Life is quite different today than it was 100 years ago.
It’s really quite different from how it was even 20 years ago. With technology, morality and interaction all moving and changing, it’s necessary to see that people don’t create relationships with the opposite sex in the same way either.
In the late 1800’s proximity would have played a much bigger role.
You probably would meet the person you were going to marry in whatever town you were from and, by the time you were 18, you would have tied the knot. Ah, such a simple way of doing things.
But if you’ve played the Oregon Trail you know how quickly cholera or a broken leg can sneak up on folks. Your spouse would have bathed infrequently and, if you’re a lady, you would have given birth to around half a dozen children by the time you were 30. That is, if you didn’t die in childbirth. Gosh, this trip down memory lane is magical.
Even further back, say, to the Middle Ages, there’s a good chance your marriage would have been arranged.
That’s probably the simplest method of dating ever. “Here you go,” would have been your profile for online dating. But at least it took all of that messy decision making out of the process.
What about love languages you say?
If you were any sort of nobility, you might be lucky if your spouse spoke your same verbal language. Oh yeah, and many of those arranged marriages were to secure treaties or land. So romantic!
Women’s rights, suffrage and the WNBA prove that western society has come a long way from times past, but it means simplicity has gone out the window in a lot of cases. So if you’re getting misty about knights in shining armor and chivalry, just think about the Bubonic plague and bi-annual baths.
That’s not to say progress is a toss-up just for women. Things are more difficult for men, too.
All of that listening, paying attention, and being sensitive is a lot of work—even if it does make a relationship more meaningful. To interact with and woo a woman takes a lot more work than showing your skills at subsistence farming and not spitting tobacco juice on the floor.
Basically, there has not been a better time period for dating or being married.
Fictional films and literature are telling a story and body odor has yet to become a medium for entertainment. Perhaps you’d be married with several children and a picket fence, but you’d be up at 4 a.m. milking cows and defending the homestead from bandits by 4 p.m. And women might have been submissive (as an example only…no hate comments, please), but they also might have been less feminine and hurting in the dental hygiene department.
Have you seen some of those pictures from PBS documentaries?
Even if you move the time frame up into the 1950’s and 60’s, you still have to consider the largely unacknowledged depression and amphetamine use of housewives during that time. Father may have known best, but his wife still thought he was an idiot.
Whereas James Bond vs. Twilight took aim at fictionalized members of the opposite sex, it still has to be considered that even periods of history have been over-glamorized, too.
You are at the absolute best time to be looking for someone and you are at the absolute worst time to be looking for someone.
Advantages and flaws are kind of a wash with all things considered. In fact, in past times, if you were over 30 and not married, you were either considered a spinster or gay. As someone over 30, I now must say that this time period is definitely better.
Yes, definitely better, because when else could I have been blogging about being single?
*Photo credit: Library of Congress
