clubs were filled with sequin suits and bellbottom pants. Drugs began taking over the more urban cities. One may ask why drugs are prevalent to me finding answer to why dating has changed. Being an African American female, the drug use from the sixties and seventies directly affects my potential suitors and me.  Drugs in the inner city left many people dead, and a numerous amount of the African American male population in prison. Many mothers left their children hungry, so they can go satisfy their high. Many of these abandoned children grew up to be the unstable parents that raise my generation.  My generation is the product of these broken homes. I am not giving guys an excuse to be douches, but they do not have good examples to follow.  During this time porn began developing. Today porn is multi-billion dollar industry, and it continues to grow. Men and women both watch porn to masturbate. Some couples watch porn before sex. Although porn is prosperous, it degrades both men and woman as sexual object. There are men who now treat women badly because of porn. Young boys and girls are growing up too fast because they easily access it on the Internet. Porn negatively impacted the way dating should occur. Porn has protection because of the first amendment, but I feel that something should have been done to stop the production of porn when it was first created. The fact that teenage boys had Playboy had magazines did not help the situation. This era gave reason behind many of the negative dating habits. Sex became to be too important of a factor in a relationship. The sixties and seventies seemed to be great for that moment, but there was little preparation for future generations. 

How the Twenties Changed Everything

My journey to understand the changes of dating led me to the roaring twenties. The twenties were a time of glamour and new money, but it was also a time of love. One of my favorite books, The Great Gatsby, perfectly captures the essence of the twenties. Hearing the love story between Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom always excites me. The twenties have to be one of my favorite eras because women began to find their own identity. Many women started to become known as “flappers”. Flappers are the first thing I picture when I think about the twenties.  I love how they were confident in there short, sequin dress; a cigarette was always in hand. Looking back at the twenties, I can tell that this era was the tip of the iceberg for modern dating. Women began to go to restaurants, parties, and dance halls without the watchful eye of a parent around. The twenties were a time for change and celebration. Coco Chanel did not only change the fashion industry, but she changed the way women felt about themselves. Because of Coco Chanel, women began to wear pants. I am not saying that women literally wore the pants in the relationship, but pants did give women a new found boost of confidence. We were no longer confined to dresses and skirts. Yes, trousers did not become popular in the United States until World War ii, but the women in Europe were feeling liberated. Fashion was also important to a man. Men during this time period would likely be found wearing a suit, vest, tie, button down shirt, pocket square, suspenders, hat, and spectator shoes. Courteous men would tip there hat to a lady. Dance clubs popularity grew throughout the twenties. Dances such as: the foxtrot, tango, and waltz were faster than the dances before their time, and there was more physical interaction between the dance partners. Sexual activity began to increase the 1920s. Necking and petting were terms developed during this time period. Necking was kissing above the neck, and petting was what the modern couple would call “making out”. People were even having petting parties. The only difference between a petting party and an orgy, is that petting parties did not involve sex. Going on multiple dates with multiple people became normal during this time period. There was an expectation of the young to find suitable partners. Beth Bailey, a social historian, once wrote, “More young people from small towns were drawn by the promises of city life and things like dance halls and music halls. Because those places cost money and the young men were the ones who had the money, they often paid. It became a rite of passage that the man would pay. ‘Dating’ was understood by people to be a sort of economic transaction. Money was at the center of dating…” Men did cater to their women and buy them expensive belongings, but it was mainly for show. A man from the roaring twenties wanted to show that he was able to afford to buy his women the finer things in life, and a woman from the roaring twenties wanted to be on the arm of a man that had status. Even this time period was very gaudy, it is my favorite time period thus far.

Marriage Costums in Colonial America

To start my quest, I began researching courtship in the colonial era. Yes, the first colonies were all men, but eventually women did begin to make the trip to the New America. To my dismay I discovered that this time period was not as pristine as I had imagined. I guess no sheet is fully clean. It was not surprising to find that most women were married before the age of fifteen. I did not know that it was socially humiliating for women if she was not married before the age of twenty-five. Because of the importance of religion in this time period, I believed that there was absolutely no premarital sex. An article written by Andrew G. Garner stated, “…in the mid to late 1700s, more than one girl in three was pregnant when she walked down the aisle. In parts of Britain, 50 percent of brides were great with child.” Marriage was to immediately occur if word of pregnancy spread. Most families tried to wed couples before the bride-to-be started showing, so there would be no shame upon the family. The value of virginity is still strong in many Asian countries. There are places, such as India and Arabia, where arranged marriages are customary practices. Arranged marriages eliminated the hunt to find an attractive spouse. In the modern era, girls use tight clothing to attract a girl. For religious reasons girls wore long dresses and skirts, but I have confidence in the fact that attire would be different if marriages were not arranged. Class, property, and status are as important in an arranged marriage at this time, as they were in colonial times. Many marriages of this time missed a key factor; love. Because marriages were arranged, the participants of the marriage would have to learn to coexist with his/her spouse. My findings were very disappointing. I began to be grateful for the way things were. I would have been depressed in a loveless marriage, and I would be ashamed if I became pregnant out of wedlock. Luckily, I did find positive traditions. I remembered a scene from The Patriot, a movie, where the eldest son laid in bed with his fiancé, but in wrapped in different covers. The separation of lying in the same bed is called bundling. Bundling is defined as the traditional practice of wrapping one person in a bed accompanied by another, usually as a part of courting behavior. I cannot fathom any of my male friends willingly lying in a bed with a girl, without touching her. The major form of courtship in colonial America was dancing. Unlike grinding which is shown on most music videos, these dances did not require girls’ butts to rub against guys hardening penis. Women of this time were expected to be the ultimate homemaker. A wife was expected to cook, clean, care for her children, satisfy her husband, and know the bible. What this era had that the twenty-first century does not is the importance of virginity, family acceptance, and religion. I believe the reason marriages stayed together is because of the fact that everything was so community based, and separation would cause shame for both of the parties’ families. The research of this time period surprised me, but it is nice to be able to accurately compare the two eras.

Gary Opened My Eyes

Gary. Gary is a friend of mine; I met Gary at the beginning of the school year. I have under no circumstances had a more interesting African American, male friend before. Gary created his own business, has an eclectic music preference, and is very studious. None of these reasons intrigued me enough to create this blog. What sparked my interest was the essay Gary recently wrote, and allowed me to read it. From the first sentence I was hooked. Although the essay read as if it were a Zane novel, there was an obvious message. In a mind provoking way, Gary wrote about the dying bread of the gentleman. Gentleman? After reading his essay I was left feeling incomplete. . As you would expect from an average college male, Gary loves meeting new girls. When Gary first befriends a girl, his intention is to get the “friend” to have sex with him. There was more that I wanted to know. I asked him how he could orchestrate such a beautiful essay about gentleman, but blatantly disrespect women every day.  He answered by saying that young women of our generation tolerate mal dating behavior. Even though I agree with a small portion of his statement, I do not believe that is entirely the women fault. Gary’s roommates began to vocalize their opinions. It soon became three against one, and I was the only voice for women. A point that I gave was that guys should want to court his lady. There were to fundamentals with my argument that seem to be a foreign concept to them. Should want? They did not understand why they should want to spend put forth effort. All they wanted to do was satisfy their primal urges, reproduce. The second concept that they could not grasp was courting. My generation only recognizes the word court as a building to hold legal proceedings. Courting is the basic of dating: going to restaurants, seeing a movie, opening the door. As I watch movies, such as the Notebook, I know that there is more to dating and love than what I have seen or experienced. In the movie Noah wrote Allie a letter every day for a year; nowadays a girl can barely get a guy to text her back in a timely fashion. Steve Harvey wrote a successful book titled Act Like a Woman, Think Like a Man. The book was eventually turned into a movie. For a short moment the popularity of the book sparked the topic of chivalry. Sadly, like most fads, the spark was quickly extinguished.  I know that times are changing, and I shouldn’t expect a guy to ask me to go steady, but there are some basic principles that I wished still developed. I am thankful to Gary for writing his essay. I am now on a search to find out why the course of dating, love, and marriage has changed so drastically. I will go through the decades and see what the costumes of dating for that time period were. Hopefully, by the end of this journey I will not become pessimistic toward love.