Lesson 69: Courtship

This was seriously the first image that came up when I Googled "courtship."

Whenever I see couples who have a good relationship, I ask them about how they met and how they fell in love. I know one couple that has been married for 30-something years and have had two children. I asked the mom how she met her husband. Here's the story:

She met her husband through her older sister, who had brought home a male classmate one day. The sister was asking her mom if she could go to a picnic with her classmates, and in between debates about whether or not she would be allowed to attend said function, her younger 16 year old came bounding into the home. She had been outside running around with the boys and had her hair tied up in pigtails. The mother them said, "You can go to this picnic if you take your younger sister." In order to spite her older sister, she said, "I wanna go!" All the while, the male was watching this younger sister and apparently fell in love right then and there.

The male started to court her by sending her books through her sister. They got married within four years and have been together ever since.

Learning this story made me think about current dating habits in comparison to the so-called "old fashioned courtship." I don't know which is better...or if one is better than another. On the one hand, you have courtship where a man pursues one woman exclusively and on the other, you have dating which can consist of dating multiple individuals at once to see what you want in a relationship. On the surface, dating seems like the better choice because it allows  more flexibility and lets you "narrow down the field," but there's something to say about courtship. If a man is selective and willing to pursue one and only one woman in attempts to get her attention, does it mean that he's less likely to give up on the relationship if challenges arise? And when a man simply dates, does it mean that he isn't sure yet of what he wants?

I can't say I learned the answers to these questions, but I'm curious about why "courtship" that was more prevalent in previous generations has wavered. Divorce rates are higher. People are dating more and getting married later. Were things better back then when creating relationships was more selective? Or are times really changing to the point where those tactics don't work? Despite my desire to be a strong, independent woman, I guess there's a part of me that still has a hopeless romantic living inside.