MEN AND WOMEN
THERE is some difference of opinion as to whether properly a man should
ask permission to call upon a woman or the woman should confer the
favor of her own volition. Sometimes this depends on the age of the
woman under consideration. The invitation to call of a mature woman of
society is the bestowal of a social favor in a sense different from the
same request coming from a young girl. A young girl must be very sure
indeed that a man would feel flattered by her invitation before she
asks him to call. It is usually safe to assume that, if he does wish
the acquaintance to go further than chance meetings, he will find a way
to make it known to her, thus saving her the embarrassment of taking
the initiative.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: THE LENGTH OF A CALL]
The time for making calls upon young women varies in different parts of
the country. In the larger cities of the East the conventional time is
between four and seven o’clock in the afternoon. In smaller towns of
the East and in most southern and western places, evening calls are the
mode. When the acquaintance between the young man and the young woman
in question is slight, a call of half an hour is considered a proper
length. When the acquaintance has mellowed into friendship, the length
of the call is not prescribed. A sense of propriety will suggest to
both when it should come to an end.
If a servant is in waiting when the caller arrives, this domestic
should take care of the young man’s hat, coat and stick, or should
designate where the caller may place these things. If the young woman
herself should chance to open the door, she must designate where he
is “to rest his wraps,” as the negroes say. She must not, on any
account, assist him in ridding himself of these articles, nor, later,
when he leaves, aid him in getting them together. Nice but socially
uninstructed girls lay themselves open to severe criticism through
exactly such mistaken actions.
* * * * *
If the call is a first call, the young man should be presented to the
girl’s mother, and if the girl chooses, to other members of the family.
In succeeding calls, according to conventional usage in America, it
is merely a happen-so whether members of the young woman’s family are
present or not.
One can prescribe no rule as to what young men and young women should
talk about. The subjects they may discuss are as numerous as the sands
of the sea, and depend upon taste, temperament and education.
As to manner, it is well to insist a little, in these days of brusk
camaraderie between the sexes, on the fact that courtesy has many
charming opportunities of exhibition in the conversation between
men and women. There is a kind of deference that, with no lack of
frankness, should be cultivated in the attitude of one sex to the
other, a quality that makes for agreeable friendship to a rare degree.
If one selects this rather than other agreeable qualities of manner as
one to be cultivated in the relation of the sexes, it is because it is
one so often neglected.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: THE USE OF FIRST NAMES]
When a young woman and young man have grown up in the same place and
have known each other from childhood, it is proper for them to call
each other by their first names, but with acquaintances of maturer
years, the occasions for the adoption of this custom should be rare.
Nothing is more vulgar for a young woman than an easy and promiscuous
habit of addressing Tom, Dick and Harry as such.
A girl should not accept an invitation from a young man before he
has called and has been presented to her mother. The invitation once
accepted, there are little courtesies which he may pay to her on the
occasion of the festivity for which he has asked to accompany her.
These courtesies he should not neglect to offer, and she should be
gracious in accepting. He may assist her in putting on her wraps. He
may put on her overshoes if the weather is damp and a maid be lacking
for that purpose. If an extra wrap is demanded he should carry it for
her.
* * * * *
In going up-stairs, the girl precedes the man, but in descending, he
goes first. In the street a man who is punctilious walks on the outside
of the walk, but this rule is less observed than it was formerly. Of
course, a man allows a girl to precede him through any doorway. In
leaving a street-car, however, he gets off first in order that he may
help her alight.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A YOUNG WOMAN’S ESCORT]
It is the duty of a young woman’s escort to be looking after her
pleasure and comfort in various ways. If he takes her to a dance, he
must see, if possible, that her card is filled. If it is not filled, he
should sit out with her the unclaimed dances. Ordinarily, a girl does
not cross a ballroom unless accompanied by her escort or her chaperon.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AT THE THEATER]
If a man takes a girl to the theater he should procure a program
for her and should assist her in the removal of her wraps. Whenever
accidentally or by arrangement, a man accompanies a woman he should
not permit her to carry a package, umbrella or wrap, unless the latter
be a light summer wrap which she may prefer to retain. The various
opportunities offered men for small services, for little gallantries
of conduct, can not be registered in detail. They are too many. It is
sufficient to say that young women should encourage men in such amiable
habits. Favors of the sort indicated are without cost and yet beyond
price. If accepted graciously they react on manners to the advantage of
both sexes. They help to make of society the pleasing spectacle which
we imagine it to be in our dreams.
* * * * *
Young women who are guests at a box party should sit in the front seats
with the men behind them. The writer was witness during the current
year of a small-town box party straggling into a city theater, where
each girl was awkwardly ranged alongside of her escort. The clumsy
unsophisticated air of the party, each Jack beside his Jill, needs no
comment.
* * * * *
A young girl should not grant a request for an interchange of letters
with a young man without consulting her mother. A young woman should
remember in writing to a young man that written words are not like
spoken ones and are far more capable of misinterpretation. Though
prudence is not a generous quality, it is one to be observed in all
letter-writing but that arising out of the most intimate relations.
[Sidenote: THE CLEVER NOTE]
The subject of letter-writing suggests the miniature accomplishment
of note-writing. The art of brief sprightly expression on paper is
one that is worth striving for. It is capable of yielding pleasure in
many of the relations of life, in none more conspicuously than in the
relation between young men and young women. A military man of some
distinction was interviewing the lady principal of a girls’ school with
reference to placing his daughter there. “What would you like to have
her taught?” said the principal. “Some history;” he said meditatively,
“an appreciation of good literature, and the art of writing as
agreeable a note as her mother did before her.”
* * * * *
A young woman should hesitate to isolate herself from general society
by accepting too great an amount of attention from any one man
unless she intends to marry him. As long as she is in doubt on this
head she has, prudery to the contrary, a right to accept the usual
attentions from those men whom she likes. If she is so imprudent as to
shut herself off from general companionship before she has reached a
decision as to marriage and then decide in the negative, she is likely
to suffer for her imprudence. By a ludicrous chance dependent upon the
relation of the sexes, the man in the case, if he cares to reenter
society, regains it much more easily than she. He can go about and take
up dropped threads while she is waiting at home for callers who do not
arrive. He is welcomed back with enthusiasm by the girls who thought
him lost forever, while her recent avoidance of general society is
counted against her.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: BECOMING ENGAGED]
When a young man finds his affections engaged he should formally
ask the girl’s father for her hand and should state his financial
condition. This rule of an older civilization than ours is much
ridiculed in many sections of our country; and it is true that there
are instances where it would not apply, where, for reasons, the young
man should make his initial plea to the girl herself. But, generally
speaking, the custom is to be commended. A young man may well suppose
that a girl’s father will have her best interests at heart. If the
young man is serious in his desire for her happiness he will have the
courage to ask her of one of the two persons to whom she is dearest.
[Sidenote: THE IMPORTANCE OF CHAPERONS]
The whole matter of acquaintance between young men and young women is
one of supreme importance in that it may lead to results of supreme
importance. In view of this fact it is amazing that parents and
guardians so often leave this matter to the action of chance, that they
do not feel the wisdom of exercising a guiding hand in the choice of
associates for the young people under their care. We have a prejudice
against the European custom of social espionage over the young. But it
is safe to assume that if we had more of such espionage sentimental
disasters would not be so frequent as they now are, and more true and
lasting friendships between young men and young women would be formed.
The older members of the household should take a part in creating the
social atmosphere in which their children move. They should cultivate
the friendship and acquaintance of young people so that they may be
able the more easily and wisely to exert an influence in the right
direction. Only the opinion and taste of the person most concerned
should be final and decisive in the matter of personal relations, but
persuasion and direction are mighty forces to be employed. Especially
should parents of attractive young women make it their business
to know something about the young men who frequent the house. Said
a father of five well-married young women: “I made it a rule in my
daughters’ girlhood to allow no young man the entrée to my house who
was not eligible in the sense of character and breeding.” It is true
that youth and age will not always agree on the qualities of desirable
companionship, and it is also true that in these disagreements age
is sometimes wrong and youth is right; but this does not interfere
with the truth of the statement that maturity should give to youth
all the help possible in the frequently momentous choice of friends,
particularly of those belonging to the opposite sex.
It is customary, shortly before a wedding, for a girl to give a
farewell luncheon to her intimate girl friends, including her
bridesmaids, and for a man to entertain his ushers at a dinner or
supper party.
* * * * *
It is expected at parties that the gentlemen present will attend on
the ladies, in the old-fashioned word “wait” on them. Yet at many such
affairs one sees the men congregated in the hall, eating their salads
and ices, while the women are ungallantly left to themselves. Servants
may supply them with refreshments if the hostess has so planned, but
the attendance is required just the same.
[Sidenote: THE WELL-BRED MAN]
A well-bred man will not in general society make a marked distinction
in the courtesy he shows to a woman who is unusually attractive and
her companion who is less fortunate. He will ask the plainer woman to
dance and will see that she has ices, and he may find, after all, some
unexpected reward in a quality of hidden charm beneath the unpromising
exterior. Generosity in social situations is a severe test of character
and for that reason it is seen less often than one would wish. The man
who joins a woman sitting conspicuously alone and devotes himself to
her entertainment if for only a quarter of an hour deserves all the
warm unspoken gratitude that is sure to be felt by the woman.
* * * * *
A girl should be careful not to mistake the merely polite attentions
of a man for the advances of a lover. Men are afraid of such a girl
because of the embarrassments that ensue, while they feel “safe” with a
sensible one who can be friendly without becoming sentimental and who
does not view every man she dances with as a possible husband.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: LUNCHING AT A CLUB]
A woman who is invited by a man to take luncheon with him at his club
will find a side entrance reserved for the use of ladies, and a parlor
where she may be joined by her escort.
[Sidenote: A MAN’S LEAVE-TAKING]
When a man is saying good-by to a group of ladies, he should, on
leaving the room, turn his back as little as possible.