"Weigel reaches two main conclusions... Her second conclusion is that the way we consume love changes to reflect the economy of the times. The monogamy of the booming postwar fifties offered “a kind of romantic full employment,” while the free love of the sixties signified not the death of dating but its deregulation on the free market. The luxury- and self-obsessed yuppies of the “greed is good” eighties demanded that the romantic market deliver partners tailored to their niche specifications, developing early versions of the kinds of matchmaking services that have been perfected in today’s digital gig economy, where the personal is professional, and everyone self-brands accordingly...
The pursuit of leisure cost more than most single working-class women (paid a fraction of what men were) could readily afford. Weigel quotes a 1915 report by a New York social worker: “The acceptance on the part of the girl of almost any invitation needs little explanation, when one realizes that she often goes pleasureless unless she accepts ‘free treats.’ ” To have fun, a woman had to let a man pay for her and suffer the resultant damage to her reputation. Daters were “Charity Girls”—“Charity Cunts,” in a dictionary of sexual terms published in 1916—so called because they gave themselves away for free.
Dating thus amounted to a double bind. If women went out, they were seen as akin to whores, who at least got cash for their trouble—a distinction that was lost on the police, who regularly arrested female daters for prostitution. On the other hand, if women stayed in they couldn’t bump into eligible bachelors...
The shift from calling to dating happened quickly, in the way that such shifts often do. The rich copied the poor; the middle class copied the rich...
On the plus side, Weigel argues, the culture of going steady allowed couples a degree of emotional intimacy that earlier dating models lacked. But its restrictive mores also put the onus on girls to regulate both their own sexual urges and those of their boyfriends. The result “was a setup that subjected girls to constant stress, self-blame, and regret.”...
It’s enough to cause an identity crisis, which is exactly what Weigel says happened to her. “I had no idea who I was,” she writes in the book’s afterword. “And as long as I kept impersonating all the women I thought I should be, I could not receive love, much less give it. I had no self to choose to give it from.”"
FB: A really interesting history of American dating "In our consumer society, love is perpetually for sale; dating is what it takes to close the deal."
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