July 14, 2010 • 22 mins
In most modern cultures, it's traditional for men to propose marriage to women. But where did this tradition come from? Should women propose to men? Molly and Cristen investigate the origins and cultural significance of marriage proposals in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House top works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Kristen. I'm Molly. Molly. Uh. I
(00:23):
would get down on one knee if I if the
mike wasn't sitting up on a table. So just imagine
me on one knee right now. Um, and I just
I want to know if you'll, if you'll be mine forever?
Will you marry me? Molly Kristen. I even though I
(00:43):
knew what we were podcasting on today, I did not
expect this surprise engagement. Guys. I wanted to do it
in front of all our listeners. I guess some ladies
who consider this the ultimate in romantic gestures that you're
doing it in front right, I'm just the question. Yeah,
I'm doing it virtually in front of where in our
intimate sound and people. Yeah, it's got scot you know,
(01:05):
mood lighting. I guess is it working. It's got soundproofing. Yeah.
I mean, I've got all my notes in front of me,
and still I just did not expect this. I'm going
off script. I guess I know how those people who
see their names, you know, pop up on those those
big TVs at sports games feel It feels pretty good,
doesn't It's a little overwhelming. But you know, it might
(01:25):
be a little controversial for me to be doing this
because I'm a woman proposing. Well do you double whammy
of controversy, I think. But yeah, that's gonna be our
topic today. And and I'm kind of baffled that I
did not see this coming, knowing that we were going
to talk about why men proposed and whether sometimes women
should flip the tables and uh ask the question themselves. Well,
(01:47):
maybe before we go any further, I should go ahead
and state so that it's clear that you know that
was that was an example, Molly. I'm sorry. I rescind
my proposal to you. Um Chris and all our fans
know that you don't believe in marriage. Oh man, don't
bring that up again. You get for putting me on
the spot. I'm gonna bring it up again time. Kristen
(02:09):
said that, and it's haunted her ever so it has
haunted me ever since. But I don't want um, this
my my possibly marrying you do haunt me. It's no
no offense, Molly. But but that was a joke people. Um,
it was just an example of how to make someone
feel uncomfortable, just to joke like you just didn't even
(02:29):
didn't even cross your mind. Well, we can talk about
this effort. I think we need to. You've opened up
a whole can of worms. I'm kind of shocked how
quickly you we ascended this romantic Well, well if we
if if it were back in the nineteen thirties, if
I had done that to you and rescinded my heartfelt proposal,
you would be in line for a heart bomb suit.
(02:50):
That's true. I would. I would take you for everything
you were worth because of the egregious damage you've done
to me in front of all these witnesses. No less. Yeah, Actually,
in um, it was fun to find out from the
Yale Law Journal that in early American law, women could
recover damages when men promised to marry and then took
their proposal back because um, at that time, obviously men
(03:13):
were more financially stable than women, and the action was known.
The legal action was known as a breach of promise.
But then there came this wave of all of these
related suits of women charging men with rescinding their engagements
and it became nicknamed heart bomb suits. Just a fun fact.
(03:34):
But you know the reason we wanted to research this,
you know, this week Kristen was we wanted to know
why is it the guys who have the obligation to
get down on bended knee? Yeah, we're knee deep in
wedding season people, all right, it's everywhere and people have
just been talking about marriage a lot in popular media.
People are questioning the entire institution. And so since Molly
(03:55):
and I have already talked about engagement rings in the
episode Our Diamond Really a Girl's Best Friend, and we've
talked about ms verse miss and why did brides wear white,
we thought, well, what about this question of why men
are proposing? Where did that come from? Because there's a
trend lately of you know, men possibly wearing engagement rings
(04:18):
and even women turning the tables and proposing to men.
But before we get there, we need to go back
through history, and we're not going to go back to
a specific point because as far as we can tell,
men have always proposed just because you know, back in
the olden days, women it was more of a negotiation
and women were sort of the thing you could trade
one family to another. And this concept of romantic marriages,
(04:41):
as we've discussed, it's fairly new. Yes, a lot of
this information comes from Marriage a History, which is a
fantastic book by Stephanie Coons. I highly recommended if you
need something for your summer reading. UM and and I've
been reading it actually over the past few weeks, and
I was flipping through to try to find something specifically
on proposals. And while the book does not discuss the
(05:04):
whole lot does a man get on one knee tradition,
it's very clear cut that, like you said, only the
reason why men propose is because they always have. Like
way back in the day thousands of years ago, when
marriage alliances first started, women were the property that were
traded in order to either get more land or to
(05:26):
secure a families position in place to offer more protection. UM.
And then with industrialization and around the time of the Enlightenment,
we have the rise of quote unquote love marriages, where UM,
men and women are able to earn wages on their
own outside their families, and so they have a little
bit more autonomy to pick their mates. But still it
(05:48):
was the men who were doing the choosing, And though
men did the choosing. Uh, this grand fancy, you know,
romantic proposal that it's just becomes the anecdote of the couple.
It doesn't seem to have you know, started it around
the same time as love marriages, even though men were
doing the choosing, either for you know, financial reasons or
for love reasons. As time evolved, they might have just
(06:08):
wrote a letter, you know, and said, hey, let's let's
do this thing. Or they might have asked her very simply,
you know, what the parents present. It wasn't this idea
of a big, you know, grand gesture. The Internet traces
it to nights who bowed down before their ladies. But
it's not like guys, you know, immediately got this thought like, hey,
let's bend down like nights and make a big speech
about how much we want to spend the rest of
(06:29):
our lives together. It sounds like we've got pop culture
to blame for that. I think it is pop culture.
And according to the book Cinderella Dreams by Seeley Otans
and Elizabeth H. Plaque, Uh, the tradition of a man
getting down on bended knee seems to be merely a
dramatic flourish that came from the silent film era. Basically
(06:51):
like once we started watching movies and then proliferated on TVs,
um it just kind of became the norm because that's
what you see. You see you know, Laurence Olivier or
whoever you know, Gable, Clark Gable, although I don't imagine
Clark Gable just being a being too romantic, you know,
he was a little more a little more of a jerk,
(07:12):
and the movie got the way he gets down on
one knee and jest and proposes to Scarlett o'h hair. Yes,
but even before we have Clark Gable proposing to Vivian
Lee on screen. Uh, the whole courtship process is led
by the guy, which really is not, you know, revolutionary concept.
(07:33):
I'm sure most people realize that, but Coon's points out
that by the end of the nineteenth century, the middle
class had developed an elaborate courtship ritual, or by a
young man would be invited to call at a woman's
home and then they would the young man and the
woman would basically hang out in the parlor or on
the front porch, and they would be closely supervised by
(07:55):
the girl's family, and the word date wasn't used in
its modern slang since until the late eighteen nineties, and
even then it was only used in as working class slang.
It was kind of looked down upon. But then by
nineteen fourteen, we have the Ladies Home Journal starting to
use the word as this new fangled type of you know,
(08:16):
according that that young men and women were doing. That
was a lot more liberated than just going and you know,
a guy going and sitting on a front porch with
a girl for a while. And then, of course, as
we've talked about in our dating episode, in the nineteen twenties,
with the rise of the automobile, guys and girls start
leaving together to go on dates outside of the home.
(08:37):
And where they're going a lot of times, Molly, they're
going to the movies where they're gonna go see these
you know, romantic relationships portrayed on screen, which I would think,
you know, might fuel this whole you know, men proposing
to women, men being the gallant, chivalrous nights in the situation, right,
because most most movies of that era usually end with
(08:57):
a good, good engagement and m happily ever after. So
we see that on the silver screen. But you know,
in the past century, we've had so much happen in
terms of feminism, women, women's rights, and we're told now
that you know, women can, women can do anything, And
the question has come, can they turn the tables and
be the one that proposes to the man. And you know,
(09:18):
it's actually not a new question, because I was looking
through the New York Times archives and I found this
thing from nineteen o four written by this woman who's like,
you know, spinsters might just get too sad waiting for
their man to propose, So on leap here, why don't you,
uh take the reins and propose yourself? And then it
was I guess their tongue in cheek. It's kind of
(09:38):
hard to tell from nineteen o four, but there's some
some advice for women who want to prop the questions
such as, um, don't do it when he's hungry. Uh,
don't do it when he's in a bad mood. Make
it the make it sound like a really good financial
arrangement because now I won't have to pay for a maid. Um.
So definitely different kinds of advice than a than a
(09:59):
fella gets before he pops A big question but well,
can I can I read a little snippet of this
of this column, just to give listeners an exact idea
of I would I would love how this goes okay,
Dorothy Dix says in The New York Times, the past
is no criterion. Women do many things now that they
didn't do forty or even four years ago. It's not
(10:19):
at all impossible that many a discouraged spinster there's that
word again, worn out with waiting for her steady bow
to speak, And many love lorn maiden who was here
do for let let concealment, prey upon her own damask.
Cheek will take matters into her own hands and propose
matrimony to the man she loves in this year of
(10:41):
grace ninety o four, because it was a leap here,
so he would do here right, Because I actually did
not realize the small I don't know how I missed
the boat on this one. But I've never heard the
whole weap heer thing. But apparently thanks to St Bernardine
and St Patrick, where's it in the day? Sat Bridget
obviously don't know about it. Sat Bridget and St Patrick
(11:03):
back in the day in Ireland, uh are you doing
Irish accent for this and I'm resisting. People said they
love the accents, Kristen do it. I don't want it
to be. I don't want to go over there. You
can't do an Irish accent, can you? Now you're trying
to reverse psychology? Mean, welly, it's not gonna work. So
according to snopes dot com, one day St Bridget was
(11:27):
hanging out with St. Patrick and and she was all like, oh,
St Patrick, I hate that we can't propose to the
men we love. There you go, Molly, that was for you.
And St. Patrick was like, I'll tell you what, how
about every seven years? Uh, you guys can do it?
And Bridget talked him down to four years. Hence every
(11:48):
February twenty nine that rolls around a k a every
leap year women can propose the men. It's like Sadie
Hawkins Day. You know when you can you can invite
a guy out. Yeah, the card just stops. That were
there could have been various penalties at the time imposed
that the guy said no, he had to give her
like a hundred pounds need to buy her silk dress.
Um Snope sinks it's more likely just because leap here
(12:10):
was such a weird day to have around our February
tiny night that all these weird things became associated with it.
So they're they're not sure how much truths in the matter,
but that didn't stop them from making that Amy Adams
movie about about that very very day. But according to
a column by Hannah Selicson in The Wall Street Journal,
even though it's still not that common for women to
(12:34):
propose to men, women are still playing a much bigger
role in the whole engagement process, or the proposal process,
I should say right. She cites a sociology professor from
the University of Central Oklahoma named Amanda Miller who conducted
a study about how proposals are made, and she studied
in particular cohabitating couples, and she found that couples pretty
(12:57):
much work as a team to set the date and
the inside cases, a woman will even script the proposal.
It's not like she proposes per se, but there's been
enough dialogue between the two that she knows when it's coming,
and she might have picked out the ring, and that
it's it's less of a crazy pop the question moment
like it was from me at the beginning of this podcast, yeah,
(13:19):
because a lot of times, unlike you know, when I
sprang the question on Molly, couples will have talked about,
you know, marriage beforehand, and they might be like, well,
I let's not I don't want to be married until
after I get out of law school, you're in med school,
or like you know, like you've got you've got all
this podcasting you're working on, let's get through podcast sweeps season.
(13:41):
I wish that existed. Um So, so yeah, it's more
of a it's more of a collaboration, which is reflective
of today's relationship in general. You know, it's yeah, I
mean I think it makes sense. I think that we
always advocate open communication about things like finances and a
status for relationship up Christen, So it's not surprising to
me that women play such role. But what's amazing is
(14:05):
then you'll search the internet just for the question, uh,
should women propose? And the answer from all the men
who have written these online columns about it is no, no,
no way. I mean you can. It's almost like you
can kind of script the proposal to a point, and
then men want that ultimate responsibility to be like this
is my job. Yeah, I mean, men out there, please
(14:25):
correct me if I'm wrong, But it seems like from
what we've read, guys are cool with the idea of
knowing that their girlfriend wants to become a fiancee that
if he pops the question buys the ring, he's not
gonna have to take like a walk of shame back
to Tiffany's or wherever. But according to we found um
(14:47):
a column on the Gloss dot com, which is a
fun women's website, and they've got a They've got a
column on there where it's a guy answering questions and
he said, for the love of God, women, do not
propose to your men. Just just let him do it,
because if you proposed to him, he is going to
(15:08):
be the laughing stock of his friends for the rest
of the union. Oh, I don't know. I mean, Christine.
When I was reading that article, I did think I
had to wonder if it was really going to be
that rough for a guy who's lady proposed, as the
writer at The Gloss said it would be. I mean,
that's obviously something we're gonna have to open it up
to our listeners and hear their thoughts on it. But
I did find one thing at the Daily Mail that
(15:30):
made me and sort of made the case for me
about maybe why a woman should wait before popping the question.
They did this study and found that the average couple
gets engaged two years, eleven months, and eight days after
first setting eyes on each other, but the women feel
ready to tie the knot after just two years, seven months,
and twenty four days. So women are about four months
(15:53):
ahead on average of guys in terms of getting engaged
or feeling ready to get engaged. So I wonder if
Art it's just that women feel ready first and that's
why they start feeling man, I need to pop this question.
He's he's dragging his feet. Well. One thing though, and
Molly in this whole conversation that we haven't brought up
um and that didn't come up in any of the
(16:13):
articles that we found about proposals, was how does the
same dynamic exist in gay couples? He dismissed on on
one thing. I saw, this was only mentioned I saw
of it. Yeah, I mean, I wonder if the same
kind of thing of like you know, of the kind
of lag, the the engagement lag, if you will, exists
(16:33):
or if it's or if it's an easier I don't know,
an easier thing to negotiate, because I like to think
of engagements really is just business negotiations. Well, it's still
I mean, it depends on I guess where you live.
If you can even propose at all, well sure, but
still proposing, you know, a partnership, who who? Who does that?
If it's more of the modern day teamwork approach that
(16:57):
was written about in the Wall Street Journal, or if
there's a clear, clear person who doesn't, Yeah, like would
you know, like automatically like expect to you know, pop
the question or be the paper if you will. Um.
And this isn't just an American thing either, this you know,
cultural tradition of the men proposing to the women. In fact,
(17:17):
according to CBS News, there's really only one culture left
on the globe where the women do the askin where
they get to decide. Yeah, it seems like there's barely
even any courtship. But on Orongo Island, which isn't an
African isle outside of Guinea, um It's women make their
(17:41):
proposals by offering their grooms to be a dish distinctively
prepared fish and if the man eats it, which is
really not a choice because uh it seems like the
men always have to eat it. Then uh, then they're
engaged and they've just they've explained it in that women
are just wiser when it comes to matters of the heart,
and so the woman must realize who she's in love with,
(18:01):
and that's how you'll know if a partnership will be happy.
So here's my advice to any of you listeners out there,
you know, who are tired of waiting around for your bow,
like Dorothy Dix was talking about in if you're both
mom stuff listeners, Okay, maybe you just hint at things
by by cooking a fish dinner, serve it to him,
(18:22):
look directly in his eyes, see what he thinks you
see if he gets it and he needs to be
marinated in red palm oil, palm oil, get to get
a big old fish. You're good. There you go. Well,
I think that, I mean, that's where I really I
think will probably come down to what kind of couple
you are. If you're both enlightened mom stuff listeners, then
maybe be more okay with a reversal traditional gender roles.
(18:44):
But maybe you're not. I think that one thing we've
learned from you guys is that there are still some
things where we expect the tradition to hold, even though
the tradition might just be based on something as silly
as you know, seeing Clark Gable getting down on one knee. Sure,
I mean common common customs still holes that women still
take men's last names, We still wear white down the
aisle and have to wait for him the pop question.
(19:06):
And you know, one thing, when I was looking through
all those New York Times archives, there was a letter
from nineteen eleven, and uh, it was some guy who
wrote an is like, if the woman's going to propose,
and I think she should be the one to support
the couple, because you know, back then it would have
just been probably woman who didn't have a career, And uh,
if she's going to take on this burden of asking
for marriage, then she should take on the burden of
(19:27):
supporting them financially. And the Wall Street Journal points out
that some of these women get married, you know, pop
the question, then they're like, well, where's my ring? You know,
it's it's sort of like we will only do it
halfway in terms of all these things we expect from men.
If we're to pop the question, I mean, should you
get the guy a ring, and these are all the
perfect questions for our listeners to answer. Um, write us
(19:51):
in let us know, guys, if you've been proposed to girls,
if you've done the proposing anything. We want to hear
all of your stories. I know that you of lots
to tell us, so send us an email. Mom Stuff
how stuff works dot Com and Molly, let's read a
couple of emails we've gotten in all right, here's an
(20:11):
email from Poppy. She writes, just finished listening to your
Female Bartender podcast. I've never been a bartender, but I
do work as a hostess in a restaurant, and I
definitely do feel like I'm on display. The bartenders in
the article you mentioned may not mind, but the attention
I often received from male patrons does get on my nerves.
I frequently feel like reminding them that it's not that
type of service industry. If you get my drift, I
am paid to be friendly and accommodating, but this does
(20:32):
not mean that I'm willing to give out my number
to anyone who asks. I'm sure to some minutes flattering,
I think it definitely borders on harassment for me personally,
I wish I would just be allowed to do my
job without this even being an issue. All right, well,
I've got one here from Donna in response to our
episode on whether autism is underdiagnosed in girls, and she wrote,
mostly I found that I was distracted by your use
of the term autistic. I would have preferred for you
(20:55):
to use person first language, saying instead a person with autism.
Times you did use the person first language, but it
wasn't consistent. Person first language is considered proper. However, when
using person first language, is important to remember that the
person comes first and it's not defined by his or
her disability. For example, I would say I teach children
(21:15):
who have autism, not I work with autistic children. In
the future, police consider using person first language consistently when
referring to an individual or group of individuals with a disability.
And I didn't realize that, but um, thank you Donna
for pointing it out to us. First good first language,
A good tip, And of course, if you have any
tips or feedback for us, you can send it our
(21:37):
way mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or
you can share with all of our listeners on our
Facebook fan page. You can also tweet it at mom
stuff Podcasts and then finally, you can check out what
we're doing during the week on our blog stuff Mom
Never Told You, which you can find at how stuff
works dot com. For moralness and thousands of other topics,
(22:00):
visit how staff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
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thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House top works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Kristen. I'm Molly. Molly. Uh. I
(00:23):
would get down on one knee if I if the
mike wasn't sitting up on a table. So just imagine
me on one knee right now. Um, and I just
I want to know if you'll, if you'll be mine forever?
Will you marry me? Molly Kristen. I even though I
(00:43):
knew what we were podcasting on today, I did not
expect this surprise engagement. Guys. I wanted to do it
in front of all our listeners. I guess some ladies
who consider this the ultimate in romantic gestures that you're
doing it in front right, I'm just the question. Yeah,
I'm doing it virtually in front of where in our
intimate sound and people. Yeah, it's got scot you know,
(01:05):
mood lighting. I guess is it working. It's got soundproofing. Yeah.
I mean, I've got all my notes in front of me,
and still I just did not expect this. I'm going
off script. I guess I know how those people who
see their names, you know, pop up on those those
big TVs at sports games feel It feels pretty good,
doesn't It's a little overwhelming. But you know, it might
(01:25):
be a little controversial for me to be doing this
because I'm a woman proposing. Well do you double whammy
of controversy, I think. But yeah, that's gonna be our
topic today. And and I'm kind of baffled that I
did not see this coming, knowing that we were going
to talk about why men proposed and whether sometimes women
should flip the tables and uh ask the question themselves. Well,
(01:47):
maybe before we go any further, I should go ahead
and state so that it's clear that you know that
was that was an example, Molly. I'm sorry. I rescind
my proposal to you. Um Chris and all our fans
know that you don't believe in marriage. Oh man, don't
bring that up again. You get for putting me on
the spot. I'm gonna bring it up again time. Kristen
(02:09):
said that, and it's haunted her ever so it has
haunted me ever since. But I don't want um, this
my my possibly marrying you do haunt me. It's no
no offense, Molly. But but that was a joke people. Um,
it was just an example of how to make someone
feel uncomfortable, just to joke like you just didn't even
(02:29):
didn't even cross your mind. Well, we can talk about
this effort. I think we need to. You've opened up
a whole can of worms. I'm kind of shocked how
quickly you we ascended this romantic Well, well if we
if if it were back in the nineteen thirties, if
I had done that to you and rescinded my heartfelt proposal,
you would be in line for a heart bomb suit.
(02:50):
That's true. I would. I would take you for everything
you were worth because of the egregious damage you've done
to me in front of all these witnesses. No less. Yeah, Actually,
in um, it was fun to find out from the
Yale Law Journal that in early American law, women could
recover damages when men promised to marry and then took
their proposal back because um, at that time, obviously men
(03:13):
were more financially stable than women, and the action was known.
The legal action was known as a breach of promise.
But then there came this wave of all of these
related suits of women charging men with rescinding their engagements
and it became nicknamed heart bomb suits. Just a fun fact.
(03:34):
But you know the reason we wanted to research this,
you know, this week Kristen was we wanted to know
why is it the guys who have the obligation to
get down on bended knee? Yeah, we're knee deep in
wedding season people, all right, it's everywhere and people have
just been talking about marriage a lot in popular media.
People are questioning the entire institution. And so since Molly
(03:55):
and I have already talked about engagement rings in the
episode Our Diamond Really a Girl's Best Friend, and we've
talked about ms verse miss and why did brides wear white,
we thought, well, what about this question of why men
are proposing? Where did that come from? Because there's a
trend lately of you know, men possibly wearing engagement rings
(04:18):
and even women turning the tables and proposing to men.
But before we get there, we need to go back
through history, and we're not going to go back to
a specific point because as far as we can tell,
men have always proposed just because you know, back in
the olden days, women it was more of a negotiation
and women were sort of the thing you could trade
one family to another. And this concept of romantic marriages,
(04:41):
as we've discussed, it's fairly new. Yes, a lot of
this information comes from Marriage a History, which is a
fantastic book by Stephanie Coons. I highly recommended if you
need something for your summer reading. UM and and I've
been reading it actually over the past few weeks, and
I was flipping through to try to find something specifically
on proposals. And while the book does not discuss the
(05:04):
whole lot does a man get on one knee tradition,
it's very clear cut that, like you said, only the
reason why men propose is because they always have. Like
way back in the day thousands of years ago, when
marriage alliances first started, women were the property that were
traded in order to either get more land or to
(05:26):
secure a families position in place to offer more protection. UM.
And then with industrialization and around the time of the Enlightenment,
we have the rise of quote unquote love marriages, where UM,
men and women are able to earn wages on their
own outside their families, and so they have a little
bit more autonomy to pick their mates. But still it
(05:48):
was the men who were doing the choosing, And though
men did the choosing. Uh, this grand fancy, you know,
romantic proposal that it's just becomes the anecdote of the couple.
It doesn't seem to have you know, started it around
the same time as love marriages, even though men were
doing the choosing, either for you know, financial reasons or
for love reasons. As time evolved, they might have just
(06:08):
wrote a letter, you know, and said, hey, let's let's
do this thing. Or they might have asked her very simply,
you know, what the parents present. It wasn't this idea
of a big, you know, grand gesture. The Internet traces
it to nights who bowed down before their ladies. But
it's not like guys, you know, immediately got this thought like, hey,
let's bend down like nights and make a big speech
about how much we want to spend the rest of
(06:29):
our lives together. It sounds like we've got pop culture
to blame for that. I think it is pop culture.
And according to the book Cinderella Dreams by Seeley Otans
and Elizabeth H. Plaque, Uh, the tradition of a man
getting down on bended knee seems to be merely a
dramatic flourish that came from the silent film era. Basically
(06:51):
like once we started watching movies and then proliferated on TVs,
um it just kind of became the norm because that's
what you see. You see you know, Laurence Olivier or
whoever you know, Gable, Clark Gable, although I don't imagine
Clark Gable just being a being too romantic, you know,
he was a little more a little more of a jerk,
(07:12):
and the movie got the way he gets down on
one knee and jest and proposes to Scarlett o'h hair. Yes,
but even before we have Clark Gable proposing to Vivian
Lee on screen. Uh, the whole courtship process is led
by the guy, which really is not, you know, revolutionary concept.
(07:33):
I'm sure most people realize that, but Coon's points out
that by the end of the nineteenth century, the middle
class had developed an elaborate courtship ritual, or by a
young man would be invited to call at a woman's
home and then they would the young man and the
woman would basically hang out in the parlor or on
the front porch, and they would be closely supervised by
(07:55):
the girl's family, and the word date wasn't used in
its modern slang since until the late eighteen nineties, and
even then it was only used in as working class slang.
It was kind of looked down upon. But then by
nineteen fourteen, we have the Ladies Home Journal starting to
use the word as this new fangled type of you know,
(08:16):
according that that young men and women were doing. That
was a lot more liberated than just going and you know,
a guy going and sitting on a front porch with
a girl for a while. And then, of course, as
we've talked about in our dating episode, in the nineteen twenties,
with the rise of the automobile, guys and girls start
leaving together to go on dates outside of the home.
(08:37):
And where they're going a lot of times, Molly, they're
going to the movies where they're gonna go see these
you know, romantic relationships portrayed on screen, which I would think,
you know, might fuel this whole you know, men proposing
to women, men being the gallant, chivalrous nights in the situation, right,
because most most movies of that era usually end with
(08:57):
a good, good engagement and m happily ever after. So
we see that on the silver screen. But you know,
in the past century, we've had so much happen in
terms of feminism, women, women's rights, and we're told now
that you know, women can, women can do anything, And
the question has come, can they turn the tables and
be the one that proposes to the man. And you know,
(09:18):
it's actually not a new question, because I was looking
through the New York Times archives and I found this
thing from nineteen o four written by this woman who's like,
you know, spinsters might just get too sad waiting for
their man to propose, So on leap here, why don't you,
uh take the reins and propose yourself? And then it
was I guess their tongue in cheek. It's kind of
(09:38):
hard to tell from nineteen o four, but there's some
some advice for women who want to prop the questions
such as, um, don't do it when he's hungry. Uh,
don't do it when he's in a bad mood. Make
it the make it sound like a really good financial
arrangement because now I won't have to pay for a maid. Um.
So definitely different kinds of advice than a than a
(09:59):
fella gets before he pops A big question but well,
can I can I read a little snippet of this
of this column, just to give listeners an exact idea
of I would I would love how this goes okay,
Dorothy Dix says in The New York Times, the past
is no criterion. Women do many things now that they
didn't do forty or even four years ago. It's not
(10:19):
at all impossible that many a discouraged spinster there's that
word again, worn out with waiting for her steady bow
to speak, And many love lorn maiden who was here
do for let let concealment, prey upon her own damask.
Cheek will take matters into her own hands and propose
matrimony to the man she loves in this year of
(10:41):
grace ninety o four, because it was a leap here,
so he would do here right, Because I actually did
not realize the small I don't know how I missed
the boat on this one. But I've never heard the
whole weap heer thing. But apparently thanks to St Bernardine
and St Patrick, where's it in the day? Sat Bridget
obviously don't know about it. Sat Bridget and St Patrick
(11:03):
back in the day in Ireland, uh are you doing
Irish accent for this and I'm resisting. People said they
love the accents, Kristen do it. I don't want it
to be. I don't want to go over there. You
can't do an Irish accent, can you? Now you're trying
to reverse psychology? Mean, welly, it's not gonna work. So
according to snopes dot com, one day St Bridget was
(11:27):
hanging out with St. Patrick and and she was all like, oh,
St Patrick, I hate that we can't propose to the
men we love. There you go, Molly, that was for you.
And St. Patrick was like, I'll tell you what, how
about every seven years? Uh, you guys can do it?
And Bridget talked him down to four years. Hence every
(11:48):
February twenty nine that rolls around a k a every
leap year women can propose the men. It's like Sadie
Hawkins Day. You know when you can you can invite
a guy out. Yeah, the card just stops. That were
there could have been various penalties at the time imposed
that the guy said no, he had to give her
like a hundred pounds need to buy her silk dress.
Um Snope sinks it's more likely just because leap here
(12:10):
was such a weird day to have around our February
tiny night that all these weird things became associated with it.
So they're they're not sure how much truths in the matter,
but that didn't stop them from making that Amy Adams
movie about about that very very day. But according to
a column by Hannah Selicson in The Wall Street Journal,
even though it's still not that common for women to
(12:34):
propose to men, women are still playing a much bigger
role in the whole engagement process, or the proposal process,
I should say right. She cites a sociology professor from
the University of Central Oklahoma named Amanda Miller who conducted
a study about how proposals are made, and she studied
in particular cohabitating couples, and she found that couples pretty
(12:57):
much work as a team to set the date and
the inside cases, a woman will even script the proposal.
It's not like she proposes per se, but there's been
enough dialogue between the two that she knows when it's coming,
and she might have picked out the ring, and that
it's it's less of a crazy pop the question moment
like it was from me at the beginning of this podcast, yeah,
(13:19):
because a lot of times, unlike you know, when I
sprang the question on Molly, couples will have talked about,
you know, marriage beforehand, and they might be like, well,
I let's not I don't want to be married until
after I get out of law school, you're in med school,
or like you know, like you've got you've got all
this podcasting you're working on, let's get through podcast sweeps season.
(13:41):
I wish that existed. Um So, so yeah, it's more
of a it's more of a collaboration, which is reflective
of today's relationship in general. You know, it's yeah, I
mean I think it makes sense. I think that we
always advocate open communication about things like finances and a
status for relationship up Christen, So it's not surprising to
me that women play such role. But what's amazing is
(14:05):
then you'll search the internet just for the question, uh,
should women propose? And the answer from all the men
who have written these online columns about it is no, no,
no way. I mean you can. It's almost like you
can kind of script the proposal to a point, and
then men want that ultimate responsibility to be like this
is my job. Yeah, I mean, men out there, please
(14:25):
correct me if I'm wrong, But it seems like from
what we've read, guys are cool with the idea of
knowing that their girlfriend wants to become a fiancee that
if he pops the question buys the ring, he's not
gonna have to take like a walk of shame back
to Tiffany's or wherever. But according to we found um
(14:47):
a column on the Gloss dot com, which is a
fun women's website, and they've got a They've got a
column on there where it's a guy answering questions and
he said, for the love of God, women, do not
propose to your men. Just just let him do it,
because if you proposed to him, he is going to
(15:08):
be the laughing stock of his friends for the rest
of the union. Oh, I don't know. I mean, Christine.
When I was reading that article, I did think I
had to wonder if it was really going to be
that rough for a guy who's lady proposed, as the
writer at The Gloss said it would be. I mean,
that's obviously something we're gonna have to open it up
to our listeners and hear their thoughts on it. But
I did find one thing at the Daily Mail that
(15:30):
made me and sort of made the case for me
about maybe why a woman should wait before popping the question.
They did this study and found that the average couple
gets engaged two years, eleven months, and eight days after
first setting eyes on each other, but the women feel
ready to tie the knot after just two years, seven months,
and twenty four days. So women are about four months
(15:53):
ahead on average of guys in terms of getting engaged
or feeling ready to get engaged. So I wonder if
Art it's just that women feel ready first and that's
why they start feeling man, I need to pop this question.
He's he's dragging his feet. Well. One thing though, and
Molly in this whole conversation that we haven't brought up
um and that didn't come up in any of the
(16:13):
articles that we found about proposals, was how does the
same dynamic exist in gay couples? He dismissed on on
one thing. I saw, this was only mentioned I saw
of it. Yeah, I mean, I wonder if the same
kind of thing of like you know, of the kind
of lag, the the engagement lag, if you will, exists
(16:33):
or if it's or if it's an easier I don't know,
an easier thing to negotiate, because I like to think
of engagements really is just business negotiations. Well, it's still
I mean, it depends on I guess where you live.
If you can even propose at all, well sure, but
still proposing, you know, a partnership, who who? Who does that?
If it's more of the modern day teamwork approach that
(16:57):
was written about in the Wall Street Journal, or if
there's a clear, clear person who doesn't, Yeah, like would
you know, like automatically like expect to you know, pop
the question or be the paper if you will. Um.
And this isn't just an American thing either, this you know,
cultural tradition of the men proposing to the women. In fact,
(17:17):
according to CBS News, there's really only one culture left
on the globe where the women do the askin where
they get to decide. Yeah, it seems like there's barely
even any courtship. But on Orongo Island, which isn't an
African isle outside of Guinea, um It's women make their
(17:41):
proposals by offering their grooms to be a dish distinctively
prepared fish and if the man eats it, which is
really not a choice because uh it seems like the
men always have to eat it. Then uh, then they're
engaged and they've just they've explained it in that women
are just wiser when it comes to matters of the heart,
and so the woman must realize who she's in love with,
(18:01):
and that's how you'll know if a partnership will be happy.
So here's my advice to any of you listeners out there,
you know, who are tired of waiting around for your bow,
like Dorothy Dix was talking about in if you're both
mom stuff listeners, Okay, maybe you just hint at things
by by cooking a fish dinner, serve it to him,
(18:22):
look directly in his eyes, see what he thinks you
see if he gets it and he needs to be
marinated in red palm oil, palm oil, get to get
a big old fish. You're good. There you go. Well,
I think that, I mean, that's where I really I
think will probably come down to what kind of couple
you are. If you're both enlightened mom stuff listeners, then
maybe be more okay with a reversal traditional gender roles.
(18:44):
But maybe you're not. I think that one thing we've
learned from you guys is that there are still some
things where we expect the tradition to hold, even though
the tradition might just be based on something as silly
as you know, seeing Clark Gable getting down on one knee. Sure,
I mean common common customs still holes that women still
take men's last names, We still wear white down the
aisle and have to wait for him the pop question.
(19:06):
And you know, one thing, when I was looking through
all those New York Times archives, there was a letter
from nineteen eleven, and uh, it was some guy who
wrote an is like, if the woman's going to propose,
and I think she should be the one to support
the couple, because you know, back then it would have
just been probably woman who didn't have a career, And uh,
if she's going to take on this burden of asking
for marriage, then she should take on the burden of
(19:27):
supporting them financially. And the Wall Street Journal points out
that some of these women get married, you know, pop
the question, then they're like, well, where's my ring? You know,
it's it's sort of like we will only do it
halfway in terms of all these things we expect from men.
If we're to pop the question, I mean, should you
get the guy a ring, and these are all the
perfect questions for our listeners to answer. Um, write us
(19:51):
in let us know, guys, if you've been proposed to girls,
if you've done the proposing anything. We want to hear
all of your stories. I know that you of lots
to tell us, so send us an email. Mom Stuff
how stuff works dot Com and Molly, let's read a
couple of emails we've gotten in all right, here's an
(20:11):
email from Poppy. She writes, just finished listening to your
Female Bartender podcast. I've never been a bartender, but I
do work as a hostess in a restaurant, and I
definitely do feel like I'm on display. The bartenders in
the article you mentioned may not mind, but the attention
I often received from male patrons does get on my nerves.
I frequently feel like reminding them that it's not that
type of service industry. If you get my drift, I
am paid to be friendly and accommodating, but this does
(20:32):
not mean that I'm willing to give out my number
to anyone who asks. I'm sure to some minutes flattering,
I think it definitely borders on harassment for me personally,
I wish I would just be allowed to do my
job without this even being an issue. All right, well,
I've got one here from Donna in response to our
episode on whether autism is underdiagnosed in girls, and she wrote,
mostly I found that I was distracted by your use
of the term autistic. I would have preferred for you
(20:55):
to use person first language, saying instead a person with autism.
Times you did use the person first language, but it
wasn't consistent. Person first language is considered proper. However, when
using person first language, is important to remember that the
person comes first and it's not defined by his or
her disability. For example, I would say I teach children
(21:15):
who have autism, not I work with autistic children. In
the future, police consider using person first language consistently when
referring to an individual or group of individuals with a disability.
And I didn't realize that, but um, thank you Donna
for pointing it out to us. First good first language,
A good tip, And of course, if you have any
tips or feedback for us, you can send it our
(21:37):
way mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or
you can share with all of our listeners on our
Facebook fan page. You can also tweet it at mom
stuff Podcasts and then finally, you can check out what
we're doing during the week on our blog stuff Mom
Never Told You, which you can find at how stuff
works dot com. For moralness and thousands of other topics,
(22:00):
visit how staff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
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