Dating in de USA – verloving en verkering in Nederland. Een vergelijking van ontwikkelingen sinds 1880’

Around 1880, in the good societies of both the Netherlands and the USA, courtship
activities were very similar: parents, especially those of girls, controlled all venues of
boys and girls for getting together. Then, in both countries, young people
became involved in an emancipation process. At American universities and colleges,
the practice of dating became popular. This form of courtship involved some sexual
practices, thus providing teenagers in the USA with an international head start in the
process of their sexual emancipation. From the twenties onwards, the practice of
dating also spread across high schools.
In the same period in the Netherlands, emancipation proceeded by an informalisation
of (formal) engagements and by the emergence of ‘verkering’, a period of ‘going
steady’ before an engagement. Between 1945 and 1965, these two trajectories
tended to converge, particularly by the growing popularity of ‘going steady’ in
the USA. But after the sexual revolution, American youth had lost their head start as
the traditional ban on sex before marriage had prevailed, while in the Netherlands
this taboo had rapidly and drastically disappeared. In his article Wouters compares
these two national trajectories and aims at explaining them. His explanation is based
upon differences in power remaining larger in the USA than in the Netherlands: not
only between young people and their parents but also between the social classes,
sexes and generations.
Drawing mainly from sexology studies, etiquette books, and other advisory materials,
supplemented by sources that serve to outline an historical context, Wouters’ historical-
sociological explanation focuses on differences in the functioning of national good societies,
particularly differences in the regulation of status competition and social mobility, and
these are connected to the regulation of teenage sexuality.