The points:

1. Starting on a person-person level, it’s best to know who yer going to marry and, over time, accept the person’s qualities. On this level, a person should be hanging out with another not on the looks or “love on first sight” principle, but something that made our first judgement of them correct.
2. Going further but on an economic-side, it saves you from having early-on massive debts being piled up on both of you. This is especially true when both of you break up and have to split up what both of you possess post-marriage.
3. To play off the first two points, the relationship you possess with the other will heal up faster than a divorce. (Since it wasn’t a divorce with the one you won’t split off from “‘til death doth you apart,” and not a costly break-up at that.)
4. To swing back on social-side, it gives you lovebirds time to know what personalities the other has and see if you can work within that. And if you both can’t gel together, then you both, assuming you both consent, can work to resolve any conflicts in personalities before marriage.
5. Continuing on, if you can’t resolve the conflicts in personalities and know the relationship will hurt BOTH OF YOU, then you both can consent to break-up and stay as friends (best-friends later down the road).
6. Swinging unto a more positive side, this is where you both can cover for each other and feel more whole when around your other. Dates acts as a relaxing medium to develop yourself as you get more connected with the other.
7. Economically speaking yet again, this is where you can treat each other as to secure the economic trust of each other. And at the same time, show how your interdependence will make you better off than worse.
8. Now moving beyond the person-person level to the person-society level, this is where you can experiments with your tastes and see what type of people you want to be with. For if it doesn’t work with the first one, you at least now what to do and what not to do for the next go around.
9. With such development gained, you gain insight of how a community is in general. Which hopefully will make you less of a dick and be a better person around that community.
10. To round it off, let’s touch upon marriages. Albeit I agree with the concept of divorces and think getting a divorce should be easier, it could be drastically reduced if people where to date longer than they usually commit to. (Albeit one should note divorces are also affected by economic health of the couple, unfortunate events and so on and so on. And if we actually care to reduce divorce rates, these ills and the source of such ought to be combatted and reduced as much as humanly possible.)
11. Going back to point two and expand upon it, not only does dating save potentially you lovebirds cash, but also the friends and family of such as well. Even more, it spares you lovebirds and them from ties being cut, socially and economically, on every imaginable level.