The question of the chaperone in America is peculiarly perplexing. The
consternation of the hen whose brood of ducklings took to the water is
a fit symbol of the horrified amazement with which an old-world
"duenna" would be filled if she attempted to "look after" a bevy of
typical American girls, with their independent--yet confused--ideas of
social requirements in the matter of chaperonage.
In Europe, where social lines are distinctly drawn, a young woman
either belongs "in society" or else she does not. In the former case
she is constantly attended by a chaperone. In the latter case she is
merely a young person, a working girl, for whom "society" makes no
laws. In our country there is a leisure class of "society women," so
recognized. If these alone constituted good society in America, we
might simply adopt the European distinctions, and settle the chaperone
question by a particular affirmative referring to these alone. But we
reflect that our thoughts throughout this little volume are mainly for
those who dwell within the broad zone of the average heretofore
referred to. In this republican land no one can say that the bounds of
good society lie arbitrarily here and there; certainly they are not
marked by a line drawn between occupation and leisure. The same young
girl--after leaving school, at the period when society life begins--may
be "in society" during leisure hours and in business during working
hours. It is accounted perfectly lady-like and praiseworthy for a
young woman, well born and bred, to support herself by some
remunerative employment that holds her to "business hours." She may be
a teacher, an artist, a scribe, an editor, a stenographer, a
book-keeper--what may she _not_ do, with talent, training, and good
sense? And she may do this without being one iota less a lady--_if she
is one to begin with_.
Now appears the complication. As a business woman, the self-reliant
young girl does not need a chaperone. As a society woman, this
inexperienced, sensitive, human-nature-trusting child _does_ need a
chaperone. She is, therefore, subject to what we may call intermittent
chaperonage. Business, definite, serious occupation of any kind, is a
coat of mail. The woman or girl who is plainly absorbed in some
earnest and dignified _work_ is shielded from misinterpretation or
impertinent intrusion while engaged in that work. She may go
unattended to and from her place of business, for her destination is
understood, and her purpose legitimate. She needs no guardian, for her
capacity to take care of herself _under these conditions_, is
demonstrated to a respectful public. The spectacle of a stately
middle-aged woman accompanying each girl book-keeper to her desk every
morning would be burlesque in the extreme. The girl who is thus
allowed to go alone to an office in business hours, sometimes thinks it
absurd for any one to say that she must not go alone to a drawing-room,
and she _does_ go alone. Right here this independent girl makes a
mistake. It is granted that the girl with brains and principle to bear
herself discreetly during office hours is probably able--in the
abstract--to exercise the same good sense at a party.
But _the conditions are changed_ to the eye of the onlooker. The girl
who went to the office wearing the shield and armor of her work, now
appears in society _without that shield_. To the observer she differs
in no wise from the banker's daughter, who "toils not." Like the
latter, she needs on social occasions the watchful chaperonage that
should be given to all young girls in these conditions. The woman who
is in society at all must conform to its conventional laws, or lose
caste in proportion to her defiance of these laws. She cannot defy
them without losing the dignity and exclusiveness that characterize a
well-bred woman, and without seeming to drift into the careless and
doubtful manners of "Bohemia." The fairy-story suggests the principle;
Cinderella could work alone in the dust and ashes undisturbed; but the
fairy-god-mother must needs accompany her when she went to the ball.
In the best circles everywhere, at home and abroad, every young girl
during her first years in society is "chaperoned." That is to say, on
all formal social occasions she appears under the watch and ward of an
older woman of character and standing--her mother, or the mother's
representative. The young woman's calls are made, and her visits
received, in the company of this guardian of the proprieties; and she
attends the theatre or other places of amusement, only under the same
safe conduct.
Society to the young girl is May-fair. With the happy future veiled
just beyond, she goes to meet a possible romance, and to traverse a
circle of events that may haply round up in a wedding-ring. It is of
the utmost importance that she shall not be left at the mercy of
accidental meetings, indiscreet judgments, and the heedless impulses of
inexperienced youth, which may effectually blight her future in its
bud. A parent or guardian does a girl incalculable injury in allowing
her to enter upon society life without chaperonage, and the unremitting
watch-care and control which only a discreet, motherly woman can give
to girlhood. Men respect the chaperoned girl. Honorable men respect
her as something that is worth taking care of; men who are not
honorable respect her as something with which they dare not be unduly
familiar--though they account it "smart" to be "hail fellow well met"
with the girl who ignorantly goes about unattended, or with other
unchaperoned girls, on social occasions. A girl must have an unusual
measure of native dignity, as well as native innocence, always to
escape the disagreeable infliction of either "fresh" or _blase_
impertinence, if she has no mother's wing to flutter under.
This absolute condition of chaperonage exists during the novitiate of
the young society woman. The requirement grows less and less rigid as
the young woman grows more and more experienced, and learns to meet
social emergencies for herself. That delicate ignoring of a woman's
age which is shown in calling her a "girl" until she is married also
permits her to be a chaperoned member of society until that event. But
when obviously past her youth, it is no longer required that she shall
wear the demeanor of a _debutante_. Nor does propriety demand her
mother's constant presence, when years of training have taught the
daughter her mother's discretion, and when the mother's own serene
dignity looks out of the daughter's eyes.
We are proud of the ideal American girl. I mean the one _who is
essentially a lady_, whether rich or poor, the one whose sterling good
sense is equal to her emergencies; the one who is self-reliant without
being bold, firm without being overbearing, brainy without being
masculine, strong of nerve--"but yet a woman." Let her be equipped for
the battle of life, which in our state of society so many girls are
fighting single-handed. Instruct her in business principles; teach her
to use the discretion needed to move safely along the crowded
thoroughfare and to follow the routine of the office or the studio,
trusting that with busy head and busy hands she may be safe wherever
duty leads her tireless feet. But in her hours of social recreation,
when she will meet and solve the vital problems of her own personal
life, she needs a subtle _something more_; the mother's wisdom to
supply the deficiencies of her inexperience, the mother's love to
enfold her in unspoken sympathy, the mother's approbation to rest upon
her dutiful conduct like a benediction.
Let no young girl regard this watch-care as a trammel placed on her
coveted liberty. On the contrary, she will find that she has far more
social freedom with the countenance of her mother's presence than she
could have without it. And in after years, when her life has developed
safely and happily under this discreet leadership, she will look back
to her _debut_, and her first seasons in society, with profound
gladness that--thanks to somebody wiser than herself--she has escaped
the follies that have in more or less measure injured the prospects of
her young friends who were too "independent" to submit to the
restraints of chaperonage, and who, for lack of it, to-day find
themselves to a relative extent depreciated in social estimation.