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Press Release
September 20, 2000/New York City
The Institute for American Values today releases an evaluation of the current state of courtship research in North America, by Dan Cere, Co-Director of the Newman Center at McGill University in
Montreal, Canada. The report, The Experts' Story of Courtship, evaluates the three most prominent schools of thought about courtship among family scholars today: exchange theory, sociobiology, and close relationship theory. While each provides important insights into contemporary culture, the report finds, none provides an adequate model for scientific understanding of courtship today.
Cere concludes that ``[F]amily scholars as a whole would do us all a great service if they would rediscover their historic scientific curiosity about courtship as traditionally understood - that is,
as the attitudes, values, social rituals, and practices leading to marriage, especially successful marriage."
Until recently ``courtship occupied a prominent position" in the research interest of social scientists. Courtship matters because marriage matters: ``marriage was understood as a social institution
vital to welfare of society - much more than simply a life style choice or a personal relationship between two isolated individuals." As marriage has weakened, scholarly interest turned elsewhere.
What findings and ideas can current family and social science scholarship provide in understanding courtship and marriage today? ``Very few" reports Cere. Indeed, of the three major expert
narratives of courtship, only one - exchange theory - still defines courtship as related to marriage at all.
However, exchange theory is of limited use in understanding courtship, argues Cere, because this field ``explicitly assumes that acts of marriage, like other acts, are primarily directed at the self,
and that the self is above all a consumer of goods, relationships and even attitudes. . . `Persons marry,' [exchange theorist] Gary Becker writes, `when the utility expected from marriage exceeds the
utility expected from remaining single.'"
The second expert narrative, sociobiology, also rips apart the veil of romance to bring a ``stark realism to discussions of heterosexual attraction," notes Cere, offering a ``rollicking spoof on the
world of romance and power" where ``lovers are bustling about, stumbling through their relationships, deceiving one another." For the study of courtship, though, sociobiology has inherent
limitations: ``To a sociobiologist," reports Cere, ``your mate is not the person you marry, it is the person with whom you have children. If those children survive and reproduce, the union was
successful; if not, not."
The third theory of courtship, or the close relationship theory, suffers from a similar blind-side, reducing marriage to just one of many sorts of possible couple relationships. ``Close
relationship theorists argue that the family is `essentially a lay or commonsense construct,' rather than a meaningful scientific model," says Cere. Of course the term ``family" may be a ``valid
poetic and literary description of folk-culture reality" in the words of one close relationship theorist, that may be helpful in ``fostering communication among lay persons" but such folk
concepts distort and limit scientific research.
This way of thinking is reaching out beyond the academy, increasingly influencing family law in the United States and Canada. Four leading relationship scholars suggest that legal theorists and
professionals expand the definition of family to include all ``close relationships." The American Law Institute recently did just that, reports Cere, proposing model legislation that
offers many of the benefits of marriage to couples who live together. The Canadian Bar Association has just published a lengthy report ``Recognizing and Supporting Close Personal
Relationships Between Adults" which argues the law should no longer give special recognition to marriage but instead ``should recognize and support" all significant adult close relationships so long
as they are ``neither dysfunctional nor harmful."
In short, The Experts' Story of Courtship both reflects and reinforces some of the more distressing trends in contemporary culture. Because they focus on individuals and their choices, all three schools of courtship ignore the social and institutional dimensions of marriage, which is not just a lifestyle, but a universal human institution connecting mothers, fathers and children in a close family, not just personal, bond.
Consequently, these expert narratives shed little light on key questions, such as: how do young people negotiate through dating, romance, relationships and sex to successful marriage under
contemporary conditions? How can family, faith communities, friends and society help the next generation make happier, healthier marriages?
As Cere concludes: ``Marriage is not just an inferior version of going steady, or a sexual barter, or a consumer good. Love is more than a style. Courtship is more than coupling. Illuminating these
distinctions will require scientific models that begin, above all, with curiosity about what marriage is."
Praise for The Experts' Story of Courtship:
``There is no more important topic than finding new ways to restore a culture of courtship. Dan Cere's fascinating glimpse into the contributions intellectuals have made to our society's current
confusion about courtship and marriage is a good place to start." - Leon and Amy Kass, authors of Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings in Courtship and Marrying.
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