Dating 3.0

Dating is, for many people, a thorny subject: the first way to meet a partner is through the close circle of dating, friends, friends of friends, and so on.
More and more, individuals, not having found the right fit for their feet because of incompatibilities or failure to conquer in these 'first level' encounters, are relying on providence or turning to means more technological, namely dating sites and applications.

Resorting to these means to make romantic encounters has finally become commonplace and is presented as a real alternative which allows to widen the field of research and to facilitate the connection with the ideal person that one would not have had the chance to meet otherwise. These huge online libraries of love, in which individuals will hopefully lose themselves, promise an opening to the world through the wealth of profiles contained. However, the people who use them do not say they are fully satisfied and at the same time, more and more of these sites specialize according to certain social criteria (religion, “requirement”, sexual orientation).

This allows us to express several hypotheses that we will question throughout this article: is ultimately this promise of openness to the world and therefore freedom in romantic encounters only illusory? Do these new means only give the impression of access to a great diversity of individuals but in reality which is denied to us by algorithms that will reproduce mechanisms rooted in our societies? Finally, do not the machines that sort through the profiles presented to us govern our contemporary societies as parents did in the past when they chose the partners of their offspring?

Foundations

Arranged meetings & interests
 

For a very long time, marriages (and therefore dating) were arranged and love was not a valid reason for a family alliance. Feelings had no place there until the end of World War II. It must be said that in the upper middle class, marriage is above all a contract between two families and which consists in pooling assets, and makes it possible to rise socially but in no case the reverse: there was no porosity between social classes.

The difference between members of different social classes was palpable and nurtured thanks to a class culture where self-esteem is essential. For both the French and English bourgeois and aristocrats of the Ancien Régime, it was inconceivable to marry for love. On the other hand, love could possibly be born later, once married. Quite often in the literature one finds these rather revealing terms: “Your duty is to make a good marriage, which will best serve the interests of your family and give birth quickly to seal this‘ partnership ’. Then you will see please, and with a little luck and time, maybe love will be born. "
 

Antiquity
 

If we go back to Antiquity (3000-2000 BC), in a society then phallocentric and patriarchal, marriage was a private contract that was made in front of the fathers of both families. For the marriage to take place legally, the girl's father or guardian chose a man who was to be the judge of this alliance. In Sparta as in Rome, the laws provided for fines for those who wanted to escape them. According to the laws of Lycurgus of Sparta, if people married too late, criminal prosecution could be initiated: celibacy was considered a crime and family alliance a duty. It goes without saying that these decisions were taken by the males of the families or clans concerned without any consultation with the women.

In these societies dominated by men, the sole objective of women was limited to that of reproduction. She was considered a child all her life, with no real rights and was transferred from one male guardianship (father) to another (husband).

Michel Foucault, in Histoire de la Sexualité Gallimard, 1976, explains that male domination exercised in patriarchal society is the means which allows “males” to exercise their biopower. This in the sense that, the latter cannot reproduce among themselves - unlike other species such as snails or clown fish which are sometimes male and female - and therefore to perpetuate their name, their power, become dependent on the woman. , capable of gestation, and will then make sure to control it.

The Church takes over

With the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, the authority and protection of populations changed hands and returned to religious institutions and the Church then took up the torch. For this community of all Christian people, marriage was, in addition to the reasons mentioned above, a means of controlling and regulating the growth of the population. That is, the Church, through her influence, had in her hands the power of birth control in society.

It is also the Church which will play the role of the guarantor of this well-established order, through the fear and threat of divine reprisals in the event of deviations from social and societal mores and operations.
 

The pseudo-exception of the peasant population

In the Middle Ages, the Church considered marriage to be a family project, considered very early in the life of children, but especially when the child was female: the exchange of the young girl, through marriage with someone in a better situation was a way of rising socially. The child was then, when the family could afford it, raised for the sole purpose of climbing the social ladder. His education then included diction courses, Latin, dance, ... Anything that could allow him to blend into a higher caste, on which so many hopes were based.

Conversely, questions of money or interests among the peasant population were far from being the criteria for choosing a spouse at the start of the 12th century. Indeed, peasant couples choose each other according to different criteria such as physical appearance, charm, the personality of the other or quite simply according to mutual desires. These different criteria which were inconceivable for the upper class emerged among the peasants and led to so-called “love” marriages.
 

Is love always so frowned upon?

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, more and more married couples ended up feeling love for each other. Remember, marrying someone you didn't necessarily love didn't matter to the families of the bride and groom. They were forced to unite for the sole purpose of sharing their possessions. At that time, loving each other after marriage was considered an anomaly and some could take offense because the situation was so unprecedented. In the Renaissance, there was very little room for Mavericks. On the other hand, this feeling was essential in order to engender peace within the household and the happiness of the bride and groom.
 

It was in the 17th century that we saw the birth of a way of life called "preciousness" which is at the same time a behavior, a dress elegance and a literary movement. The women called "the Precious" were true intellectuals in search of artistic or intellectual recognition and expressed themselves with sophisticated language. These witty women opposed marriage when the only goal was a union of interests.

The idea of ​​divorce was introduced by the Protestant Reformation in the Renaissance with the divorce of Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The reason for this desire for separation stems from frustration on the part of the King of England who was unable to have a male heir with his wife. Divorce was therefore not a solution based on a problem of love but always of interests in the 16th century. The idea that a divorce may be preferable to a married life which has become very difficult is, however, accepted by the majority of Protestants. There is a real degradation of the social status of women who becomes no more than a symbolic object with a very limited role: to give birth to successors.
 

Civil union, divorce and the Napoleon Code

Agnès Walch, a French historian specializing in the history of the couple, denounces infidelity and adultery in arranged marriages among elites in her book “Histoire de l'adulterère (XVIe-XIXe siècle)”. In the 16th century, “the authentic” prevailed, a rule based on Roman laws reinterpreted by royal jurists. Adultery was punished with a life sentence under the Justinian code, unless the husband consented to take back his wife. In this case, the woman is described as "authenticated" and would face the penalty of spending the rest of her life in a monastery as well as deprivation of her dowry.
 

Civil union and divorce were established by the Revolution on September 20, 1792. Marriages were then celebrated with municipal officers and no longer in religious places such as churches. Napoleon Bonaparte concludes a Concordat with the Holy See and re-establishes religious marriage by establishing the Napoleon Code stipulating that "there is no marriage when there is no consent". Parents and families can no longer decide for their children and force them to marry out of interest. It will be officially in the 19th century that we will speak of a “marriage of love”.

Now that we have a historical overview of romantic encounters and the ways that surrounded them, let's jump back in time to a more contemporary period in history, which brings us to the mid-twentieth century.
 

The beginnings of dislocation by the Cultural Revolution

Liberation and sexual “revolution” ...
 

"Make love not in war" shout the young people of May 68, in the midst of the sexual revolution. The term "sexual revolution", also known as "sexual liberation", covers the substantial changes in sexual behavior and mores that took place in the West during the 1950s and 1960s.
It made its appearance after a gradual questioning and decline of the stranglehold of the Christian religion which was until then the cement of this hold of the man on the woman. Religion maintained a certain illusion: everyone had a role and to depart from the established rules would amount to submitting to God's judgment.
 

This movement is essentially marked by the progressive sexual emancipation of women, then by the affirmation of gender equality, and even later by the legalization of contraception and abortion, through the recognition of non-procreative sexualities.

In 1968, it is a phenomenon of bringing together bodies that takes place. The exit from a France with old mores, without sexual relations before marriage, without contraception. The excitement is in the air and we get by with the condom, the Neuwirth Law - legalizing oral contraceptives - just passed is not yet fully implemented.

Although marriages of convenience are no longer exactly the norm in societies and that 'spontaneous' romantic encounters are made possible, certain social (religious) constructions remain very present, in particular sexual relations before / outside marriages which are seen in the past. 'a (very) evil eye when it comes to women. Although women are starting to emancipate themselves, work, etc. they remain in society inferior or at least less important than men: the image of man in society is that of a free individual, who acts as he pleases, seduces, conquers while the woman, well that she begins to emancipate herself, cooks, takes care of the children.
 

By having sex, a woman runs the risk of an unwanted pregnancy but also the risk of being judged or even rejected by her peers and her family circle. It's all about image in society, the famous “what will we say?”. The man for his part, and depending on his background - as well as that of the woman - faces the "only" risk of a marriage of convenience. In modern Western societies, this is a union intended to give an appearance of social regularity to a situation seen as problematic (pregnancy, sexual assault, etc.).

It is precisely in the face of this duality of positions and freedoms that the sexual revolution movement was born, obviously helped by the legalization of oral contraception which will finally allow women to enjoy their bodies without having the omnipresent fear of a potential child, a pleasure hitherto reserved for men.

“Sexual desire was allowed even outside of romantic feelings,” says Danielle. It wasn't pejorative to have a relationship just for the sake of sex, we weren't called bitches, we weren't insulted. It didn't hurt the reputation of having multiple partners in any way, it was part of a non-judgmental lifestyle. "
 

But although this sexual revolution has freed bodies and made the expression of carnal desires more easily accepted, it is in reality only on the surface that romantic encounters are freed, facilitated or made more spontaneous.

… In (still) phallocratic societies…
 

Feminists very early on relativized the progress brought by oral contraception (which made it possible to launch the “sexual revolution”) having considered that certain age categories imposed themselves on the fact that it is necessary to “sleep, even without desire. , to appear liberated ”, which hardly seems an improvement any longer compared to the time when you had to go to bed, even without desire, to procreate. The slogan "To live without dead time, to enjoy without obstacles" is thus gradually denounced for its ambiguity, as a totally empty formula because it misses the question of the desire and the freedom of beings as subjects. It is even sometimes interpreted as an injunction of normative jouissance, inscribed in a traditional vision of male sexuality, or to have made it possible to trivialize, within the framework of a liberal and capitalist vision, the sex industry.

Even though the term phallocracy was first used during the sexual revolution to characterize an established order in which the oppression of women and their relegation to menial tasks and its characteristic features were heretofore invisible, the 'great revolution' of women. The 1960s not only freed women from the grip of men, but placed them in a weak position in a deregulated “sex market”. As Christine Delphy writes, “The quest for Prince Charming, once conducted in chastity, cannot be imagined without steamy moments. The advertisements, in the cinema, present only one image of happiness, well-being, normality: a young couple in swimsuits, dancing on a tropical beach, eye to eye ". The selling points are always the same: "beauty, youth and sexuality, this is what we are sold".

"It was the scum that was taken," says Hedwige Peemans-Poullet, looking critically at the sexual revolution, "not the tidal wave". Our society has remained patriarchal, dominated by a wild globalized, deeply sexist capitalism. We are far, despite appearances, from the egalitarian ideal where men and women are partners in everything, in the private and public sphere, in the sphere of production and reproduction, and in the intimacy of relations, which affects closer to life.
 

Continuity of dislocation

In the 1980s and 1990s, the dislocation generated and aided by the cultural revolution of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s continued. However, there is a certain duality in the encounter behavior of individuals. During this period, nightclubs and cafes are the places of sociability and meeting par excellence: all types of people from very diverse social backgrounds mingle with the aim of play, liberation, etc. So, we mess around without knowing it in nightclubs, we meet people, we have fun but when it comes to being more serious, to consider long-term relationships, marriage, reproduction and social determination comes into play and plays its role. This is the reason why we can say that ultimately these places are only pseudo places of social liberation. One of the examples which illustrates it perfectly are the rallies organized by bourgeois families to meet young people from good families, to meet a possible future husband and thus to preserve a social status.

In Les ghettos du Gotha it is mentioned that, like the rallies which play the game of interpersonal skills, there are those left out of the dating market (not beautiful, sickly shy - almost of pathology-, elderly). The latter are moreover reduced to leaving common meeting places since they do not have the characteristics that allow them to stand out in such places to take refuge in specialized structures such as dating clubs. However, the lines are gradually shifting and we tend towards a progression of exogamy and cultural and sexual diversity, in particular thanks to the loss of the imagination of the dominant man versus a more acute perception of the femme fatale. romantic and working girl.

At the end of the 90s, several dating sites were gradually launched, new forms of technology-mediated dating. This is the start of a new era in dating. The promise of these sites is this: you can't find a partner that matches you in your inner circle? No problem, thanks to dating sites, you will be able to broaden your scope and meet people from all walks of life. These dating sites are an immediate success and they abound, soon followed by applications.

Tools that promote meeting new people ...

The rise of online dating since the beginning of the 21st century seems to have profoundly changed romantic, sexual and marital relationships. Without having become the dominant mode of meeting such as meeting at work or study, parties with friends, public place, or private setting, this mode of meeting has grown in importance. With the arrival of the Minitel in 1980, “pink” messaging exploded with the famous 3615 ULLA. Shortly after, in 1994, the arrival of the internet will allow the whole world to connect in real time with each other, responding to a desire expressed by people, namely, to meet new people, outside their own “ usual circles ”of attendance.
 

In 2001, the first dating site, Meetic, was created by Marc Simoncini. Although for more than ten years admitting to having met your partner online was little accepted, even shameful, this trend has completely reversed. In 2020, two out of three people are in a relationship thanks to these sites.

Today with the commonplace of smartphones and certain features such as geolocation, there are applications (like the very famous Tinder) adopted very quickly by the youngest who were born with social networks. Tinder, for example, makes it easy to meet locally and chat.
A revolution that has become very commonplace but with some negative points: 83% of dating app users say they are dissatisfied with their experience. A waste of time on apps with 67% of singles spending at least 4 hours a week swiping and chatting, but that's not all. 50% of women claim to have received explicit content without having asked for anything beforehand (dick pics, etc.).
Between disrespect and cheating more than 62% of French people know that they will be disappointed by their suitor before meeting him, there is no more confidence. Some studies persist in saying that by 2037, 1 in 4 babies will be born from an online encounter.

Who in reality continue to promote social / self-determination?

Today there are a plethora of sites and apps that promise that anyone can date a complete stranger with very different socio-cultural backgrounds. This is what sociology doctor Marie Bergström denounces, who found that Meetic and her competitors ultimately favor each other. A manager prefers to meet a manager, a boss another boss etc. This is a trend that can be found in apps that offer VIP services for discerning singles.

The application algorithms are not complicated. Tinder uses information on uses to determine the profiles highlighted: including in this classification people who have been solicited or contacted a lot. But in fact, contrary to popular belief, they don't need all of these. This is not decisive for the meeting. To make a service of this type work, only a few parameters are enough. There is a real fear of the sophistication and determination of algorithms. Algorithmic logics are much less sophisticated than social logics. The link between the partners is the result of logics of social selections implemented by individuals than by algorithms. They pre-select people but these parameters are less decisive than those that people use to choose their “soul mates”.

On the other hand, the creators of dating apps do not claim any expertise in love or sexuality, their job is above all web and digital and are not defined by particular matrimonial skills.
Site and application designers communicate very explicitly that they only copy working mechanisms and that ultimately, in this industry, everyone is doing the same thing!
The technical convention is very strong and the differences between the sites and the applications are based on very few technical developments. Thanks to the digitization and the position taken by these private companies, we can see that they can deal with economic crises (ex: coronavirus), with confinement and social distancing measures, online dating sites and applications. online continue to attract more and more people with registrations on the rise.

Homogamy on Dating Sites

On dating sites we find a social self-selection produced by a three-step process: the evaluation of user profiles, the written exchange and the physical meeting. At each of these moments specific selection mechanisms come into play that ultimately lead to similarities on dating sites and elsewhere.

In terms of professional homogamy, that is to say the proportion of couples bringing together two partners with similar jobs, we only observe a statistically reliable difference with couples formed at the workplace.
For the latter, the tendency to homogamy is stronger than for couples from the sites. When it comes to educational homogamy, only encounters made at the place of study or work are significantly more homogamous than those made on dating sites.

Finally, no difference can be established with regard to homogamy of social origin, measured by the profession of the fathers of both spouses. The differences observed between the sites and other dating contexts are therefore not strong enough to be able to conclude that these services are specific. Only professional and educational contexts appear by their very nature to be conducive to meetings between partners with similar work or education.

Homogamy according to meeting places compared to dating sites logistic regression coefficients

These results are consistent with a study of couples formed in Germany and the United States. Comparing the educational homogamy of relationships formed on the internet (all sites combined) and elsewhere, the author shows that only couples who have known each other in places of study or work are significantly more homogamous than couples from 'Internet.

Little or no difference (in terms of educational homogamy) is observed between online dating and dating through friends, family, associations or hobbies. The spread of dating sites therefore does not seem to significantly affect the pairing of socially homogeneous couples.

How then does social homogamy occur on these sites, that is, in the absence of certain essential elements of the usual patterns? We retrace here the new paths towards another similar one. The survey highlights a process of bringing together partners made up of three clearly identifiable phases: the evaluation of user profiles, the written exchange and the face-to-face meeting. At each of these moments specific, socially differentiated selection mechanisms intervene that terminate some potential relationships and lead others to the next stage.
 

Besides social class, religious affiliation is also a selection criterion with platforms like Mektoube dedicated to Muslims or Theotokos for Catholics. "These sites are the reflection of a new self," analyzes the doctor in sociology at the microphone of France Culture. Effective compartmentalization with dating sites (Jswipe for Jews, Muslims, ..). As pioneer sites have become popular, others have appeared, targeting specific populations.
 

Some of these so-called “niche” sites target the upper classes, by means of co-option or on the principle of sharing distinctive cultural practices. The result is a movement of users' migration, going from “general public” sites to spaces dedicated to people with economic and / or cultural capital. Also the democratization of dating sites reflects a “segregative democratization”. The excessive specialization of these sites can sometimes be questioning, because by dint of looking for his double in very specific criteria, the single person risks locking himself in his own clichés. "To think that meeting someone who looks like you is the key to a successful relationship is illusory," a precarious ideal because a hobby is only a small part of an individual's personality.

In a love at first sight, we fall in love without having all this information. Not to mention that 70% of our communication is non-verbal. In reality, you are looking for someone who sees the world the same way you do, more than someone who does the same sport. And in love, the essentials cannot be equated.

Finally

This promise of openness to the world seen as freedom in romantic encounters is just an illusion. Finally, human beings only create dating solutions according to their available resources (the most recent technologies, for example) to get them adopted by their users, but the cultures remain unchanged. These new means only give the impression of access to a great diversity of individuals, but in reality, algorithms refuse it and reproduce mechanisms that have been anchored in our societies for thousands of years.

The real difference with the times when there was no internet and therefore not yet all these dating solutions, is that a relationship can more quickly take shape between two individuals regardless of their gender thanks to increased accessibility to human contact through interactions such as chat for example.

Finally, we can feel that individuals are trapped in their social determinism because depending on the different cultures, the paradigm around marriage as well as love is different. That's why today there are hundreds of dating apps with various configurations.

Some are mainly based on religion because according to their beliefs, these individuals cannot have lasting relationships with other individuals of other religions. Other technological means to find your soul mate are filtered according to criteria oriented towards social status. Indeed, it allows people to be able to predict their level of wealth, which was once the reason for an alliance between two families. Nothing new under the sun.