In the Archives, Finding Love (Stories)
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In the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, New York Times articles slowly, and painfully, updated the rules of courtship. To have success dating in New York City, don’t order a sandwich at dinner and pick a restaurant with candlelight. (Otherwise, you might look “embalmed.”) Women are allowed to date men who are shorter — gasp — and even younger than them.
A woman could indeed pick up the check. (Though some women, instead of putting their credit cards down at the table, preferred to slyly offer it to the maître d’hôtel before the meal to not bruise their dates’ egos.) There was even hope for single women over 35, according to one author of a book on marriage — if only they outgrow their “fantasies of knights in armor.” Through the history of The Times, journalists have ventured into the amorphous arena of love and all that comes with it: dating, sex, relationships and marriage.
And it’s easy, in 2023, to reflect on some of the old “rules” as head-scratchers — and others as flat-out ridiculous. One could argue that these articles are capsules of their time; as social mores have evolved, so has coverage of them.
