from 1900 to 3008

I was never particularly good at Mormon dating. Making it to 29 as an active Mormon woman proves this. Even though I wasn't good at it, I at least felt like I knew the rules, and knew how it was supposed to work, and I saw many friends married off in the 10+ years I was in singles wards. And I just kept on holding on, waiting, doing and not doing the same things, and in a way that was easy. Easy, because that was what was expected of you, but lonely for sure.

Now that I've left the church, I find myself dating in what feels like a completely different world. A world I am THRILLED to be in, in so many ways. I have at least 5 close friends who are 30-ish single women who have recently left the church, and for this I feel very lucky to have people I can relate to. As my friends and I talk about navigating these new waters, we comment that we sometimes feel like teenagers, yet with more emotional maturity, creating an interesting dynamic.

I know that dating and understand the opposite sex is hard for many, whether you're both Mormon, or not religious at all. And there is no shortage of advice from people, books, and magazines. Whether it is old-fashioned game playing advice that feels disingenuous and manipulative, or the too optimistic "just tell him your feelings" from those who hope we are in a post-feminist world, or have just forgotten how difficult dating is, it is rarely simple. That, and it seems everyone is operating under different assumptions. Often it seems people take their experiences, which have been shaped by society, and generalize, saying that's how things have always been. I think that nowhere is this more apparent than in talk of gender. I recently read a fascinating book on marriage recently:

Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage
by Stephanie Coontz


It started out with the beginnings of the history of marriage, and since I'm a history nerd, I loved it. She talked about how in the beginning people married to gain connections, mainly by the way of in-laws. This purpose remained number one for a long time. During this time period, men and women did have different roles, but both were responsible for contributing to the household for food and care. Since the book covers a lot of history in the West, I won't go into detail about all the changes which have taken place over time. But she basically explains how marriage started as something that was necessary in order to keep society together and was not related to love. As Europe and the U.S. became more industrial, women gained more power, and therefore had more options. Thus, a loving marriage become more of a goal as women gained greater independence, though marriages were still based on society's rules and acceptance. Coontz posits that in the past 30 years, marriage has changed more than it did in hundreds of years before. Marriage is no longer a sure thing in people's life or in signaling entrance into adulthood. Because both sexes have options for economic independence, sexuality, and acceptance outside of marriage, it is no longer a given. People have become less and less likely to stay in a marriage that is not satisfying. Though many family values advocates decry this as ruinous for society, Coontz takes a very pragmatic approach, that we can't turn back time and that changes are here to stay. She also talks about the many positives of the love-based marriage and its capacity for great closeness.

What struck me most about this book, and which hopefully brings it back to what I was talking about in the beginning about dating, is that one of the time periods I best identified with in this book was the 1900's. That's about when it was no longer acceptable to publicly say women were not as good as men, so they started saying women were just different, and better. Men and women have different roles and capabilities, and that each were better suited for certain activities, depending on their gender. Mens roles just happened to be the ones with the power. It all sounded very Proclamation on the Family to me.

I grew up in what is thought of as a traditional family, with my father working and my mother at home caring for the children, though this didn't really become "traditonal" till the 1950's. I think I've always been a bit conflicted with what I saw at home and was told was the right way, and what I saw and heard about others doing, both in the Mormon world and in society as a whole. While I heard what was supposedly acceptable in the world, non-traditional families, mothers working outside the home, pre-marital sex, it always seemed just something other people did. Though I think I always had an issue with pre-defined roles, I never knew how to articulate this, so I just lived with the ambiguity in myself, and tried to insert myself into the Mormon dating world, hoping it would eventually work for me. It didn't, and here I am trying to figure out a world I thought I didn't need to pay any attention to for most of my life.

One of the most positive things Coontz talks about is how most dating and marriage advice is out of date, because society is changing faster than can keep up. So all of those ideas about how the man must chase the woman, and what each is looking for in a partner are not neccessarily up to date. We still have many people willing to tell us advice based on old assumptions, though a lot more relationships are more equitable than this. So I continue on, not being a slave to my past, or others ideas; fumbling through the new world of dating and sex and relationships, and marriage. Maybe I'll figure out, maybe I won't, but at least I'm having a good time trying...