Dating has been a difficult & time consuming process for every generation, and something that has always been intrinsically linked to economics and the changes in the labour market.
This is the according to Moria Weigel, a Yale PhD candidate who was recently the subject of a very interesting interview on The Atlantic about her new book, Labor of Love.
For the book, Weigel charts the evolving landscape of dating over the past 200 years, looking at how key changes such as women entering the workforce & the post-war boom led to dramatic shifts in the way people date.
In her fascinating conversation with Bourree Lam, the writer says “dating has been tied both to work and to the consumer economy ever since it was invented–in a number of different ways.”
And by reading dating advice books from the 1800s, Weigel also found that over history there has always been an older generation lamenting that dating, or “romance”, was dying – an interesting insight considering the recent furore about the Vanity Fair “dating apocalypse” article about Tinder & hookup apps.
Check out the full conversation here.