Courtship is the period wherein some couples get to know each other prior to a possible marriage or committed romantic, de facto relationship. Courtship traditionally may begin after a betrothal and may conclude with the celebration of marriage. Traditionally, in the case of a formal engagement, it is the role of a male to actively "court" or "woo" a female, thus encouraging her to understand him and her receptiveness to a marriage proposal. Courtship as a social practice is a relatively recent phenomenon, emerging only within the last few centuries.
In non-human animals, courtship refers to sexual behavior that precedes copulation. In the past, marriages in most societies were arranged by parents and older relatives with the goal not being love but legacy and "economic stability and political alliances", according to anthropologists. While pair-bonds of varying forms were recognized by most societies as acceptable social arrangements, marriage was reserved for heterosexual pairings and had a transactional nature, where wives were in many cases a form of property being exchanged between father and husband, and who would have to serve the function of reproduction.
Communities exerted pressure on people to form pair-bonds in places such as Europe ; in China , society "demanded people get married before having a sexual relationship" [ 4 ] and many societies found that some formally recognized bond between a man and a woman was the best way of rearing and educating children as well as helping to avoid conflicts and misunderstandings regarding competition for mates. Generally, during much of recorded history of humans in civilization, and into the Middle Ages in Europe , marriages were seen as business arrangements between families, while romance was something that happened outside of marriage discreetly, such as covert meetings.
From about a worldwide [ citation needed ] movement perhaps described as the "empowerment of the individual" [ citation needed ] took hold, leading towards greater emancipation of women and equality of individuals.
Men and women became more equal politically, financially, and socially in many nations. In the early 20th centuries, women gradually won the right to vote starting in the first sovereign nation Norway in , and to own property and receive equal treatment by the law , and these changes had profound impacts on the relationships between men and women and parental influence declined.
