Historical Overview on Dating(Angela): From Institutions to Partnership

Through the ages, dating and marriage have changed from institutions of convenience to partnerships based on love. Back in colonial America , marriage was less about romance and more focused on men finding women who could bear children and help share heavy workloads that the frontier life demanded. Moving towards the mid-1800s a shortage of women forced men to place ads listing out all their expectations they have for their significant other , and from there meeting the person their suppose to spend the rest of their life with. Fast forwarding to the 1960’s is when women got more feminist freedom and also the birth control pill was introduced, within this same era dating services found their way on to the scene , for example “The Dating Game” which was the forerunner in T.V dating shows for singles, brought to us in 1965. By the time we reached the 1990’s new technology has been invented allowing a significant shift in the dating process. As the internet expanded it created new ways for couples to meet such as online dating or internet dating. Men and women can post personal profiles on different dating websites and get to know each other through email correspondences before an actual face to face meet and greet. The 1998 film “You’ve Got Mail” is a perfect example of the new modern day in age way of finding love, this is a movie which two protagonists conduct a relationship entirely over email before meeting each other or “Eurotrip” released in 2004, a film in which the main character has a relationship via email with a girl from Berlin, “Must love Dogs”, a 2005 film about two people trying to find love through online dating. Pop culture has a huge affect on different trends, online dating being one of them. Online dating is the largest segment of paid content on the internet besides porn.