Anthropology is the study of humanity, its evolutionary origins, social processes, and other features that set humans apart from other animals. Anthropology research can greatly improve our understanding of human beings, helping us to make better sense of the cultural processes that underly how humans live and relate to each other.

In the 1970s, anthropologist Ben Colby introduced the idea of ‘cultural grammar’, suggesting that human behaviours can occur in sequences, resembling word sequences in sentences. Since then, anthropologists have been trying to ‘uncover’ cultural grammars related to specific social processes, how they are mentally processes by humans, and how they are organised into narratives shared by groups of people with similar cultural backgrounds.

Professor Victor de Munck at Vilnius University recently carried out a study assessing the different courtship styles used by people in the United States from a cognitive anthropological standpoint. Cognitive anthropology focuses on mental processes involved in cultural contexts.
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Love and romantic relationships have a strong evolutionary basis, as companionship inherently improves the chances of survival and enables reproduction. The courtship process is an essential first step in romantic relationships, guided by the desire to share a life with another human being and form a family.

Courtship has changed significantly over history, as today most people in Western countries perceive marriage as resulting from a romantic interest, rather than a formality imposed by society or families.
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The first researcher who examined love and marriage from a cognitive anthropology standpoint was Naomi Quinn. She realised that when talking about marriage, people often used common metaphors and outlined two key dimensions that could be combined to form a cultural model of love.
The first of these dimensions entails the articulation of love and marriage, through the assumption that when a human loves another in a romantic way, then they should marry them. Additionally, if two humans are married, they should only romantically love one another, and should end their marriage if this is not the case. The second dimension represents love as a motivation for marriage, suggesting that when someone romantically loves another person, they don’t want to lose this person, they want to spend time with them, and they want to help or support them, as well as receive support from them.

This understanding of love clashes with more traditional perspectives, which are rooted in patriarchal values and thus view marriage as a constrictive union where parties are financially and emotionally dependent on each other, and divorce is unlikely. After the second world war, the role of women in society gradually started to change, and so did the understanding of gender and sexuality. This, in turn, transformed courtship processes and people’s understanding of romantic love and marriage.
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The key objective of the recent work by Professor de Munck was to understand the ‘cultural grammar’ of courtship in the modern-day United States. To do this, he looked at the most typical series of events that unfold during contemporary courtships. Professor de Munck carried out three distinct studies, each employing a different experimental method rooted in cognitive anthropology.

For the first part of his study, he recruited 30 young adults between the ages of 20 and 36 years, and asked them questions about how they understood the process of falling in love and eventually getting married. These questions covered 15 different events in the courtship process, including dating, finding common interests, getting to know each other, kissing for the first time, having sex for the first time, saying ‘I love you’ to one another, cooperating economically and getting married.

In the second part of his study, Professor de Munck wrote the same relationship events on index cards and asked 63 new participants to place them in a timeline that reflected how courtship typically unfolded for them and their peers. This allowed him to identify a courtship sequence that most participants agreed on.
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Professor De Munck then outlined the following typical courtship timeline. First, people feel an instant attraction and begin to get to know each other. Subsequently, they find common interests, share a kiss, go on dates, make plans together, and have meaningful conversations. Most participants placed these five events at the beginning of the sequence, yet they were often in a different order, suggesting that they could be nested into a single set of events related to ‘getting to know each other’.

The typical sequence then continued with meeting each other’s friends, developing a friendship in the relationship, having sex and saying ‘I love you’ for the first time, meeting each other’s family, cooperating economically, moving in together and finally getting married.

In addition to this typical sequence, Professor de Munck identified five alternative courtship sequences that reflected different cultural views in the United States. Collectively, these could be seen as ‘cultural grammars’ of courtship.
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In the third part of the study, he looked at the differences between the typical sequence of courtship and the other courtship sequences he identified. Interestingly, he found that having sex and meeting each other’s parents were the two events with greater variability in terms of the order they were placed in.

While some participants placed having sex at the beginning of the courtship timeline, others placed it towards the end, and the same was found for meeting a partner’s parents. Sequences that presented having sex for the first time at the beginning could be associated with today’s hook-up culture.

On the other hand, sequences that placed meeting each other’s parents at the beginning and having sex later on reflect more traditional models of courtship, where parental approval of one’s mate is still perceived as crucial, and the ultimate goal of courtship remains that of getting married or forming a family.

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The recent study by Professor de Munck offers interesting new insights into the culturally recognised and contemporary processes of courtship in the United States. His is one of the first cognitive anthropological efforts to understand how love and courtship unfold in modern times.