Dating
Dating in the 1930s was quite an interesting time! Below you will find dating tips for ladies.
Lonely Hearts Advertisements
Once two individuals connected via a Lonely Hearts advertisement, a correspondence would often begin. In the early 20th Century, many individuals considered Lonely Hearts advertisements to be “a bit of ‘fun and nonsense.’” This was particularly true after the First World War, as women started to become much more “independent, very often wild and undisciplined…eager for any fun and nonsense.” While in the early days of dating and marriage advertisements (the early 1700s), advertisements were expressly for the pursuit of marriage, the 1930s saw the nature of these advertisements evolve. The advertisements in this time saw “a far broader range of human desire than in centuries past. You just had to know where to look.”
[1] Beauman, Fran. Shapely Ankle Preferr'd: A History of the Lonely Hearts Ad. London: Vintage, 2012. 173. |
Marriage
Marriage was expected, and below you will find a marriage rating scale system that many individuals used to see how their marriage was doing. During this time, there also began something known as the fin-de-siécle effect, in which "marriage is shown as a new kind of interest-linked relationship in which money and snobbery rule."
Sources:
Bender, Thomas, and Carl E. Schorske. Budapest and New York: Studies in Metropolitan Transformation, 1870-1930. New York, NY: Russel Sage Foundation, 1994.
Bender, Thomas, and Carl E. Schorske. Budapest and New York: Studies in Metropolitan Transformation, 1870-1930. New York, NY: Russel Sage Foundation, 1994.