In Defense of Courtship

I devoted a decade, more or less, to researching a multidisciplinary book on love songs.

This forced me to learn the history of dating, marriage, and sexuality—going back thousands of years.

So I read all the experts on the subject—Stendhal’s Love, Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, Plato’s Symposium, Dante’s La Vita Nuova, Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, José Ortega y Gasset’s On Love, Andreas Capellanus’s The Art of Courtly Love, C.S. Lewis’s The Allegory of Love, and lots of others.

But all that history is beside the point. That’s because I want to talk about the state of romance today.

It must be in short supply, because I hear lots of complaints from singles. They tell me it’s not easy to find a good partner for a relationship. (...)

They hate dating apps, but they don’t know any better way of finding somebody.

And how do you break out of the app cycle? Some people are starting to take desperate measures.

I keep coming back to the paradox. Apps make things easier—so why are relationships getting harder?

As I mull this over, I’m reminded of something I studied while researching the history of love songs. But it’s never mentioned nowadays.

It’s called courtship.

When was the last time you heard somebody use that word?

Maybe you hear it in a movie about romances from the distant past. But you can watch a whole season of The Bachelor or The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and courtship won’t make a single appearance.

I bet the spellcheck on my iPhone won’t even recognize it.

Courtship? Did you mean to write Court-Issued Restraining Order?

It seems such a silly and old-fashioned concept. Why bother with courtship when it’s faster to do a hookup?

Hey, I’m no prude. I’m not doing abstinence training here. Nobody’s saying you can’t do what you’ve got to do.

But let’s give courtship its due.

1. It brought couples together for more than a thousand years. We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for those courting couples.
2. The rules of courtship embrace ritual and gracious behavior. These “rules of the game” provide guidance and impart structure (as well as add spice) in an otherwise unstable process.
3. You become better and more attractive yourself by following these rules—because they impose a discipline and aura of courtliness on your own actions.
4. They also provide a sense of safety for both participants.
5. The notion behind courtship is that love is stronger when creating a relationship is harder. That’s true in other spheres of life—sports training, musicianship, education, etc. And it’s easy to understand why: We get stronger at anything by avoiding shortcuts and taking on challenges.
6. Courtship moves step-by-step, and thus provides a chance for ongoing reflection and learning, as well as an easy exit path, before things get too complicated.
7. But here’s the most important reason for courtship: It fosters an attitude of respect, appreciation, and courtesy between the two people.

And that’s exactly what they will need if they decide to build a lasting relationship. You set the foundation for the future with this respect. (...)

There’s a good reason why this kind of idealized courtship still shows up in Hollywood movies. It’s because it creates an intense atmosphere of romance. (...)

Many contemporary romance novels are still working from this playbook.

The appeal of these tales is obvious.

I think we all crave a little more of this in our relationships.

Maybe this is just one more example of apps creating shortcuts, when we might be better off with a longer, more ceremonial process.

We all know that slow food tastes better than fast food. And that’s true in many other pursuits—good things take time. If you care about results, you don’t rush.

So why not try the same in relationships. (...)

This step-by-step process happened everywhere back then, not just in Europe. Consider this account of courtship among the Omaha tribe, from researcher Alice Fletcher:

A young man of the tribe watches his beloved from afar….

and at the dawn his love-song may be heard echoing over the hills. Sometimes he sings in the evening to let the maiden know of his presence. Girls find ways of learning who are the young men seeking them, and they also in their turn watch these lovers secretly and either flirt a little or entertain a serious regard for the young wooer. All this little drama takes place covertly, no elder is made a confidant.

This sounds like it’s straight out of the Romeo and Juliet playbook.

by Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker |  Read more:

Images: uncredited

[ed. I'm not so sure this doesn't happen these days too, but more in group situations where a bunch of folks just hang out together and subtle signals get passed in a low-risk environment. Plus, it gives the advantage of seeing how someone you might be interested in interacts in social situations and around your friends. More data points. See also: The Guitar as the Instrument of Seducers (HB).]