There is an old, almost forgotten, southern means of finding out if a courting couple are compatible enough not just for marriage, but for a marriage that lasts. It was called “necking”, and has some very strict rules.
First of all, courtship was made more difficult in the old South because of there being a lack of entertainment. The place was deathly dull. Instead of going to a restaurant, one of the couple would go to the home of the parents of the other for a meal. If the girl was going to the boy’s home, she would help his mother and maybe his sisters in the kitchen. If the boy was going to the girl’s home, he would have to converse with her father and maybe brothers for an hour or more.
In any event, if they began dating, it typically meant sitting on the front porch of either house, under the watchful gaze of parents. This would go on a while until finally the “acid test” of necking was used.
Necking meant kissing. Nothing more. But after some warm ups, they would have to kiss in an uninterrupted manner for the better part of an hour.
Truthfully, if you were not compatible with another person, kissing them for over 5 minutes became intolerable. Usually both people would strongly realize that they were *not* compatible, beyond any doubt. If you could kiss for an hour, and still want *anything* to do with that other person, you could almost certainly be married and live happily ever after.
The experienced generally agree that kissing is far more intimate than sex. In this case, if a couple could neck for an hour, sex would be easy, polite, friendly and sympathetic. If they couldn’t neck for an hour, sex would be out of the question.
Of course this social custom only applied to the middle and upper classes. The lower classes typically reproduced like farm animals, having their own rules and customs.
World War II, changing society, entertainment and the “sexual revolution” were the death knell to this, because sex became seen as both a prerequisite to marriage and as more important than marriage.
Socialists proclaimed that marriage was just a social construct of no real value, that uninhibited sex was the goal of life, not long term monogamy and children, who should be raised by the state, not their parents.
Yes, once again, not only were they entirely wrong, but very destructive in the process. As Stalin proved, “You can break a heck of a lot of eggs and still not make an omelet.”
I remember "necking"! In my part of the South, it was also called "he'in' an' she'in' ". Often it was preceded by lying on the living room or rec room floor listening to jazz. It was so fun, except when your little brother tried to interfere.