ABSTRACT
Every element of adolescent sexuality, from declining age of marriage, declining age of first pregnancy, and rising rates of premarital sex, worked within the context of the steady system and were accelerated by it. Still, most adolescents understood themselves as living in a social world dominated by dating, either participating or else being left out of it. By the 1950s, going steady became social standard, expectation of peers and even of parents. Junior high and high school students began dating for many reasons. During the decades when going steady grew into accepted norm for adolescent heterosexual conviviality, practice seemed strange enough that observers and social scientists looked for comparisons to describe it. Companionate marriages would allow couple to develop warmer personal relations and to enjoy sex without responsibilities of child raising. The double standard always placed greater burdens on reputations of girls than boys. Most Americans reacted with shock at reports of incest and other sexual abuses of the young.
