Courtship

Courtship or dating is the process of selecting and attracting a mate for companionship, sex, marriage and sexual reproduction.



Dating and alternative courtship customs
In many traditional societies, courtship is a highly structured activity, with well-known rules. In many cultures, courtship is made redundant, or eliminated altogether, by the practice of arranged marriages, where partners are chosen for young people, typically by their parents. In some societies, the parents or community choose potential partners, and then allow limited dating to determine whether the parties are suited.

In Japan, there is a type of courtship called Omiai. Parents will hire a matchmaker to provide pictures and résumés of potential mates, and if the couple agrees, there will be a formal meeting with the matchmaker and often parents in attendance. The matchmaker and parents will often exert pressure on the couple to decide whether they want to marry or not after only a few dates.

In Western societies, a date is an occasion when one socializes with a potential lover or spouse. In this sense, the purpose of a date is for the people dating to get to know each other and decide whether they want to have a relationship. Dating may be the term describing the relationship of two people attending a date, but other terms are often used. These terms can imply different degrees of commitment and monogamy, but with some ambiguity. In the mid-20th century, United States teenagers commonly dated or "went out" with multiple people before "going steady" with just one, but the term "going out" later came to imply an exclusive relationship. Other terms include "seeing" one another and "pseudo dating" where the time is spent together, but the prospect of actual romantic relationship may be understood by one or both parties but is never explicitly discussed.

History of Commercial Dating Services
Though most people meet their dates at social organizations, in their daily life, or are introduced through friends or relatives, commercial dating agencies emerged strongly, but discreetly, in the Western world after World War II, mostly catering for the 25–44 age group. Newspaper and magazine personal ads also became common.

In the last five years, mate-finding and courtship have seen changes due to online dating services. Telecommunications and computer technologies have developed rapidly since around 1995, allowing daters the use of home telephones with answering machines – mobile phones – and web-based systems to find prospective partners. "Pre-dates" can take place by telephone or online via instant messaging, e-mail, or even video communication. A disadvantage is that, with no initial personal interview by a traditional dating agency head, internet daters are free to exaggerate or lie about their characterisitics.

While the growing popularity of the Internet took some time, currently one in five singles is now said to look for love on the Web, which has led to a dramatic shift in dating patterns. Research in the United Kingdom suggests that at 2004 there were around 150 agencies there, and the market was growing at around twenty percent a year due to, first, the very low entry barriers to setting up a dating site, and secondly, the rising number of single people. However, even academic researchers find it impossible to find precise figures about crucial statistics, such as, first, the ratio of active daters to the large rump of inactive members whom the agency will often wrongly claim to still be potential partners, and secondly, the overall ratio of men to women in an agency's membership. Academic research on traditional pre-internet agencies suggested most agencies may well have far more men than women in their membership.

Traditionally in many societies and in western socieites, men were expected to fill the role of "the pursuer." However, the anonymity of the Internet (as well as other factors) has allowed women to take on that role online. A recent study indicated that "women pay to contact men as often as the reverse, which is quite different from behavior in telephone-based dating system" (from Wired magazine).

The trend of singles making a Web connection continues to increase, as the percentage of North American singles who have tried Internet dating has grown from two percent in 1999 to over ten percent today (from Canadian Business, February 2002). More than half of online consumers (53%) know someone who has started a friendship or relationship online, and three quarters of 18-to-24-year-old online consumers (74%) say they do. There is also some academic evidence that the 18–25 age group has significantly taken up online dating. This growing trend is reflected in the surging popularity of online communities such as Friendster.com, Facebook.com and Myspace.com, sites which are not directly geared toward dating, but many users nonetheless use to find potential dates or research a new acquaintance to check for availability and compatibility.

There is still plenty of room for traditional matchmakers to thrive, however, and only time will tell which industry wins out in the end.

Courtship in the animal kingdom
In discussions of animal species there is typically mention of the time and place for animal behaviors that contribute to the courtship or finalization of mate selection. For example, one may refer to the California least tern or the Santa Cruz Long-toed Salamander article to see the context and importance of these animal rituals. In some species the courtship involves elaborate dancing or touching, while in many species there is emphasis upon vocalization, scent or display of beauty/ prowess. Most courtship occurs out of the sight of man, so that it is the least documented of animal behaviors.