The Queen, DY: Like OURTorah, I don’t think any relationships need to last a year before you can get engaged, much less that anyone needs to move in together beforehand either. I do think that the time needs to be taken to have enough of a relationship that each party really knows the other, it’s not just “wow this is a great opportunity, and so much better than it could have been.” Or, really, it should be more than just “wow this is a great guy/girl”- by engagement, there should be more of a connection. (I am 19 years old- not even withered on the vine yet- and I’ve already been talked to about settling, and I don’t mean setting my gaze to someone who’s not a future rosh yeshiva with Artscroll-biography middos and a warm smile.) If making that connection means more than 10 dates, I’ll take more than 10 dates.
And I agree to an extent about the shadchan stuff- having an intermediate for the first date or two is fine (and I definitely don’t think it has to be an “official shadchan”) but I keep on hearing about people who break up after six dates through the shadchan even after they’d officially “dropped the shadchan”- which is both a lack of menschlichkeit and really immature. If you can’t have a big-boy discussion about having to break up, you shouldn’t be looking into big-boy stuff like marriage. (I use a male example because all three examples I have of this situation have been of men doing it to women.)
I also SUPER agree with the women-treated-like-cattlle-or-commodities thing. Call me a starry-eyed teenager, but I think that dealings related to marriage should be a bit less formalistic, pressured and businesslike than they are, where boys are treated like the popular kid’s shiny new tricycle and girls are treated like the other kid’s rusty scooter that he’s trying to trade away but has to throw in other stuff to sweeten the deal.