A couple of years ago, Janet Lever, a sociology professor at California State University–Los Angeles, was giving a phone interview on a paper she'd published regarding money and dating. When Lever arrived at what she thought was the survey's most startling finding—that close to half (44 percent) of men would consider breaking up with a woman if she didn't offer to pay some of the dating expenses—the twentysomething reporter had the proverbial "aha" moment. She'd been dating a guy for three months and hadn't reached for her wallet once; could he think she was a gold digger? She decided to ask him when she got out of work. "Sure enough, he was almost out the door," says Lever, who reconnected with the woman several years later, when she was in the process of moving in with that very suitor. "The bottom line is this woman could have lost a really good guy—and for what? A couple hundred bucks?"

Lever loves this story—she references it several times during our initial 40-minute phone conversation. "Think about it," she says, in a can-you-believe-these-women tone, "when a guy disappears, have you ever heard somebody say, 'Gee, I wonder if I should have paid for those dates?'" She's got a point—of all the myriad reasons I've entertained as to why a guy didn't call me or a friend back (and, believe me, I've not lacked for creativity in this area), the fact that we didn't offer to pay the bill never once occurred to me.

It's indisputable that we're experiencing a new wave of gender-role realignment. Consider some of the changes that have occurred in the past five years alone: Feminism is no longer a dirty word (but fraternity is); the gender options available on Facebook have gone from two to 59; we're closer than we've ever been to electing a female president. Yet the custom of the man picking up the check persists. Indeed, in Lever's paper, based on a 2008 survey of more than 17,000 heterosexuals, 82 percent of men said they cover the majority of entertaining costs even after they've been dating for "a while," whereas a little over half of women reported sharing some—emphasis on some—of such expenses after six months. Other studies have reached roughly the same conclusion: A survey published by financial website NerdWallet in 2014, for example, found that 77 percent of men and women still expect the man to fork out for first dates.

The man paying might sound like a centuries-old tradition, but it's actually a relatively recent development—mostly because the date itself is fairly new. The date as we know it (boy asks girl out to engage in some activity) arose only in the 1920s. In the decades before, courting took place in the parlor of the woman's home at her invitation, with her extended family present. Prompted by, among other things, the rise of entertainment culture (restaurants, talkies, amusement parks), what had been a public event in a private space became a private event in a public space. "Suddenly the power of the invitation and entertaining expenses shifted onto the men," says Stephanie Coontz, PhD, professor of sociology at Evergreen State University in Washington. One reason for that is surely that while more women worked in earlier eras than we often assume, and therefore had disposable income, the percentage was still small—only a fifth of women older than 16 were part of the labor force in 1920, compared to close to 60 percent today. "And then there became this culture of who owes what and who is in charge."

Which sounds like the type of arrangement that the modern woman would chafe against. But not necessarily, Lever and her colleagues found. Although 57 percent of women in the survey said they offered to pay on a first date, 39 percent also said it bothered them if the man accepted their offer. David Frederick, a professor of psychology at Chapman University and coauthor of the Lever paper, offers insight into what might be going on: "As social roles start to change, people often embrace the changes that make their lives easier but resist the changes that make their lives harder." Lever puts it more plainly: "There are a lot of things that are unfair about womanhood, so women are thinking, This is the one perk I get; I'm taking it." Lever draws a parallel to what's known as the "second shift" phenomenon—that housework responsibilities fall on women even in relationships in which both people work outside the home. The theory? Husbands are copacetic with their wives going out and earning money (why not? that makes my life easier), but they reject the burdensome aspects of the dual-earner revolution: You do the dishes!

Sixteen percent of the male subjects reported—perhaps the right word should be "admitted"—feeling entitled to sex if they paid, while a third of women felt less pressure to "put out" if they'd contributed to expenses.

Lever believes women should question their habit of expecting men to pony up for dates, however. "There's a price tag to chivalry," she says. "If a man thinks you need protection, then that makes him the boss. You know, if he's paying for everything, then he's entitled to—if not sex—hanging out with his friends instead of your friends, choosing where you go." Sixteen percent of the male subjects reported—perhaps the right word should be "admitted"—feeling entitled to sex if they paid, while a third of women felt less pressure to "put out" if they'd contributed to expenses.

I can't help but stumble on the wording here: "pressure." What about the woman who just enjoys sex? Or what of the Samantha Jones–type feminist? The woman who gladly supplies some sexual action in return for an expensive meal, who considers this a reasonable transaction? When I mention this to Lever—as well as the rise in dating sites such as Seeking Arrangement, where women openly barter sex for a night out on the town, jewelry, even a place to live— she replies: "There are women who wrote in the survey, 'If he thinks I'm paying whatsoever for any part of this date, he's not getting this piece of ass.'" (As a self-described "equality feminist," Lever, by the way, was far from impressed with that attitude.)

Sexual quid pro quos aside, it's possible the two sexes are investing equivalently in dates even if women aren't touching the dinner bill. Women assume what's become known as the "makeup tax," the enormous (and rapidly rising) amount it costs us to get ready to go out into the world. Here's a conservative tally of beauty treatments one might get in preparation for a date: manicure ($20), blowout ($50), eyebrows ($20), bikini wax ($50). It totals $140 and doesn't even include makeup and clothes. Lever heard this lament from her female respondents: "He can wear the same shirt again. She got her hair done, her nails done; she spent a fortune on makeup. She spent an hour and a half getting ready; he spent 20 minutes." And as a percentage of their respective incomes, a typical woman might contribute the same as the typical man, since we still earn only 78 cents to their dollar.

"It's possible the two sexes are investing equivalently in dates even if women aren't touching the dinner bill."

It should be noted that not all women are cool with leaving the tab to the man. In fact, while 39 percent of women said they wanted men to decline their offer to pay, another 40 percent said they'd be offended by that. While this puts XYers in an unenviable bind, Lever still sees progress here: "There are women out there who don't want to treat a man as a meal ticket. They're saying, 'Look, I want you to consider me an equal.'"

Yet there might be a primal reason men pay for dates—at least first ones. In 2011, Michael Stirrat, a psychology lecturer at Scotland's University of St Andrews, asked heterosexual subjects to look at a lineup of 10 faces of the opposite sex in ascending order of attractiveness and rate which they'd be more likely to pay for on a date. He found that men were more likely to foot the bill the more comely the date (surprise, surprise), but, interestingly, the reverse was true for women: They were less likely to pay for the lookers. According to Stirrat, there's an adaptive reason for this—women realize the cutest men have lots of mating options, and our lizard brains calculate that if he pays, he's signaling a willingness to perhaps stick around the cave and help raise the offspring.

Lever and Frederick's work is interesting, Stirrat says, but it "ignores the indisputable biological component and focuses solely on cultural factors." To wit, he says that after he published his study, he received a number of emails from Dutch men to the effect of, "This is all very interesting, but in the Netherlands, we literally go Dutch." Curious if this was true, Stirrat analyzed the data by nationality. "The Dutch were exactly the same as the rest of the sample," he says.

Lever also mentions that several of her students remarked that they'd be more willing to pay for a "superhot" woman. "We're human," she concedes, adding, "I'm sure, though, by the tenth date, the guy might stop and say, 'Well, what would it be like to be in a relationship with this person? She's a princess. Is that sustainable?' It might go past the fourth date, but the tenth?"

This article originally appeared in the March 2016 issue of ELLE.

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