Editing Going steady (section)

==Trends==

Surveys of college women, repeated in ten-year intervals from 1958 to 1978, found an increase in both the numbers who had gone steady, earlier ages for going steady, and a large decrease in number of dating partners, as shown in the following table:<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bell |first1=Robert R.|last2=Coughey|first2=Kathleen |title=Premarital Sexual Experience among College Females, 1958, 1968, and 1978 |journal=Family Relations |date=Jul 1980 |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=353–357 |doi=10.2307/583856 |jstor=583856}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Had gone steady
! Age first went steady
! Mean number of partners ever dated
|-
| 1958
| 68%
| 17.0
| 53
|-
| 1968
| 77%
| 16.7
| 25
|-
| 1978
| 85%
| 15.9
| 14
|}