20 Strict First-Date Rules Everyone Followed Before 1960

From the 1890s to the 1910s, courtship took place in the home, where a man would present a calling card, be screened by the mother, and then be shown into the parlor for conversation. So much for making a first impression on just one person. There were no restaurants, no theater, and no money spent by the man.

In the era between the 1920s and 1950s, movies, dance halls, and eateries took romance out of the living room and out on the town. Historian Beth Bailey, in her book From Front Porch to Back Seat (1988), writes that because men generally had more earning power and were expected to ask women on dates, it fell to them to pay for admission, transportation, and dinner. Splitting the check was generally confined to going out with friends, not dates.

Men footed the bills for tickets and dinners, but women contributed as well, just not in cash. The costs of cosmetics, clothes, hosiery, and hairdressing added up to a real financial strain on women—one that the custom of men paying for dates, known as “treating,” never covered.

The 1949 educational film Dating Dos and Don’ts from Coronet Instructional Films advises that a man ask out a woman three to seven days in advance. This was not necessarily a rule but certainly good etiquette. A last-minute invite meant she was probably your second choice, and everyone around her might notice it.

In the 1930s-1950s, high schoolers and college kids would meet at the local soda fountain for a 15-cent Coca-Cola, a meeting that lasted anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. Since the guy was on the hook for each and every penny of a real date, this inexpensive first meeting gave them a chance to see if they had any chemistry before he invested in dinner and a movie or a dance.

“Double dating,” or two couples going out together, was common in the ’40s and ’50s for initial dating. It relieved pressure on a first solo evening and allowed for some peer support for both parties. In youth culture, double dating was simply the wholesome way many first dates happened.

McCall’s Book of Everyday Etiquette (1960) by writer Margaret Bevans instructed women on the art of saying no without saying no. The proper response to an unwanted invitation was to claim a prior engagement. In the insular environments of small schools and communities, this polite fib spared both parties the humiliation of an outright rejection.

Even etiquette manuals and home economics textbooks, such as Marion Barclay and Frances Champion’s Teen Guide to Homemaking (1961), were frank about it: A man parked the car and walked to the front door himself. Remaining in the car and honking the horn to call his date out, known as “curb-honking,” was deemed lazy and disrespectful. Instead, he rang the bell. No shortcut from the driver’s seat!

After entering the house, the boy shook hands with the father while making conversation with the mother, just as the 1952 Coronet educational film “Date Etiquette” suggests. He had already called ahead to confirm the date with the girl herself. It’s not a matter of asking permission, but rather an introductory formality before heading out.

Prior to departing, the parents and young couple would set a time by which they needed to be back, typically 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. or midnight on weekends. Arriving home late reflected poorly on the boy and could result in the girl being grounded from future outings. This was the last lever that parents held when the night ventured out of their view.

Dances had formal dates with specific dress codes; guys wore jackets, collared shirts, and pressed slacks, and girls wore modest dresses, heels, and stockings. For dances, the guy would bring a corsage, a little bunch of flowers pinned to her dress or worn on the wrist, and usually call her first to see what color dress she was wearing so the flowers wouldn’t clash. Even the flowers needed advance coordination.

There’s a widespread urban legend that it was traditional for men to walk on the outside of the sidewalk, so as to shield their female counterparts from chamber pots tossed from the upstairs windows of a building. That explanation isn’t true, though. The tradition itself is real, but it originated in a time before plumbing, when horse-drawn carts spread gutter mud on the roads, and later shifted to avoid automobile splash and other road dangers.

In the cinema, the man would usually buy and carry the tickets, then let the woman go in to find the seats while he followed close behind. At least she got first dibs on where they sat. Throughout the evening, he also covered the bill.

When the headwaiter or senior waiter led a couple to their table in a formal restaurant, the woman walked ahead while the man followed. Young people reading Grace Ramquist’s 1953 etiquette guide, Sketches in Teen Etiquette, were taught that a gentleman always pulled out his lady friend’s chair and stood until she was seated. Only then could the evening’s real business get underway: ordering food from the menu.

There’s another popular myth that women weren’t allowed to speak to the waiter or waitress to order food. This wasn’t true; it was simply custom, not a rule. According to etiquette writer Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette, published in 1952, the woman was to tell her date what she wanted to eat and drink, and he would place the order with the waiter as host. In a diner, however, the woman could order herself.

In 1960, the teen advice manual Datebook’s Complete Guide to Dating, written by editor and publisher Art Unger, told teens to refrain from giving the goodnight kiss on a first date because it would lessen self-respect and cut short the thrill of waiting for a second one. That lesson was disseminated in schools and magazines across America as the ultimate goal. But that was only the ideal. The actuality of what went down at the door could be quite different.

Dating etiquette books of the era encouraged couples to behave modestly, especially in public. In practice, however, young people didn’t always follow those rules. Historian Beth Bailey’s From Front Porch to Back Seat (1988) and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey’s 1953 study of female sexual behavior tell a more complicated story: public displays of affection were restrained and respectable, but necking and petting (kissing and touching) were widespread in the back seat of parked cars and other more secluded locations after the initial date.

Sociologist Willard Waller’s 1937 study, The Rating and Dating Complex, revealed that high schoolers of the ’30s and ’40s routinely dated multiple partners concurrently in order to elevate their reputations, which they referred to as “playing the field.” By the 1950s, however, as historian Beth Bailey discovered, this had reversed itself, and it became the custom for couples to become exclusive right away (referred to as “going steady”), sometimes formally cemented by a class pin or ring.

When the date finally concluded for the evening, the man escorted the woman to her doorstep, where she offered a polite word of thanks, because that’s how you wrap things up after a date, whether it went well or poorly.

The etiquette said a gentleman waited a few days after the date before he called. If he telephoned first thing in the morning, he was obviously too eager. If he waited a few weeks, he did not seem very interested. All that night, which included the corsage, the curfew, and the tender farewell, depended upon that one unwritten law.

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