It is frequently commented upon how women, when it comes to meeting men with romantic ends in mind, prefer to be approached rather than to do the approaching. Very relatedly, when it comes to marriage most women prefer to be proposed to rather than to propose marriage. Much of the commentary on this misses some important considerations, which we can loosely call: Why and How. (N.B. the following is going to be oversimplified because I’m writing a short post, not a long book.)

When people talk about the Why of women preferring men to take the initiative in meeting and marriage, this is often discussed either in terms of women preferring male leadership or else avoiding the risk of rejection. While these are not things to dismiss out of hand and may be part of a woman’s experience of it, there is also a cogent reason not much talked about: women have tremendous power to get men to do things. Before the modern fairy tale that women were downtrodden chattel with less agency than a child’s pet goldfish, people generally recognized that women have an amazing power to get men to do what they want. (Consider, e.g., the story of Samson and Delilah.) This power isn’t magic and requires effort on the part of the woman, and therein lies the problem. Throughout having children and raising them, a woman will at times be busy or tired and need to rely on her husband but not have the time or energy to use her power to persuade him. If she only has him because she overpowered him during courtship, he may well leave when times get hard. It is, therefore, much better if “husband” is a volunteer position. How do you ensure that somebody is volunteering for a difficult job? Making them take the first steps is a pretty good way to do it. That is typical of most people and organizations who take volunteers.

This brings us to the How, because it clarifies the goal that the How is the means to achieve. The point of the man initiating romance is not really about women wanting things to just happen to them. A few probably do, of course—there are men who don’t want to make decisions or take risks. The point is to ensure that the husband is husband by choice and not because the woman steamrolled him into it. To achieve this, the woman only needs to leave the man steps which he has to take on his own. She can do all sorts of active things so long as she leaves him active things to do as well. And if you look at the advice which older women used to give to younger women, it was full of very active steps in courtship which had the characteristic of supporting a man volunteering for the role of husband rather than overpowering him into it. For example, it is full of things which suggest to the man that his approach would be welcomed. This can be things like smiling at all times when smiling is appropriate (as distinct from only sometimes, when it is an unconscious reaction), making sure to be seen laughing at his jokes, and making opportunities for him to conveniently approach by not always having friends too close. The reverse is not nearly so important; the only main consideration in getting rid of a man a woman is not interested in is avoiding causing actual offense. The reverse of the examples I gave certainly will accomplish those goals, though outright leaving for someone else’s company (within the bounds of ordinary politeness) are not out of the question since there is no great importance to whether “not-husband” is a volunteer position.

This aspect of Why also clarifies the ways in which the How can go wrong. One of the more common ways, according to what I’ve heard, is women turning making space for a man to volunteer into complete passivity. This is your classic “wall flower,” who sits on the sidelines doing nothing. In more modern times, this might even take the form of a woman staying on the internet and not leaving her house, which is even less likely to lead to a relationship with a man. There are really two aspects to this mistake: the first is that this results in half as much energy being put into a relationship forming, and all other things equal, twice as much energy being put into something happening makes it twice as likely to happen. The second thing it gets wrong is that men don’t hunt women. Well, some do, of course, but those are the men wise women avoid. Decent men want “wife” to be a volunteer position, too, so they are on the lookout for women who actually want them. The most pronounced form this takes is looking for signs of interest and receptivity from the woman. And, famously, many men aren’t good at picking up on these signs if they’re subtle. A woman who wants to be approached by a man, or who wants the man to escalate the relationship (including to marriage) needs to indicate this receptivity to the man, and moreover, needs to pay attention to whether he notices those indications of receptivity and increase the “volume” if he isn’t noticing them. This is quite active and, indeed, a fair bit of work. Once she is confident that he has noticed this receptivity, it then becomes time for interpreting his action or inaction to it. If he clearly understands she is receptive but he does nothing to progress the relationship towards marriage and children, he isn’t volunteering and it’s time for the woman to move on to find someone who will volunteer for the job. And it’s worth emphasizing that what constitutes clarity and what constitutes pushing varies very considerably and has to be adapted to the specific individual. A highly perceptive man might find only mild subtlety to be quite pushy, while a very unperceptive man might take at face value, “are you going to ask me to marry you? Because if not, I like you a lot but it will probably be best for both of us if we move on so you can find someone you will ask to marry you and I can find someone who will ask me.” There is an almost unbelievable variety in human beings, and when dealing with a particular human being you have to figure out their particularity. The only general rule is that it’s usually better to err on the side of “too little” and escalate than on the side of “too much” and pull back.

There’s quite a lot on the subject I’ve left off, of course. As I said in the beginning, this is a post and not a book.