A short history of dating

Dating - the term can fill the best of us with excitement, dread, or a mixture of both.

The first use of the word is often attributed to American columnist George Ade, in the Chicago Record in 1896. In one of his columns, he told the story of a clerk named Artie whose girlfriend’s head was getting turned by other men. When Artie confronted her, he said, “I s’pose the other boy’s fillin’ all my dates?”, alluding to the dates in his girlfriend’s diary that may have been filled by plans with other guys.

Having your eggs in a number of baskets isn’t unheard of in our modern-day dating culture, but this wasn’t always the case. Once upon a time, you didn’t date to find someone you had an amazing connection with - you courted to find someone respectable who wouldn’t pour your inheritance down the drain.

Nichi Hodgson, author of The Curious History of Dating, explains that up until 1870, “women couldn't keep property or money or goods they inherited upon marriage", until a law was passed which changed this.

“Because they had to give everything to the person they're married to, it really mattered that the person they married… wasn't going spend the family fortune.”

Also, historically, divorces could only be granted by the King, so unless you were very well-connected, it was vital that you wouldn’t come to regret your marriage further down the line.

But your reasons for regretting a marriage didn’t at this point extend to falling out of love. In fact, falling in love wasn’t a prerequisite for marriage at all.

However, Nichi explains that during the Enlightenment, that all began to change, and by the time “Queen Victoria married Prince Albert, who was a love match - that's when the public perception of marrying for love started to shift.”

Stick to the rules

Unfortunately for eligible young ladies and gentlemen at that time though, the rules around courting were still incredibly strict. You had to take a calling card to the home of the woman you wanted to court, you had to be invited to in by the servants, your family had to agree on the match - the list goes on.

But, love was still a factor: “Though there was still an element of people deciding that it was a good economic and social fit… if you said you were madly in love with someone and they were roughly of the same social standing and they had a bit of money, then that was generally seen as okay,” Nichi explains.

And once you’d arranged a date of sorts, one thing was absolutely vital: a chaperone. Chaperones were usually a member of your family, such as your mother or aunt, who would accompany you on your date to ensure everything was above board and you kept your gloves on.

But the “chaperone system went to pot” with the coming World War One, says Nichi.

One reason for this was women were starting to work to aid the war effort, which increased their freedom immensely. However, one major factor in the decline of chaperones was the fact that women were allowed to cycle, and they could do so on their own.

Women then started travelling on trains by themselves, which became a place for them to meet people. They would also travel to the seaside when they had time, which led to the development of the holiday romance.

Spoilt for choice

From this point on, the dating pool just got larger and larger - while the amount of choice people have these days can seem overwhelming, back in the mid-20th Century it was a luxury.

Nichi explains: “It wasn't really until the 60s that… people from all walks of life were actually mixing with each other and London [for example] was a melting pot of people of different ethnic and social backgrounds.”

And when this started happening between people in the public eye, and within pop culture, it meant the general public were even more happy to follow suit. Nichi points to one example from 1964, where actors Joan Hooley and John White kissed on a programme called Emergency Ward 10. This was one of the first interracial kisses to be seen on British TV and was something of a watershed moment.

As Nichi puts it: “These things were slowly breaking down the barriers around what people could mix and who could go out with whom.”

Then with the invention of the world wide web, our dating choices became almost unlimited.

Break the code

The traditional recorded history of dating tends to focus very heavily on straight relationships - all the old courting rules for example described how men and women could interact. So what about LGBTQ+ people?

Nichi says that while it may seem on the surface that “LGBT dating wasn't happening, actually it was, it was just very closely guarded because it was illegal.”

To avoid being caught by the police, people used clever codes in magazines to indicate to those in the know that they were looking for a partner.

In the Victorian times for example, people would use the newspaper columns of women's magazines to send coded messages out to people that they wanted to date that were of the same gender. In the 30s, gossip mags were used in a similar way.

From preserving your wealth to finding true love, dating has changed with society. So next time you’re on a first date, remember there’s years of history that led you to that moment.