1. Some of the Nordic countries have courtship customs involving knives. For example, in Finland when a girl came of age, her father let it be known that she was available for marriage. The girl would wear an empty sheath attached to her girdle. If a suitor liked the girl, he would put a puukko knife in the sheath, which the girl would keep if she was interested in him.
2. In Mongolian society around the time of Genghis Khan, there were three ways to form a marriage - bride price, levirate marriage and capture marriage (which is exactly what it sounds like). With bride price, potential husbands paid the girl's father for the privilege of wedding his daughter. If the husband died before the wife, she would become the wife of one of his family members, which sounds kind of messed up, but it actually benefited both the family and the wife; the family wouldn't have to pay another bride price to wed one of their men and the wife could keep her inheritance and gain more wealth by staying in the family.
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| Also, having multiple wives was common, especially for a Khan. How else would this man have an estimated 16 million descendants alive today? (It's Genghis himself if you didn't recognize.) Source |
4. Bundling: a 16th-17th century European and American practice where parents allowed courting couples to share a bed, fully clothed, and often with a "bundling board" between them or bolster cover tied over the girls legs, so that they could get to know each other without any, uh, temptations.
5. In Victorian era, if a woman caught a man's attention and wished to escort her home, he would present his card to her. At the end of the evening the lady would look over her options and chose who would be her escort. She would notify the lucky gentleman by giving him her own card requesting that he escort her home. However, "escorting a lady home" had a much different connotation than the modern "going back to her place ;) ."
6. Aversion to homosexuality is a relatively new concept; in fact, it was the exception rather than the rule when it came to ancient cultures. The ancient Celts, Indians (as in, from India, not Native Americans), Persians, Greeks and the feudal-era Japanese openly practiced and/or celebrated homosexuality to a varying degree within their societies - never was it harshly condemned. Even Rome, which is now somewhat infamous for condemning homosexuality, considered it socially acceptable to engage in homosexual activities.
(Not going to include any pictures for this one...)
It's interesting what society's evolved into as far a "courting" goes. Maybe there's a future post there.
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