Nontraditional Dating Behavior: Date-Initiation and Date Expense-Sharing among Feminists and Nonfeminsts

This study compares the date-initiation and date expense-sharing behavior of feminists and nonfeminists. It is hypothesized that feminists engage in these nontraditional behaviors more than nonfeminists in order to equalize the bargaining element in dating relations. Subjects are 258 unmarried, undergraduate women attending classes at a large, Southeastern university during the spring of 1979. Feminists and nonfeminists are grouped according to summated scale scores on the FEM Scale. The results show that feminists tend to share dating expenses with male partners more than nonfeminists. They are also more likely to initiate dates and to share the financial obligations of woman-initiated dates than are more traditional women. The implications of these findings for family researchers and practitioners are discussed.