Relationship Wellness Month – February 2025

History of Relationship Wellness Month

Dating is a relatively new concept that became commonplace at the turn of the 20th century. Before that, courtship was an entirely unemotional affair, arranged by the couples’ parents for business, financial, or other interests. All this changed in the early 20th century when women began migrating to the big cities for work. Outside of their parents’ and relatives’ influences, young women became free to be courted in public by young men — this change in social norms alarmed authorities, including politicians, police, and civic leaders.

Due to the low wages received by women compared to their male counterparts, men were expected to pay during dates. That gave birth to the misconception that dates were a new trick developed by prostitutes, and the authorities went all out to curb it. Between the 1900s and 1920s, vice commissions deployed police and undercover investigators across the country to monitor date hotspots. Even private citizens like John D. Rockefeller Jr. funded some of these investigations. Arrests were made, and women were thrown in jail for just going on dates. However, all this fizzled out by the late 1920s, and authorities came to accept reality.

In the 1920s, as dating became widely acceptable, businesses began taking advantage of it. The first of such businesses was the cosmetics industry, which introduced makeup for working-class women who wanted to have the same looks as the well-to-do females at the time to attract men. Before the 1900s, only prostitutes and actresses painted their faces. But by 1912, every class of women, including respectable society women, wore makeup. In the 1950s, the concept of “going steady” was introduced as couples publicized their decision to have an exclusive relationship with each other. Like engagements, going steady was sealed when a man gave a woman a ring or an article of clothing. The late 1900s and early 2000s saw the introduction of tech in dating, with the explosion of online dating sites such as Tinder, Bumble, and more.