Summary Of Dating And Courtship

The subject is a 71 year old white female with short, light blond hair. She is approximately 5’7” with a heavy-set build. She wore neatly pressed white slacks and a black button-up floral-print blouse. She grew up in Maine and was raised by her mother and stepfather. She had a younger half-brother whom she was very close to and spent a large portion of her childhood providing care for her brother while her parents worked. The subject married her first husband after dating briefly, at the age of seventeen. The marriage lasted for 7 years and produced five children. She met her second husband Tom, almost immediately following her separation from her first husband and they began dating. They married within …show more content…
McElhany Takes a look at some issues which have often been overlooked or in some cases forgotten by researchers whose study is later life families/ relationships. As the article points out, “When dating and courtship are mentioned, most people tend to think about older adolescents and young adults…The dating experiences of older, previously married individuals have largely been ignored.” Although the article does acknowledge that there are no good estimates on the number of older adults who are dating, Data from the National Survey of Families and Households showed that 37% of males and 6.7% of females over the age of 55 reported having one or more date during the month of the survey. Almost half of the respondents from each group identified their relationships as “steady …show more content…
They found that after having already fulfilled the roles of marriage, parenthood, etc. Older daters tend to put less of an emphasis on romance, sexuality or particular roles/functions in a relationship and are more likely to focus on companionship. One of the behaviors mentioned in the article as being a predictor of dating in later life, is the older adults activity level, stating “Older adults who are socially active have more opportunity to meet people who might be potential daring [sic] and marriage partners.” Health, driving ability and membership to clubs or organizations was also found to positively affect an elderly person’s chance of meeting someone. In contrast, Hindrances were found with individuals due to age and single family residence. Dating relationships were found to follow traditional gender roles in which men were still the ones typically initiating the relationships and overall, more men were found to be actively dating than women.