From Front Porch to Back Seat

Or Why Emily Gilmore Was Right

I am convinced that no small part of the contemporary anxiety surrounding relations between the sexes stems from our failure to preserve the mode of courtship that held strong more than a century ago. It was one that our great-grandparents would have been familiar with, but one that we citizens of the 21^st century really only see portrayed in black and white movies, or in the great Hollywood musicals of the 50’s and 60’s.

In a provocatively entitled book published 35 years ago, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America, Beth L. Bailey outlines and follows the transition from older forms of courtship in place at the dawn of the 20^th century to what commonly came to be known as “dating” in the latter half of the century. One of the most crucial insights that Bailey puts forward is the idea that the shift from courting to dating “moved courtship into the public world, relocating it from family parlors and community events to restaurants, theaters, and dance halls.” Rather than providing a safe environment in which particular expectations needed to be met, all while within the woman’s social sphere of family and friends—those with true “skin in the game” so to speak—the shift to the dating model provided a certain anonymity when compared to the more traditional model.

There’s a scene in the television show Gilmore Girls that illustrates this generational shift perfectly.

Rory and Dean, high school boyfriend and girlfriend, have arranged to go to the school dance; anticipating this, Rory waits with her mother Lorelai at the house of her grandmother, Emily Gilmore. The conflict in this particular scene revolves around one simple act: the honk of a car horn. While making small talk in the parlor, the three women hear a car horn—apparently from the drive outside—and Rory jumps up to leave.

Emily: “Where are you going?”

Rory: “To the dance.”

Emily: “You do not go running out the door when a boy honks.”

Lorelai: “Mom, it’s fine.”

Emily: “It certainly is not fine. This is not a drive-thru. She’s not fried chicken.”

Rory: “But I told him to honk…”

Emily: “I don’t care what you told him. If he wants to take you out, he will walk up to this door, and knock, and say ‘Good evening,’ and come inside for a moment.”

Rory: *visible frustration*

Emily: “Any civilized human being would know to do…”

The scene ends as one would expect in the 21st century: with Rory running out the door while her mother shrugs, disappointing her grandmother yet one more time.

The reasons that traditional courting eventually faded away are complex, but suffice it to say that the dynamic of “paying a call” to a woman’s home, or “receiving suitors” eventually fell out of favor in practically every social class. In the courtship model, as Bailey observes, there were two major advantages for women that no longer hold sway in the dating world of today.

First, courtship—by definition—occurred within the space of the woman’s home: “while many of the conventions of female propriety were restrictive and repressive, they had allowed women (young women and their mothers) a great deal of immediate control over courtship.” Dating essentially erased the feminine sphere of the home from playing any part in the social dynamic between young couples, moving the arena of dating out into the masculine sphere of the world, and away from the oversight (and control) of the family, especially the oversight of the young woman’s mother and female relations.

On the Porch by William Chadwick (ca. 1908)

Second, the model of courtship allowed the power dynamic to remain firmly within the woman’s control. “Etiquette books and [advice] columns were adamant on that point: it was the ‘girl’s privilege’ to ask a young man to call… it was highly improper for the man to take the initiative.” Whole swaths of so-called “conservative” or “traditional” internet talking heads would like to convince the public of particular ideas about the traditional role of men in initiating romantic encounters. The fact of the matter, however, is that women were always seen as the masterminds and architects of romantic love. Courtship and the system of calling served to preserve this, dating reverses this dynamic.

What is more, the rise of the dating model contributed to the view—now common, unfortunately—that romantic encounters should be viewed through a lens that is primarily economic. If the expectation is now that young men should be taking women out, “wining and dining” if you’ll excuse the phrase, the implication is that a man’s presence and company are worth far less than that of a woman. Not only this, the dating model actively encourages the idea that a woman can be “bought,” and very quickly the reality of a woman selling her time to a man becomes entrenched as a societal norm. In situations like this, no wonder vulnerable young women feel pressured into scenarios where predatory men feel entitled to use them (and abuse them) on account of the fact that they have spent money on them. This is a tragic situation that courtship largely kept at bay.

In marriage there is often going to be an exchange of money and services, with one partner being largely responsible for the economic welfare of the couple, but marriage is a permanent relationship. This is not the case with dating. “Dating was situational, with no long-term commitments implied,” writes Bailey, “and when a man, in a highly visible ritual, spent money on a woman in public, it seemed much more clearly an economic act.” Without the surrounding safeguards and checks and balances that courtship provided, men and women began to view their relationship with the opposite sex as a transactional and functional one, stripping away virtue, responsibility, and even romance in the process.

Now there is probably no returning to a widespread cultural adoption of courtship, that ship has sailed. But examining the way things used to be done should at least push us to ask some important questions. When it comes to dating and the development of a romantic relationship, who has the power? Who should have the power? How involved should the families of the couple be in an ideal situation? What about situations that are not ideal, where one or both parties know that their families really can’t be counted on? These questions are just a few of those we could be asking.

Without wasting too many keystrokes on the various reasons why or how women have often been at a disadvantage socially or economically speaking, it should not be controversial to acknowledge that the traditional model of courtship allowed women to level the playing field to a certain extent. Courtship allows femininity to be a legitimate driving force in the development of romantic attachment, in turn providing the impetus for virtuous masculinity to respond in turn. Put simply, courtship created the venue for men and women to encounter one another innocently and with the best of intentions, surrounded by people who would (presumably) have the best intentions of the potential young couple in mind.

*Citations taken from the first chapter of Bailey’s book, included in the anthology Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar, compiled and edited by Leon and Amy Kass. Read more about that book here.