I’m old and my husband of 57 years definitely courted me long ago. It was delightful. Why? Because our courtship continues. We love each other and the love is something worth giving time and attention to daily. Never take it for granted.
My husband and I had a neighbor when we lived in Austin who was 33, single and Indian. She was growing increasingly frustrated finding a marriage-minded man and she getting older. Her parents reminded her that back in India people were often set up by their parents in arranged marriages. She didn't like the idea of it at first, but after her parents assured her that while the courtship would be arranged neither party was obligated to marry the other if they really didn't want to. Most courtships were intense and lasted about 3 months. After that you married.. or you didn't.
So she agreed. She was set up with a man in DC around her age. They chatted online for a bit and then she flew out to spend a week with him at his parents house, which would act as a home base. (He had his own apartment.) She returned from that trip and told us "He's the one." I had never seen her so happy. Three months larer they set a date for marriage. Two months from the engagement. Six months later she announced she was pregnant with their first child.
That was twelve years ago. They are still married, still in love, and have three children. It changed my mind about arranged marriage.
Arranged marriage can work, but it has a dark side. That side being the maintenance of social exclusion (caste), of which arranged marriage is the foundation.
For more on what this practice really means, see B. R. Ambedkar's 'Annihilation of Caste' (1936)
My basic take is that arranged marriages by and large work in a society such as India, where, for better or for worse, the society you live in basically determines what your rights and obligations are.
To give an example, if you are a middle class Tamil Catholic woman of moderate education from a joint family of teachers and shopkeepers, you can be plugged into a similar family and you will have a pretty good idea going in, what you can expect and what will be expected of you, even though you have never so much as spent fifteen minutes alone with your new spouse.
I think that often arrange themselves in the same way here. Marriages are more likely, it seems to me, to work when it is two people of roughly the same culture, class, and background. It's not the only road to success (my wife of 13 year and I are different enough) but it's sensible that some similarity acts as an adhesive.
In the 'West' we all pretend that we believe in the idea of random "falling in love",it's totally random and no one can help it. It's a pretty concept but it's tempered by common sense and reality. Most people DO choose as a legal spouse (be that married or civil partner) someone of similar wage range,looks range and social status range as themselves. To not do this practically always leads to disaster and heartbreak.
Lovely,in my opinion much nicer than having to hang around pubs and bars showing off the goods which was the Western media image of how to meet the oppo's. Slap on make-up,wear a low cut dress,dahn the pub with yer mates,avin a laugh,and that good lookin bloke ull.chat you up.No,not my personal experience but how it was portrayed in tv and films all the time.
The one thing that isn't mentioned here is how the sexual revolution and birth control upended courtship. Before the birth control revolution, pregnancy was very much what would happen if
want-to-be lovers gave in to their throbbing biological urges, and everyone knew it. BABIES. And the ramifications of that were well-known throughout society. Consequently, it was important to have children conceived within marriage, and marriage to be an important social compact. Still, people are people, they long for each other; they fall in love, and courtship was a means to allow two people to get to know one another before they, as they used to say in my youth, ruined their lives.
Now I know how old fashioned and out of touch that sounds, just as I know people who got married to have sex and only later realized later how unfit they were for one another. I'm not suggesting we go back to some mythical past.
That said, there's nothing better than taking your time in getting to know someone, of looking forward to being with them, hearing what they think, spending time with them doing things you both enjoy, and having a good idea of who they are because you've spent enough time with them to find that out. It should also help you see that it's not just about you.
Our rush, rush society, and immediate gratification neediness is pure death to real love and long lasting relationships. Slow down, take your time, and learn a few love songs.
Some of us also love to be read to. Nothing makes me feel more romanced than a charming, well spoken man reading aloud to me. Of course, singing to me also works, but my darling partner and musician is dead now. Sigh.
The trouble is finding someone to court you in the first place. That's the part the apps are supposed to help with (but, as you've pointed out, they don't).
If you want to be courted might I suggest you start by being a little mysterious. When everything is laid out and bare, as in an app profile, I would imagine that encourages hasty and poorly thought out decisions
"In a courtship you view the other person in an idealized way—up on a pedestal—magnifying their good qualities, and forgetting, perhaps, about their flaws."
For the record. I agree with what you write. But from what I understand of today's dating landscape, doing the above quoted action is a surefire way to get taken out of consideration as a mate. The other person views you as weak or needy and thus not worthy of their time and attention. It's almost as if admitting any attraction to the other, kills the attraction.
Dating apps make men and women view each other as easily replaceable commodities. And why not. You've got loads of attractive people right at your finger tips. Why commit to any one person?
Everyone thinks the novels of Jane Austen are nice genteel stories about ladies in bonnets eating cucumber sandwiches. In fact her books are throbbing with SEX! But it's all in code! Why do you think Victorian Mamas and Papas were happy for their daughters to read Jane Austen but banned Emile Zola. For better explanations than I can write see the you tube films of DR OCTAVIA COX. The fact is Jane Austen told young women the very sensible advice that they shouldn't give away their only profitable asset for free 'because nothing aint worth nothing but it's free', in reality she said exactly the same as Marilyn Monroe,"get that ice or else no dice". The 1960s quasi-religious ideal of " give your love freely and unconditionally with no thought of return", that Hippie idea,it sounds noble but actually if you expect NOTHING well you won't be disappointed,and plenty of it.
That's so sad. Being thought of as easily replaceable is fine in your teens, but surely people become more interesting after that and are more likely to be seen as approaching unique. Whether you like that version of unique is another matter.
More and more people use dating apps to find their potential mates these days. If you've ever been on one of those apps, it's easy to see how one can come to view people as replaceable. There are hundreds of good looking people available for you to "swipe on". If you go on a date and they don't wow you, there are hundreds of potential mates just waiting for you back on the app. Now, you probably won't match with most of those people, but your subconscious doesn't register that fact and so you end up acting like everyone is replaceable
Reading this felt like stumbling into a hidden library of love’s lost art forms. I mean, courtship — what a concept! It’s like discovering we had the Mona Lisa all along but replaced it with IKEA wall art.
Your point about apps creating shortcuts is spot on. They’ve turned dating into speed chess with no strategy, just rapid-fire swipes and instant gratification. But the beauty of courtship lies in the slowness, the savouring, the space for imagination to bloom.
Here’s to bringing back the romance of effort. Let’s make dating the slow food of relationships again!
'It’s like discovering we had the Mona Lisa all along but replaced it with IKEA wall art.' That, Tamara is one of the best phrases I have read in a comment anywhere. It shines a light on the difference between seeing a picture and description of a person on a screen and making a snap decision (so bland and unexciting), and meeting someone in person, at a bar or at a party, or at a friend's house and deciding to get to know them a bit more, maybe by finding out if they're planning to come to another party you're going to, or if they are going to see that band, and so on. There are plenty of opportunities for discovery, light flirtation, and so on before deciding to take the next step. And you get all the butterflies if you discover you're interested, the imaging things may go further, the wondering what they might be like to kiss. Now that's exciting.
Thank you for expanding on the thought with such nuance and charm. You’ve vividly captured the essence of what we’ve traded for convenience: the slow-burn magic of human connection. There’s something irreplaceable about those moments of discovery, the subtle electricity in a glance across the room, the delicious uncertainty of wondering if their plans might align with yours. It’s a kind of narrative we write in real-time, full of anticipation and butterflies, as opposed to the flat, instant-gratification swipe culture that robs us of that texture. You’ve not just agreed — you’ve elevated the metaphor, turning IKEA wall art into a tragic metaphor for a culture in a rush to simplify what should be tantalisingly complex. Here’s to bringing the Mona Lisa back! :))
Oh that is great: 'the flat, instant gratification that robs us of texture.' I can feel the texture of the flirt, smell the scent of being near and flaring the nostrils in interest. How evocative.
As an 83-year-old romantic in love with my wife, I agree with what you write, but know anything I have learned or know is foreign to today's culture, which seems to be more about satisfying appetite than the merging than of love. We have come a long way from Body and Soul to WAP, and that seems to be a signpost on the road to civilizational collapse.
Me and my now wife made a conscious decision to do a courtship. We wanted our relationship to have a foundation to stand on and decided to forgo the complexity that introducing sex brings into the equation. She was 18, I was 22 when we started dating. We dated for 2 months and decided (in private) that we would get married. We had our own private ceremony 11 months later with a minister and kept it between us until we got publicly engaged and publicly married about a year later (due to extenuating circumstances at the time.)
I am now 30, she is 26 and we have a beautiful 8 month old boy. Our relationship is in the best place it has ever been and we still laugh when we tell our story to others.
Having an authentic conversation and being intentional in a relationship worked for us. My generation (and the generation underneath me) just hasn't been told that the old playbook still works.
Why apologize for delaying the most intimate physical expression between two people until you have established the foundation of trust and commitment--the most potent aphrodisiac, the most profound source of attraction? And why did you not mention the communal aspect of courtship--the way family and friends participate in the discernment process of a couple as they imagine a life together? To lay the task of deciding on a lifelong partner exclusively at the feet of two people who need wisdom from others on for the most important decision a human can make seems the height of folly.
Great essay. Personally, I needed it. My two best and long-ish term relationships came from slow-burn, friends-first scenarios. When I found myself single again I tried the dating apps for a couple years but out of frustration deleted them at some point early last year. I've assumed meeting someone in-person may have gotten a little harder because I'm getting older and out on the city "scene" less than I once was, but that waiters interaction with you suggest otherwise and that the modern dating problems inflict heartache across generations. But, cheers to courtship, now and hopefully one day again and forever. The apps are shallow rubbish in my opinion.
The amount of lies people tell on dating apps were enough to put me off them forever. And this was in the early days, more of dating sites than dating apps. I have only recently come out of a long-term relationship, due to death of my partner, and I can't imagine anything worse than using apps, after my initial experience of the liars.
I am so sorry for your loss and wish you comfort and peace going forward. I hope beautiful memories with your partner always shine through if times ever get tough. My best to you.
Thank you for this comment. I have just been to a Folk Music Festival from Thursday last week to yesterday, Monday the 27th of January. HIs absence from the Festival when he was there last year was noticeable. I kept thinking I had to go and get his music stand, or bring him a performance chair and so on. Just another of the firsts that other people in grief mode talk about.
What a nerve you’ve hit and what a longing you’ve identified that could gradually come to fruition through a “ritual.” I’d argue also that all the rituals we’ve lost are to our detriment—especially the rites of initiation that once built up young people’s confidence in their own agency. I know I sound like an oldster in saying this, but I believe the root of young adult anxiety lies in their lack of confidence that they can handle life without parental directions. But I digress from romance… What a lovely subject to choose, and what’s more important than the depth and ideal of the other to strengthen a relationship forever! Congratulations to you and your bride. Long may you love!
I met my boyfriend (now husband) via a coffee shop hangout with two other guys we mutually knew. The other two thought something was up when my guy was behaving nicer than normal in a game of pass-the-paper-to-make-a-sentence. Then they joked we were steaming up the windows on the way home in the backseat. The rest of our "courtship" was what my husband now confesses was a long game strategy; we were friends for 6 months, then one day he said he thought I was purty.
I’m old and my husband of 57 years definitely courted me long ago. It was delightful. Why? Because our courtship continues. We love each other and the love is something worth giving time and attention to daily. Never take it for granted.
Love that photo of you and your wife, so beautiful!
That moustache is spectacular.
Ooh, yes, me too.
My husband and I had a neighbor when we lived in Austin who was 33, single and Indian. She was growing increasingly frustrated finding a marriage-minded man and she getting older. Her parents reminded her that back in India people were often set up by their parents in arranged marriages. She didn't like the idea of it at first, but after her parents assured her that while the courtship would be arranged neither party was obligated to marry the other if they really didn't want to. Most courtships were intense and lasted about 3 months. After that you married.. or you didn't.
So she agreed. She was set up with a man in DC around her age. They chatted online for a bit and then she flew out to spend a week with him at his parents house, which would act as a home base. (He had his own apartment.) She returned from that trip and told us "He's the one." I had never seen her so happy. Three months larer they set a date for marriage. Two months from the engagement. Six months later she announced she was pregnant with their first child.
That was twelve years ago. They are still married, still in love, and have three children. It changed my mind about arranged marriage.
Arranged marriage can work, but it has a dark side. That side being the maintenance of social exclusion (caste), of which arranged marriage is the foundation.
For more on what this practice really means, see B. R. Ambedkar's 'Annihilation of Caste' (1936)
My basic take is that arranged marriages by and large work in a society such as India, where, for better or for worse, the society you live in basically determines what your rights and obligations are.
To give an example, if you are a middle class Tamil Catholic woman of moderate education from a joint family of teachers and shopkeepers, you can be plugged into a similar family and you will have a pretty good idea going in, what you can expect and what will be expected of you, even though you have never so much as spent fifteen minutes alone with your new spouse.
I think that often arrange themselves in the same way here. Marriages are more likely, it seems to me, to work when it is two people of roughly the same culture, class, and background. It's not the only road to success (my wife of 13 year and I are different enough) but it's sensible that some similarity acts as an adhesive.
In the 'West' we all pretend that we believe in the idea of random "falling in love",it's totally random and no one can help it. It's a pretty concept but it's tempered by common sense and reality. Most people DO choose as a legal spouse (be that married or civil partner) someone of similar wage range,looks range and social status range as themselves. To not do this practically always leads to disaster and heartbreak.
Lovely,in my opinion much nicer than having to hang around pubs and bars showing off the goods which was the Western media image of how to meet the oppo's. Slap on make-up,wear a low cut dress,dahn the pub with yer mates,avin a laugh,and that good lookin bloke ull.chat you up.No,not my personal experience but how it was portrayed in tv and films all the time.
The one thing that isn't mentioned here is how the sexual revolution and birth control upended courtship. Before the birth control revolution, pregnancy was very much what would happen if
want-to-be lovers gave in to their throbbing biological urges, and everyone knew it. BABIES. And the ramifications of that were well-known throughout society. Consequently, it was important to have children conceived within marriage, and marriage to be an important social compact. Still, people are people, they long for each other; they fall in love, and courtship was a means to allow two people to get to know one another before they, as they used to say in my youth, ruined their lives.
Now I know how old fashioned and out of touch that sounds, just as I know people who got married to have sex and only later realized later how unfit they were for one another. I'm not suggesting we go back to some mythical past.
That said, there's nothing better than taking your time in getting to know someone, of looking forward to being with them, hearing what they think, spending time with them doing things you both enjoy, and having a good idea of who they are because you've spent enough time with them to find that out. It should also help you see that it's not just about you.
Our rush, rush society, and immediate gratification neediness is pure death to real love and long lasting relationships. Slow down, take your time, and learn a few love songs.
Take it from me, people love to be sung to.
Some of us also love to be read to. Nothing makes me feel more romanced than a charming, well spoken man reading aloud to me. Of course, singing to me also works, but my darling partner and musician is dead now. Sigh.
Why can't "a date" be an afternoon at the garden centre?"
A beautiful essay!!
The trouble is finding someone to court you in the first place. That's the part the apps are supposed to help with (but, as you've pointed out, they don't).
Lol,married men + axe murderers!
If you want to be courted might I suggest you start by being a little mysterious. When everything is laid out and bare, as in an app profile, I would imagine that encourages hasty and poorly thought out decisions
I tried being mysterious. I was so mysterious that the guys lost interest. :-D
I think it works better in the wild. Unfortunately people are too busy distracting them selves while out and about.
"In a courtship you view the other person in an idealized way—up on a pedestal—magnifying their good qualities, and forgetting, perhaps, about their flaws."
For the record. I agree with what you write. But from what I understand of today's dating landscape, doing the above quoted action is a surefire way to get taken out of consideration as a mate. The other person views you as weak or needy and thus not worthy of their time and attention. It's almost as if admitting any attraction to the other, kills the attraction.
Dating apps make men and women view each other as easily replaceable commodities. And why not. You've got loads of attractive people right at your finger tips. Why commit to any one person?
Everyone thinks the novels of Jane Austen are nice genteel stories about ladies in bonnets eating cucumber sandwiches. In fact her books are throbbing with SEX! But it's all in code! Why do you think Victorian Mamas and Papas were happy for their daughters to read Jane Austen but banned Emile Zola. For better explanations than I can write see the you tube films of DR OCTAVIA COX. The fact is Jane Austen told young women the very sensible advice that they shouldn't give away their only profitable asset for free 'because nothing aint worth nothing but it's free', in reality she said exactly the same as Marilyn Monroe,"get that ice or else no dice". The 1960s quasi-religious ideal of " give your love freely and unconditionally with no thought of return", that Hippie idea,it sounds noble but actually if you expect NOTHING well you won't be disappointed,and plenty of it.
That's so sad. Being thought of as easily replaceable is fine in your teens, but surely people become more interesting after that and are more likely to be seen as approaching unique. Whether you like that version of unique is another matter.
More and more people use dating apps to find their potential mates these days. If you've ever been on one of those apps, it's easy to see how one can come to view people as replaceable. There are hundreds of good looking people available for you to "swipe on". If you go on a date and they don't wow you, there are hundreds of potential mates just waiting for you back on the app. Now, you probably won't match with most of those people, but your subconscious doesn't register that fact and so you end up acting like everyone is replaceable
Reading this felt like stumbling into a hidden library of love’s lost art forms. I mean, courtship — what a concept! It’s like discovering we had the Mona Lisa all along but replaced it with IKEA wall art.
Your point about apps creating shortcuts is spot on. They’ve turned dating into speed chess with no strategy, just rapid-fire swipes and instant gratification. But the beauty of courtship lies in the slowness, the savouring, the space for imagination to bloom.
Here’s to bringing back the romance of effort. Let’s make dating the slow food of relationships again!
'It’s like discovering we had the Mona Lisa all along but replaced it with IKEA wall art.' That, Tamara is one of the best phrases I have read in a comment anywhere. It shines a light on the difference between seeing a picture and description of a person on a screen and making a snap decision (so bland and unexciting), and meeting someone in person, at a bar or at a party, or at a friend's house and deciding to get to know them a bit more, maybe by finding out if they're planning to come to another party you're going to, or if they are going to see that band, and so on. There are plenty of opportunities for discovery, light flirtation, and so on before deciding to take the next step. And you get all the butterflies if you discover you're interested, the imaging things may go further, the wondering what they might be like to kiss. Now that's exciting.
Thank you for expanding on the thought with such nuance and charm. You’ve vividly captured the essence of what we’ve traded for convenience: the slow-burn magic of human connection. There’s something irreplaceable about those moments of discovery, the subtle electricity in a glance across the room, the delicious uncertainty of wondering if their plans might align with yours. It’s a kind of narrative we write in real-time, full of anticipation and butterflies, as opposed to the flat, instant-gratification swipe culture that robs us of that texture. You’ve not just agreed — you’ve elevated the metaphor, turning IKEA wall art into a tragic metaphor for a culture in a rush to simplify what should be tantalisingly complex. Here’s to bringing the Mona Lisa back! :))
Oh that is great: 'the flat, instant gratification that robs us of texture.' I can feel the texture of the flirt, smell the scent of being near and flaring the nostrils in interest. How evocative.
Brick by brick doesn't sound romantic but mixed with the respect, appreciation, and courtesy of courtship you can build something special.
As an 83-year-old romantic in love with my wife, I agree with what you write, but know anything I have learned or know is foreign to today's culture, which seems to be more about satisfying appetite than the merging than of love. We have come a long way from Body and Soul to WAP, and that seems to be a signpost on the road to civilizational collapse.
We are always somewhere near a signpost on the road to civilizational collapse, but somehow, we manage to evade it.
WAP? Cardi-B?
Beautiful piece 💎 Thank you so much 🙏💕🙏
Me and my now wife made a conscious decision to do a courtship. We wanted our relationship to have a foundation to stand on and decided to forgo the complexity that introducing sex brings into the equation. She was 18, I was 22 when we started dating. We dated for 2 months and decided (in private) that we would get married. We had our own private ceremony 11 months later with a minister and kept it between us until we got publicly engaged and publicly married about a year later (due to extenuating circumstances at the time.)
I am now 30, she is 26 and we have a beautiful 8 month old boy. Our relationship is in the best place it has ever been and we still laugh when we tell our story to others.
Having an authentic conversation and being intentional in a relationship worked for us. My generation (and the generation underneath me) just hasn't been told that the old playbook still works.
Why apologize for delaying the most intimate physical expression between two people until you have established the foundation of trust and commitment--the most potent aphrodisiac, the most profound source of attraction? And why did you not mention the communal aspect of courtship--the way family and friends participate in the discernment process of a couple as they imagine a life together? To lay the task of deciding on a lifelong partner exclusively at the feet of two people who need wisdom from others on for the most important decision a human can make seems the height of folly.
Great essay. Personally, I needed it. My two best and long-ish term relationships came from slow-burn, friends-first scenarios. When I found myself single again I tried the dating apps for a couple years but out of frustration deleted them at some point early last year. I've assumed meeting someone in-person may have gotten a little harder because I'm getting older and out on the city "scene" less than I once was, but that waiters interaction with you suggest otherwise and that the modern dating problems inflict heartache across generations. But, cheers to courtship, now and hopefully one day again and forever. The apps are shallow rubbish in my opinion.
The amount of lies people tell on dating apps were enough to put me off them forever. And this was in the early days, more of dating sites than dating apps. I have only recently come out of a long-term relationship, due to death of my partner, and I can't imagine anything worse than using apps, after my initial experience of the liars.
I am so sorry for your loss and wish you comfort and peace going forward. I hope beautiful memories with your partner always shine through if times ever get tough. My best to you.
Thank you for this comment. I have just been to a Folk Music Festival from Thursday last week to yesterday, Monday the 27th of January. HIs absence from the Festival when he was there last year was noticeable. I kept thinking I had to go and get his music stand, or bring him a performance chair and so on. Just another of the firsts that other people in grief mode talk about.
Thank you for your kind words.
What a nerve you’ve hit and what a longing you’ve identified that could gradually come to fruition through a “ritual.” I’d argue also that all the rituals we’ve lost are to our detriment—especially the rites of initiation that once built up young people’s confidence in their own agency. I know I sound like an oldster in saying this, but I believe the root of young adult anxiety lies in their lack of confidence that they can handle life without parental directions. But I digress from romance… What a lovely subject to choose, and what’s more important than the depth and ideal of the other to strengthen a relationship forever! Congratulations to you and your bride. Long may you love!
I met my boyfriend (now husband) via a coffee shop hangout with two other guys we mutually knew. The other two thought something was up when my guy was behaving nicer than normal in a game of pass-the-paper-to-make-a-sentence. Then they joked we were steaming up the windows on the way home in the backseat. The rest of our "courtship" was what my husband now confesses was a long game strategy; we were friends for 6 months, then one day he said he thought I was purty.
Lovely