By contrast, there is some feeling in most circles that when the couple is older, neither party to a steady dating relationship "has the right" to hold the other in exclusive possession, unless there is some possibility of eventual marriage. The social definitions are, then, that the older or the once married do not have an infinitely wide number of potential marriage partners, or time to find them.
Therefore, they should not stay, or hold others, in a steady dating relationship if there is no chance at all of marriage. A basic assumption of our society is, as we have analyzed previously, that almost all will get married, and that almost all should get married. Thus, relationships are disapproved that hinder adults from entering the statuses, and thereby the role obligations, that are prescribed for them.
For these reasons, we treat both steady dating and remarriage in this chapter, locating some of the factors that appear to be associated with these steps toward resuming the previous status of "married mother." Here, we look at the 303 divorcees who had not yet remarried by the time of the interview.
Let us first state the obvious, that frequency of dating is associated with steady dating: 68% of the frequent daters (more than once weekly at the time of interview) are steady daters, while 38% of the medium daters (Once weekly to once a month), and only 5% of the infrequent daters are also steady daters. It is useful to state the obvious, since the obvious is not always correct.
