Finally, we are done assessing this other person from an armchair, and ready to go out into the world, to see what life is really like, as partners.

We are compatible in every way, which started with the desire of Sexual Attraction, the love and friendship, even to "best friendship" of Emotional Attraction, and the mature personal growth to enter real partnership, discovering the Character Compatibility in virtues that we acquired from our parents.

Now we really are ready to execute our joint goals as a loving, lasting couple in Intellectual Attraction, in the final phase and step of human courtship. This is also the last chance for the man to reach a complete certainty in his choice of a partner - which is most poignantly symbolized by the ultimate myth for "the man in a commitment": the myth of Theseus assisted by Ariadne, defeating the Minotaur, depicted at left.

Here, in the final, shared experiences before committing to a life together, we are reaching out into the environment - "hands on" - as a couple, the "man in the maze"meets Psyche in her final test of Aphrodite - equals with, nonetheless, very different gender instincts - pursuing our personal and joint goals as a team, and actually testing all we have built as partners. Finally, we can intentionally join forces to go after our goals, knowing that they will also satisfy our lifelong personal goals.

However, we have to remember that human courtship must be symmetrical if it really exists as a biological system (otherwise our species would not have survived this long.) Symmetry is what makes any system durable, and that includes every individual couple to use the system, since a couple IS a system that also needs its own harmony.

At your personal level, the symmetry of biology also demands that your partnership be fair and equal to both of you, and that each person's personal goals are met, free of codependence, so that the joint goals in the context of being a couple have a natural way of also serving your individual goals. There is no "sacrifice" necessary in a good marriage that has a sound commitment. Otherwise, the two people should not have married. They'd have been happier as singles, striving for their personal dreams, alone. This is the only reason that we have a "Phase Three" of courtship, a "partnership phase." To see how the success of two people could be greater than the attempted success of one person.

Without symmetry, intellectual attraction fails. In the Romantic Dynamics model, women vigorously tested men for their emotional and character maturity with the Artemis Instinct of Step 3 (back in Sexual Attraction.) They judged how masculine and valuable as a "winner" in their lives they found him to be, using their Athena Instinct. We find ourselves now, just before a final decision to enter the lifelong commitment and maintenance of the romance, in Step 9, the final step of courtship, where the man has incomplete information about what could either be the greatest pleasure, or the worst risk of his life.

The man must now step forward, to assess the qualities of the woman in terms of HER character as a partner. He will have already assessed this in an "armchair" way all along their story together so far. But now, he must see, first hand, what it is actually like to strive for common goals. As they say, "Show me, don't tell me." He needs "proof of concept."

This, traditionally was the purpose of "engagement" to be married. A "tryout" at marriage, to see what it will really be like, with the only thing left, being to formalize it with a ceremony. Alas, today, all we do to those ends is to purchase an expensive ring, and hire an event planner.

In the man's mind, he needs to see what exactly COULD happen to his life, his career (which is his sense of self), when he and his mate are actually striving for goals as a couple. Will they make it to their personal dreams? Or will she entirely change, turning away from the promises that she has made? Will either of them have to sacrifice their own sense of self, just to honor a written contract? Will their union be a big lie? Or will this be a life, lived in blissful fairness?

This is the stuff of the marriage contract: to have and to hold, for richer or poorer, in good times or bad, in sickness and in health. Marriage is not necessarily commitment, and commitment certainly is not a marriage ceremony. Marriage is only defined by a mere legal contract. Commitment is deeper, spiritual, and being spiritual, literally means that it attends to the core self identity, which is in large part for each person, the experience of masculinity and femininity. Which must exist in symmetry. Many of us know what lets a woman know that a man is committed to her - the media is full of examples. But commitment must be symmetrical, in which the man know that the woman is committed back to him. He feels this commitment in return, in very different ways than those that sees a woman feeling comfortable in the durability of what commitment feels like to her. Simply put, for both genders, it is the sense of respect that they feel in a partner, for their own gender instincts.

This means that the very last step of courtship does not end a straight line, but circles back to the very beginning, to the gender instincts. It doesn't end in the ceremony or the contract, but the tilting left and right of the balance of the instincts of a man and woman, husband and wife, father and mother. There needs to be a Hera in balance with a Zeus,  respecting the Zeus that respects her, an Ares in balance with an Athena, respecting the Ares that respects her, an Apollo in balance with an Artemis, respecting the Apollo that respects her, a Psyche in balance with an Eros, respecting the Eros who respects her. There cannot be a single victor or a single, supreme deity in a committed relationship.

In commitment, certain things will be required of the male, which, ironically, go against many of his masculine instincts - the reptilian forces which let him feel alive and full of vitality.

His Ares Instinct must shift from winning over the hearts of women as a single man, to winning at work. He will be Theseus in the Minotaur's Maze, and he needs his Ariadne, just outside, holding the golden thread. If she is gone, at tennis lessons, or is busy accepting her productivity award at work, then it is not her fault that she must do so. But he will, nonetheless, die in the maze, alone. Meanwhile, Psyche is in her final test, having just been assisted by "the eagle of Zeus" in him, where she is alone, going into the underworld on the ferry boat of Charon, to win all the treasure of Persephone. She cannot even get to that final test, without the Eagle of Zeus to save her, just prior.

The man's Poseidon Instinct will switch from impressing the single women with his resources, to contributing his wealth to a growing family. If that family becomes so expensive, and his capacity for work dwindles with his age, emotionally unsupported by his wife, then he dies inside - once for himself, and once for the family he loves. He needs evidence of how this will go before he makes her his wife.

His Zeus Instinct will switch from dominating his friendship circle to wanting to become an actual father of a child, and to progressing to the executive suite at work. If the Greek drama of home life sees Hera castrate his authority, then he is a little more dead inside. In kind, Hera must not see her Zeus, taking up with yet another Io, or any of the nymphs known to make her so irate as to cause the earth to tremble.

The man's Hermes Instinct of mysteriously communicating to the single ladies, converts to the Eros Instinct of often remaining silent and invisible to his wife, remaining just as mysterious. If the Psyche of his home life invites all her friends and sisters in to sully his reputation in her eyes, then again, he dies another death. But he must not leave his Psyche to die on the moutaintop, to be wed to Death, himself. He must whisk her away to the beautiful, mysterious home of her dreams, before he has any claim to setting his "rules of marriage" down.

Just as women hold all the power of sexuality, of the when and how, or if it will even occur, then men have all the power of whether a commitment for the long term will occur or not. If the Hera steamrolls the Zeus, the commitment (and marriage) are called off. If the Athena crushes the Ares, the commitment (and marriage) are done with, for him. If the Psyche plunges the dagger into the heart of Eros, without thinking, at the behest of her sisters who think he is a monster, the marriage is over for him, before it even starts, because the presence of his lover, then, means death to him, not life.

And so this last step is where the man does a final assessment of this - whether she will be kind to him or take him for granted, or whether she will be as respectful of him as he is to her. Whether his jointly earned half of the resources will be spent toward his personal life's mission or goals. Does she understand the Ares, the Zeus, the Poseidon, the Apollo and the Eros in him? Or does she turn her back on them, and let them, and therefore, him, slowly die in the marriage? Or does she allow herself to fly away with him to a beautiful island in the sea? Does she literally allow herself to "get carried away?"

He can only be assured of the safety of his identity and its legacy through the final assessment of her character, her virtues versus vices, and her mature understanding of the masculine instincts taught by Aphrodite to Psyche in the myth written so long ago.

It is the only way to retain the sex life, the same passion and vitality about the relationship. He will also test her level of femininity, the likelihood of her continuing to be a good partner, back to him, without interfering with or accidentally sabotaging his goals and dreams.

Such a masculine function can only be accomplished by scanning all the working parts of character maturity in the woman, whether she is good at the four Skills of Partnership - Curiosity, Communication, Compromise and Collaboration - whether she is compatible with him in the four Commonalities of Commitment - Intelligence, Maturity, Shared Beliefs and Shared Goals. Then to see whether her Golden Virtue matches that of his own mother, and whether his Golden Virtue matches that of her own father.

If so, then it only leaves him to test her femininity in terms of the viability of the relationship to him. You may recognize the Eros Instinct to be relevant here, in a marriage. That he must have privacy at least in equal measures with their intimacy. He will also be using the Theseus Instinct - which dictates that the man needs the woman to understand men well enough to be supportive, without interfering with his career or property. Like a climbing team on a dangerous mountain, he needs to know that he knows he "can count on her," even when he is not around (like Eros flying off secretly to help people fall in love, or Theseus, while fighting the Minotaur in the maze of our story.)

You can learn much more about this step in the whole series of deep lessons on it, at the main site articles of "Where We Are Going."

Within this final step, we finally return to the man's selection of the woman as just the right partner for him. He has been tested and placed under the microscope several times to determine whether he had what it takes to qualify for her partnership requirements. Human Courtship needs to be perfectly balanced, equal and harmonious, and so this time - with the stakes high for all his efforts at personal goals equal and in balance with hers - the man must make a final assessment of the woman as a potential lifelong partner.

He feels "in his bones" that his labors need to protect and provide for the offspring, for her if needed, and for himself as a helpmate to her, which in today's terms, translates to his career progress. This is felt in him, even if she happens to be a CEO and he is a janitor. It isn't sociology. It's biology.

The man did not need not "test" the woman's character early in the Sexual Attraction Phase, but he absolutely must do so by the end of the very last phase of courtship, the Intellectual Attraction Phase, and its Step 9. Before the final decision on his part to commit to her for life, he needs to know that he knows, that he knows his legacy to their children and the family line is secure.

Intellectual Attraction is about the woman accomplishing her purpose in life, the man accomplishing his mission in life, and them both as a couple accomplishing their joint relationship goals in life, usually in a way that has synthesized these together through Compromise, and executed them as partners, in Collaboration, both of which we learned about in Step 8.

The highest likelihood at this juncture is that the man's personal mission is lost and forgotten in the marital union, just as the highest likelihood in the Sexual Attraction phase is that the couple have a "fling" that goes no further than passion and desire, which would not benefit the woman's overall welfare. If the man senses the same spirit in this last step, similar to the feeling a woman would have the morning after a "one night stand," then similarly, he will never contact her again. He will not propose, and if already married, he will divorce her.

Women's happiness is in giving birth to children and to new ideas. Women must know that they have chosen the right man to give birth next to.

Men's happiness is not in surviving, but in death, knowing that their efforts mattered, and helped support those they love. And so this final step assures that they have chosen the right woman to die next to.

And so we return to the masculine and feminine instincts of gender as our tests that a man gives to a woman, before he makes the final commitment to her, not just "for life," but, "of his life," its mission and its legacy to their future descendants.

This final cross-checking of the understanding of the instincts is necessary, not because we haven't completed the woman's review of the man, for fitness in commitment, but for the very reason that women feel committed TO by men, for certain reasons that we all know, but what few people spend time thinking about is that men feel committed BACK TO for entirely different reasons that the woman does. It simply has to do with her understanding (or lack of it) in the masculine instincts.

When we have reached the end of this commtted,  or partnered phase,  the Intellectual Attraction Phase of courtship, where education and experience have maximized our mutual success, in parallel with the new emotional and intellectual balance, we must return to a balance of the gender instincts, honor them both, and find that first spark of passion once again. With it, we return over and over to maintenance our romance, hopefully, for life.

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