Michal Leibowitz, an editorial assistant at the New York Times, has written a piece titled, “Dating Is Broken. Going Retro Could Fix It.” Leibowitz met her husband at her synagogue, “a meeting point that helped ensure we shared common values and whose members supported (and sometimes vouched for) each of us as we began dating.” Remarking on a trend in the “secular mainstream,” she notes that many people seem tired of dating-app culture. Instead, they have “latched — tentatively, faddishly — onto traditional dating practices.”
Through conversations with traditional and secular daters, I’ve come to see three practices as particularly promising for people who are looking for committed, long-term relationships: meeting partners through friends, family or matchmakers rather than online; early, upfront communication around long-term goals and values; and delaying sexual intimacy.
Leibowitz asks, “Is it time to court again?”
As discussed in Louise Perry’s book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, a courtship culture encourages men to compete for women’s long-term commitment in the form of marriage — marriage being the price of sex. Whereas, in our present setup, the hookup culture encourages women to compete for men’s short-term sexual interest. This is a terrible arrangement for women for obvious reasons. But it is also terrible for men as it locks them in a state of prolonged adolescence (what Perry describes as “cad” mode). And ultimately, this is bad for both sexes if their long-term goal is a happy marriage and a satisfying sex life.
Leibowitz notes:
A 2010 study published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Family Psychology looked at the relationship between the amount of time a couple waits to have sex and the quality of their marriage. Researchers found that couples who waited until marriage reported not just less consideration of divorce but also higher relationship satisfaction, better communication and superior sex when compared with couples who began having sex within a month of their first date (or before they started dating). Couples who slept together between a month and two years after their first date — but didn’t wait until marriage — saw about half of the benefits.