Southern belles and dating

This past weekend I watched the MTV show "True Life: I'm a Southern Belle." While there were a million annoying stereotypes in this show that I could pick on, I am going to focus on just one: marriage.

The show maintained that it is a widely-held Southern belief that people — particularly women — should marry young. A true Southern belle should go to college, meet her sweetheart, marry and have kids by age 26, according to the show. Of course, they did have the token young woman who didn't believe this, but her story was framed as that of someone combating tradition.

One of the single Southern belles on the show even bemoaned that at age 24 she was just one step away from being an old maid and crazy cat lady. This same woman and her friend then ran down a list of what they would not do in dating: they would not ask guys out, they would not date online, they would not call a guy first, they would not pay for a meal and so on and so forth.

This thinking certainly is a throwback to the Old South and a time when women were good for entertaining, making babies and pleasing their husbands.

I think this is a bit outdated.

Do you think that any of these old Southern traditions still exist? Have you ever felt pressure to marry young because you live in the South? Does living in the South change your views of dating?