1800s
Victorian Courtship as Evolutionary Game
Victorian courtship was anything but prudish. Explore how 19th-century etiquette manuals, chaperone culture, and marriage markets encoded costly signals of status, investment, and reproductive fitness.
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Selling costly signals in 1879: Victorian visiting cards and the logic of modern dating
On calling cards, costly signals, and buying your way into polite society with George D. Carroll’s (1879) Art Stationery and Usages of Polite Society.
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Why manners matter: the evolutionary origins of etiquette
How a healthy Victorian-era adaptation to disgust got rewired during Covid into maladaptive shaming When we think of Victorian etiquette—the elaborate rules about which fork to use, how to make introductions, or the proper way to leave a calling card—we tend to dismiss it as stuffy social performance. But what…
About the author
Andrew King
Author of Costly Signals: The Evolution of Dating Advice. PhD researcher with 500+ dating guides from the 1800s to today. Why do we take romantic advice from strangers? I have answers.
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Whether you’re a journalist, podcaster, or an event organizer, I’d love to hear from you. I speak on modern dating, evolutionary psychology, and the surprising history of dating advice.
© 2026, Andrew King