This position reflects the concern of many adults. They feel that when a boy and girl see so much of each other, they are apt to become involved emotionally or sexually to the point where their futures are jeopardized.

WHY GO STEADY?

When the University of Michigan interviewed 2,000 girls between eleven and eighteen years of age in a nationwide study in 1956, approximately one-fifth of the girls were found to be in favor of going steady. The investigation revealed that older girls tended to approve of going steady more than younger girls did. Comparable data are not available for teenage boys. But the pros and cons of going steady are so widely discussed by members of both sexes that it’s possible to summarize the reasons young people generally give for going steady.

Safer and Easier

Boys generally agree that it’s “just easier” to go steady than to date around. Teen-age boys say that when they date a girl regularly they know what she expects. They’re more comfortable with a steady date than with a strange girl every time. They don’t have to get up courage each time to ask a new girl for a date or run the risk of her refusing.

College boys frankly report that going steady is cheaper than taking a new girl out all the time. “The girl you haven’t dated before expects you to show her the town,” they say. “Your steady knows how you’re fixed financially and so doesn’t expect as much or as expensive entertainment.”

Teen-age girls seem to feel that they’re safer dating steadily than when they date around among many boys. They put it this way. “When you date good old Joe, you know what the evening holds and you’re sure you can handle any situation that might come up while you’re with him. With a strange boy, you can never be sure of what will happen, what he will expect of you, or whether you can manage the situations that may arise with him.”

This may be the chief reason why going steady has increased in recent years. Now when so many teen-agers go to large consolidated schools or live in areas with transient or diversified populations, an individual can rarely be sure of what standards a date may have. In contrast, during “the good old days,” dates were selected from a small, homogeneous neighborhood where everyone pretty much agreed on codes of conduct, and where the date was usually known not only by the girl but by her family as well. Then, too, dates were more carefully supervised by responsible adults; today’s automobile dating makes such chaperoning impossible. Therefore young people today find that it’s easier and safer to steady-date someone they know and trust than it is to risk a variety of expectations from the wide assortment of accessible young people.