Everybody has values that they go by whenever it comes to relationships. Values are things that they look for in a relationship and things that they value and want to find in their partner. Over the years the values that people look for in a relationship have changed. Recently the values have changed into a more physical attraction while in the past it was more of a personal attraction. In the past divorce was not accepted as much as it is today.
Past generations are said to have had longer relationships and stronger relationships. Past relationships were created from the roots of ancient courtships, medieval chivalry, and Victorian formality.
Ancient courtships have a lot of different factors when it comes to marriage and even relationships for example arranged marriages and marrying a woman off. Using arranged marriages is for the benefit of both families and marrying a woman off as a business transaction because they weren’t really seen as humans but more as property they were even used as peace transactions by marrying a chief’s daughter to another chief’s son.
Medieval chivalry was more of a man being gentlemen for example opening doors, giving women their jackets to stay warm, pulling out chairs, etc. Still, even at this time, people were having arranged marriages for money and not love. And last Victorian formality where people start marrying for love and making sure to do all the “right” steps like needing a chaperone for dates and speaking to one another, proposals were written on paper and the women would write their responses back. Men would court a woman with the parents present.
Sophia Garcia (12th grader) stated “When I was younger seeing those cute relationships on the TV was how I wanted to be but now with the way this generation is going I rather be alone than to be hurt.”
But relationships today are based on more lust than love. This is because relationships nowadays aren’t taken as seriously which has caused broken households and unbalanced marriages. This is because now people have become more selfish and have put their needs before others. They put guards up from not wanting to be hurt but they never even had the opportunity to see what would happen.
Society has made women feel as if they need to look a certain way and act a certain way to be wanted by a man and this has made women let men treat them however because they have low self-esteem. Men need their fathers to teach them how to treat a woman but with more and more fathers being absent in their kids’ lives they aren’t being taught and wouldn’t even know how to teach their own kids. This plays a big role in why relationships aren’t working out as much nowadays.
Jonathan Jones (12th grader) stated “I think nowadays people are more into the lust factor of the relationship than the actual relationship itself, the only relationship I’ve seen last a long time is probably my grandparents.”
Even though past relationships and recent relationships have a lot in common they also have a lot of differences. And because of these differences in values from the past to the present day relationships have gone from strong, respectful, loving, long-lasting relationships to just short- lived physical lust for one another.
