he date. Everyone can relax and have a good time. Group dates may lead to serious relationships for some members of the group. Maybe a girl and boy on a group date find that t6ey have a lot in common and enjoy being together. They may spend more time together, with the group, and with each other. But usually, everyone on a group date is just interested in a good time. No one worries about a serious relationship.

The group date may be good for very young people. They may not know what kind of person they like. They may like to spend their time with many different people. But it also does not give young people a chance to have a serious relationsh:p. A serious relationship can help a young person in many ways. A person may learn what is good and what is bad about a serious relationship. Usually, in dating, young people find out what kind of person they would like to marry. If a young person always goes on group dates, there is no chance to find out. As we can see, group dates have their good points and their drawbacks.

The group date is very different from the traditional date, don't you think? Young people in the United States today enjoy both of these types of relationships. Traditional dating relationships give young people a chance to get to know one another quite well. Group dates give young people a chance to get to know many other young people and to have a more relaxed evening. Both kinds of dates have their good points. The group date is a.relatively new idea among young people. It.seems to be popular for the reasons described here.

5. Courtship Customs

Did you know

that most British couples first meet at a dance?

that in some parts of Africa. men pay for their wives with cows?

that in Germany you can advertise for a partner on television?

that in Britain girls can propose in Leap Year ( 1976, I980 and every fourth year following)?

that in the USA boys and girls start dating very young, as young as 12?

6. Marriage : East and West

"I believe," said Dr. Samuel Johnson in the eighteenfh century, "that marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancel'lor, upon a due consideration of the characters and circumstances, without the partners having any choice in the matter."

We are bound to acknowledge, after a careful study of the methods of mate selection in the East and West, that the great Dr. Johnson was probably perfectly right.

From one extreme to the other, four patterns of mate selection may be distinguished.

1. Selection by the parents - the young people themselves not consulted. This is the traditional method employed in the East. When the choice is carefully and wisely made, it is usually a good one.But it is open to the grave errors caused by ignorance and exploitation.

2. Selection by the parents, but the young People consulted . This is an improvement on the first method, provided the young people are allowed to make the final decision. In some communities, though they are formally consulted, they are expected to accept the choice made for them, and have no real freedom to express their minds.

3. Selection by the young people, but parental approvdl necessary. This pattern exhibits at least two forms. The strictest is the one in which no action may be taken by the young people until they bave been given parental permissiop to proceed. A good example is the early American Quaker father in the eighteenth century, who was approached by a neighbour's son John asking his permission to court his daughter Sarah. Unless John was approved by Sazah's father in the first place, no further

step could be taken. But even if her father approved of John, Sarah still had the right to refuse him.

The other variation is where Sarah could encourage John's attentions without seeking her father's permission; but if she and John became serious, her father's appro

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