COURTSHIPthan do divorced adults, and divorced women
have the least desire for marriage. Again, this may
have to do with the greater options (if not econom-
ic parity with men) open to women in recent years.
Both men and women state their primary reasons
for wanting to marry as love, the desire for a
family, what they see as the ‘‘romantic’’ nature of
marriage, a desire for economic security (which, as
noted, may be illusory), and the opportunity for
regular sexual activity. However, the desire to
remain single—for both men and women—is linked
to having unrestricted career opportunities, to the
desire for an ‘‘exciting’’ lifestyle, and to having the
freedom to change and experiment. Men also
identify the restrictive nature of marriage and the
limits on mobility and experiences as reasons to
remain single, but women mention the desire to
be self-sufficient and the possibility of poor com-
munication in marriage as among their top rea-
sons for choosing singlehood over marriage.
Around the world, childbearing by unwed
women has increased, accounting for about one-
third of all births in America and northern Europe
in the mid-1990s. Despite the fact that there has
been a recent decline in teen births in the United
States, teen pregnancies are much higher in Ameri-
ca than in other industrialized nations, for which
our poor (or absent) sexuality education is often
blamed (Ventura, Matthews, and Curtin 1998).
The rising age at marriage and its effects have
interested scholars not only in developed coun-
tries (e.g., East Germany) but also in developing
countries such as Sri Lanka, Java, and sub-Saharan
Africa. One effect is the relatively large numbers
of young adults still living in the parental home.
Living arrangements and other family influences
such as parental divorce or having had alcoholic
parents have been studied for their effects on
dating behavior, premarital pregnancy, violence in
courtship, and on drinking behaviors of young adults.
Research shows that expectations of marriage
among those of courting age are inflated, when
compared to the expectations of persons with
marital experience. Inflated expectations may be
another of the causes of subsequent divorce. Moreo-
ver, scholars who study conduct on dates have
uncovered the seeming paradox of egalitarian
daters who behave traditionally during the earliest
stages of courtship. Behavior that does not reflect
beliefs gives false impressions, and has obvious
implications for the spontenaiety and honesty (or
lack of them) of the conditions under which court-
ing partners get to know one another. In this era
when dating/courtship has lost much of its coher-
ence, we find advice books for young adults with
names such as Dating for Dummies (1996) and The
Complete Idiot’s Guide to Dating (1996). The titles
alone tell a story. Still other writers attempt to
capitalize on the old notion of a war between the
sexes, implying that in addition to knowing little
about how to date/court, we know very little about
one another since ‘‘men are from Mars and wom-
en are from Venus’’—unless we study such guides
as Mars and Venus on a Date (Gray 1988). Under the
guise of assisting daters to communicate with one
another, they present half-traditional, half-egali-
tarian versions of how to get along with persons
who are seen as each others’ ‘‘opposites.’’ These
popular books rest on the idea that by following
their prescriptions, as in The Rules (Fein and
Schneider 1996), our courtships will be successful
and their outcomes happy. (The Rules, interesting-
ly, is highly traditionalistic, and reads like a guide
for 1950s ‘‘dating success.’’)In contrast to these for-profit offerings, schol-
ars continue to study ‘‘close’’ or ‘‘intimate’’ pre-
marital relationships as these have changed from
stylized conventional dating to the more informal
‘‘hanging out’’ and ‘‘hooking up,’’ the latter an
almost only just-for-sexual-purposes arrangement.
These shifts follow in part from a weakened nor-
mative imperative to marry (Thorton 1989) and in
part from the trend toward more egalitarian rela-
tionships between the sexes. However, in almost
all research, male/female similarities and differ-
ences continue to form part of the data analysis.
Recent studies have examined attraction in an
effort to identify its bases, and, less broadly, have
investigated ‘‘opening lines’’ used for meeting
potential partners. Which lines work, which do
not, and why are unsuccessful lines still in use?
These are among the kinds of questions that are
asked and answered by such investigations. Schol-
ars working in criminal justice-related areas have
provided information about the use of Rohypnol,
a central nervous system depressant that is ‘‘abused
throughout the United States by high school and
college students, rave and nightclub attendees,
and drug addicts and alcohol abusers.’’ Its use
facilitates sexual assaults (Office of National Drug