That’s a good post but you are also referring to a time that is enormously different than now. Though I cannot go every single difference at length in this thread, I will go over some, but not in detail. And I am warning that this might be a post some do not like.
You refer to a time in which women needed men. They did not earn six figures, own their own cars and homes, couldn’t earn a living through Patreon and OnlyFans, and were expected to marry and raise up to seven kids. They were nice to men because they needed to eat, and because of such a situation, couldn’t concoct a laundry list of what they desired in men and thereby leaving men jumping through hoops trying to figure out how to attract a woman. A man was expected to be functional, faithful, protect, and provision. Because women now do not need men, and have an ever-changing assortment of characteristics they find attractive men, many of them completely meaningless for marriage and child raising, many men are confused. I should also add that slut shaming occurred because men did not want to pair up with a whore because they did not want to literally be cuckolded and be stuck raising other men’s kids and financing his unfaithful wife’s fun with other men, which actually occurs in the current day.
There was enforced monogamy. In such a construct, people quickly figure out who is going to have sex and pair up with whom and there is no room or time to rack up a “lay count”, “experiment”, and by screwing around, find out who is “good in bed” before “settling down” with this person who is “good in bed”. Up and down the socioeconomic ladder, men and women met organically or were paired up by friends and family members. That meant that nearly all men, from the unsophisticated laborer, all the way up the highly-educated professional man from a rich and powerful family were paired up appropriately and quickly. The top men attracted beautiful upper-class women first, the ordinary men were paired up after, and the homely men were paired up last, and that was it. In such a construct, there would be little discussion about “dating” because dating as a hobby and pastime would not exist. No dating coaches, no dating advice,no outwardly expressed obsessions with sex.
You went way back in time. There was no no-fault divorce and people frowned upon divorce. A woman could not no-fault divorce (get bored with) a man, fleece him, and take his children away from him (because she got bored). Adultery was dealt with severely in some places back in those times.
Because there was not much room to screw around, “pump and dump”, and womanize, women’s pair bonding ability with husbands was not damaged. Men did not have to deal with comparisons to a list of exciting “exes” and be told “you’re not like this” and “you’re not like that”. Women’s list of exes can now start at as young as thirteen years old.
I am a borderline late Gen X’er-millenial. So I come from he latchkey-kid era. Looking back at 42 years old, now having two kids, one being a daughter, I look bad on the lunacy of that era, especially the permissive parenting of the time. Many kids spent what seemed to be all damn day hanging out with each other. And many of the girls were always hanging out with guys. And I have an assortment of unpleasant stories that came about as a result of this stupid and dangerous scenario, with future divorces in adulthood being the least unpleasant to talk about and sexual abuse and coercion being the most unpleasant to talk about.
Up until say, the 1980s, in some communities or families in the US, women could not hang out with any guy they wanted to. That is, their male cousins, fathers, brothers, and uncles, and neighbors surveilled and snooped up on them. That meant they could not “talk to” a bad boy who they felt was a poor fit for the family or who wanted to simply “add a notch to his bed post”. So it would not be unusual for a male family member to ask, “Who’s that guy who called the house?” or “Who is that guy I saw you with?” I don’t know of the details, but there was an incident of my aunt hanging out with a guy my granddad did not want her going out with because he thought the guy was a bad fit. He scared her and that was the end of that. Men are no longer the authorities of their own households or families and not respected in the way they once were. And because of modern technology, women will and can meet men across the globe, a far cry away from the 1800’s in which women only dealt with the men of their own communities.
There was no way for women to go on Spring Break or go to big-city nightclubs surrounded by hundreds of physically fit, aggressive, horny, and intoxicated men seeking to bed down women and even when these opportunities did come around in the future, some families still did not approve of all that.
But now fathers are not expected to lead their children in the right direction. Like I’m supposed to one day hear, “Hey dad, I’m going to the Miami music festival. I’m gonna be around roided up high-as-a-kite, horny men who want to screw me. I will stay in the same hotels and be in and on insanely crowded beaches and dark nightclubs with them. What do you think of this g-string I’m gonna wear in front of all of them?” And I’m supposed to reply, “That’s awesome. I mean, that sounds like safe fun. What can go wrong?” After all, nowadays you shouldn’t be strict (which means have normal expectation for life success) because the kids will rebel, which supposes partners and family members should be permissive and do nothing.
I can go on, but all those restraints, restrictions, and constructs I mentioned made finding mates a straightforward process. Men were not driven nuts by a “dating scene”. And marriage and children were open to nearly all men.