The boyfriend is the word we usually use in our language to designate that individual of the masculine gender who maintains a loving relationship with another person with whom he has marriage plans. It should be noted that the marriage plan is not necessarily a sine quanom condition to be designated as a bridegroom, at present, regardless of whether or not there is an end to the marriage, a groom will be called a who maintains a romantic relationship with anyone.
The relationship between a boyfriend and a girlfriend is popularly known as engagement. It is worth mentioning that courtship is rather a state of our times, before the 20th century there was no intermediate step between singleness and marriage and even more it was used to call a boyfriend who had just married.
Meanwhile, in the first decades of the last century the first expressions of the figure of the groom began to appear, which in these times was especially associated with the commitment of an imminent marriage, that is, a courtship in which not there were short-term wedding plans.
But things would not remain static far from it, since a few decades later, in about 1960 and in the hands of what became known as the sexual revolution, that "marriage" between courtship and marriage began to fade and then, just as Today, a courtship does not necessarily imply that there will be a marriage soon between the couple, but the concept seeks nothing more than to indicate the love relationship between two individuals, who can also have the same sex.
Now, in areas where religion rules, the old customs are still maintained that indicate that the courtship, sooner or later, will end in marriage. On the other hand, in this same context, it is not at all accepted or consensual that the couple live together, as is customary today, and that they have sexual relations before contracting the formal bond.
