Courtship

Courting and Keeping Company

Courting was the predominate way in which middle-and upper-class men and women sought partners during the middle to late 1800s. The goal of courting was to find a partner for marriage. During this period, ideologies of spiritual love were common. The ideal marriage partner was seen as a partner and companion who could help provide for the other as a stable, reliable spouse. Sex was desexualized and seen as appropriate only within spiritual/marital unions. Relationships based in lust or pleasure were seen as troublesome in that these characteristics were not legitimate measures of the appropriateness of a union.

During this period, women met potential partners at social events, church, or through friends and relatives. Young women invited different male suitors to call on them or to visit them at their homes during prearranged hours. The couple then sat and visited with one another, often in the company of the woman's mother. Once invited to visit, men were free to visit the home during calling hours. If a woman was not interested in visiting him, her mother or other relative would inform him that she was unavailable. After visiting a woman who was “unavailable” a few times, men were expected to understand that she was no longer interested in seeing him. After courting several young men over a period of time, a woman found a man she was interested in marrying. At this point, the young couple stopped courting and started “keeping company,” or visiting each other exclusively in hopes that they would be good marriage partners. The couple was given more privacy when they visited so that they could get to know each other better.

There were three key features of courtship at this time. First, it was controlled by women. Young women and their mothers often invited men over to visit and controlled many aspects of courtship, such as what the couple did while visiting and who was allowed to visit. While a bold young man could ask whether he may visit, it was not a commonly accepted practice. In addition, courting and keeping company was done predominantly in private. Couples did not go out into public in order to engage in activities as a couple, but instead generally courted within the women's home or visited at community social events. Finally, ideologies of spiritual love promoted marriage as a rational institution, in which being compatible partners was favored over sexual attractions.

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