HANDS AND HEARTS: A History of Courtship in America

by Ellen K. Rothman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 1984

A history of courtship in America? An ambitious task, but historian/researcher Rothman is largely successful--in part by limiting herself to 350 women and men courting between 1770 and 1920 who were white, Protestant, middle-class Northerners: ""the kind of people who produced, and whose descendants preserved, personal documents."" Even so, distinct historic shifts underlie the commonality of courtship. In the first period (1770-1840), couples could arrange easy meetings with little parental surveillance; nonetheless, the woman's response was carefully measured. As Helen Benson told William Lloyd Garrison after their engagement: ""However strong might have been your attachment for me, I would never have revealed it to you had you not first offered yourself to me."" Both sexes recognized the slowness of love, and friendship provided ""boundaries within which men and women could test themselves and each other."" By the second period (1830-1880), the easy meetings had given way to exaggerated gender divisions--to the disgust, most interestingly, of some Victorian women. Said one New Yorker to her fiancÉ: ""As to my being your superior in every respect and my mind's being of more lofty order than yours--I don't believe one word of it. . . ."" By the 1840s, friendship had become demarcated from love, and devalued--with romance changing from something youthful and wild into the ""only acceptable basis for intimacy between women and men."" Living in different gender worlds, the couple relied upon candor to bridge them. In the 1870-1920 period, the Victorian gender-divide was breached as women gained access to education and occupations. Now friendship was easier, but sexuality made it dangerous. ""Male impurity"" became a social problem--the ""ideal man,"" a contradiction in terms. Personality and physical attractiveness, not candor, were required. As one young man complained of a girl he'd met at a dance, she was ""not especially pretty and didn't have much to say--that is, her 'line' was weak. . . ."" In the final period of 1920-1980, the decline in written communications limits Rothman's sources; still, she finds evidence elsewhere for the popularity of petting as a means of reconciling conflicting middle-class values. As most clearly stated in Sex and the College Girl, the ""ideal girl"" was one who ""has done every possible kind of petting without actually having had intercourse. This gives her savoirfaire, while still maintaining her dignity."" While both cohabitation and divorce are on the rise, Rothman believes Americans have not lost their faith in marriage: the ""one old-fashioned thing to which people cling,"" as a 1905 letter put it. A competent, at times delightful, survey of courtship--in tune with recent work on American gender and family patterns.

Pub Date: April 4, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Basic Books

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION