Courtship - When boys act like gentleman and girls are treated like real ladies

It already starts in kindergartenage: a little boy and a little girl sit in the sandpit. The boy is building a tower out of sand to impress the girl. He might give her his bucket and scoop...

Courtship traditionally means the "wooing" of a female by a male. Is it just the act of love by giving her a bucket or a "woooh" when she´s walking past shaking her sexy bum.
Now or hundreds of years ago men/boy used to court for a girl.
These days we have several opportunities for courting: internet, chatting, phone and cell-phone, online dating and lot of other things. More about that later.

But how did all these men court for their women in the las century or even when they didn´t have internet.
Here is a short trip back how the courting or wooing developed and changed:

In the Middle-Age in Europe royal families usually received a ship from a princess´fiancé upon her engagement and the ship would be displayed in the courtyard for one month prior the marriage ceremony.

Later the men wrote letters to their beloved. A nice exapmle is Shakespeare´s Romeo and Juliet: Romeo comes up to Juliet and is singing to her or brining a poem forward down at her balcony.

Other countries, other cultures: For example in Japan where a tpe of courtship, called Omiai, exsists: Parents hire a matchmaker to find the perfect partner for their child. The computer finds a potential match and if the couple agrees a formal meeting with the matchmaker and often the parents is arranged.

In other cultures it is much more different: like in Indian or Muslim cultures where the women get oppressed by their fathers and then after a arranged marriage their husband continues opressing her.

The actual Dating: After the courting a real date usually follows... They meet to get to know each other and to figure out weather the other one could be a potential partner. " Same interests, humour and behaviour " play a vital role.
These dates can taking place in a restaurant, a bar, a café, in a park for a walk..these are all the classical dating places.These days it is not unusually to date in the internet. Via facebook, twitter, MSN, icq, MySpace and several other online dating pages millions of people get to know each other by sending pictures, chatting or having a visual camera date via web-cam.

Back to the classic-western dating roles: It was a matter of course that the man payed the bill in the café or restaurant. In recent time, the practice to "go Dutch" ( splitt the expense) has emerged.
A little story...
From the beginning of the first date they get to know the other one pretty well (first impression!!). Afterwards they are going to decide weather they wanna see each other again or not.
Reasons for not meeting again could be: tied down, arising from loss of opportunity to date a variety of other people or they just din´d "fit" with the other on. (Different agendas, not the same humour or interests...)

But also there could be some reasons for a second date, because these two we just into each other. They could talk and talk for hours, laugh together and having fun.
So several other dates would follow and maybe on some day they would "go steady" and say: " We are a couple, we are boyfriend and girlfriend!"

Weather in the Middle-Ages, with a match-maker, the internet or just meeting and a cup of coffe toghether..
Courtship is a wonderfull thing and women love being treated like ladies sometimes!! So you guys...even if your girls wants to splitt the expense at the first date, the second date you could pay her coffe;)