It often strikes me what dating culture, or as previously referenced, hookup culture, is like. It's no wonder that works of authors like Shakespeare or Jane Austen fascinate us now today. They give us a glance at a sort of romance that could never possible occur in the modern era. The time, the effort, and the sort of grace that stories like Pride and Prejudice or Romeo and Juliet, to offer up the most obvious of all options, let us dwell in situations opposite of our own. At the same time, it is hard to forget that "falling in love" in such times was almost never the case. On the off chance that individuals were allowed to married the person of their choice, there is a stiffness in the air in which these works portray falling in love as a sort of game in which one has to be very careful.
I had the opportunity in my senior year of high school to write my senior international baccalaureate paper on this topic. Specifically, I focused on the culture of marriage in terms of class. The paper required a thorough knowledge of the women's art of courting with men. To be blunt, there were specific (and truly, rather ridiculous) rules that any aristocratic women would know as part of being brought up. The details of "knowing how to flirt," down the way women should enter carriages, would have been enough to make me scream.
And yet, I think that years from now if/when I get married, I will regret the lack of pieces like love letters. The type of patience that existed then will never ever exist again, thanks to the sorts of technology like texting and emailing. Although, the changes that have occurred when it comes to things like falling in love are not all bad. The idea of forced marriages and marring without love, at least in the western hemisphere, are thankfully rapidly disappearing.
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