Etiquette Throwback: 1922, Etiquette
A look into friendship and dating from Emily Post's 1922 edition of Etiquette
Courtship & Friendship and Group System, From Etiquette, 1st Edition
Emily Post did not ignore courtship or dating in her original 1922 edition of Etiquette. True to her way of working as an author she both acknowledged the conventions of the past and looked at what young people were doing when it came to courtship in 1922. She did not try to outline or define an ideal from the past and use it as a tradition to be upheld. Instead, Emily, quite progressively, warns that there are dangers of being buttoned up the way previous generations were - though she doesn’t spell those dangers out. She gives a lot of credit to the youth of the day for taking care of one another and largely doing the work that previous generations of chaperones and parents did to marry their children off “well”. We see Emily taking a very practical approach as she comes to the conclusion that hanging out in mixed groups helps young people make (at the very least) informed decisions about a potential partner and whether or not they would move on to that big next step: engagement.
*Please note, that grammar and spelling in the following excerpt follow 19th century standards.
Chapter XX
ENGAGEMENTS
Courtship
pg. 299
In nothing does the present time more greatly differ from the close of the last century, than in the unreserved frankness of young women and men towards each other. Those who speak of the domination of sex in this day are either too young to remember, or else have not stopped to consider, that mystery played a far greater and more dangerous rôle when sex, like a woman’s ankle, was carefully hidden from view, and therefore far more alluring than to-day when both are commonplace matters.
In cities twenty-five years ago, a young girl had beaux who came to see her one at a time; they in formal clothes and manners, she in her “company best” to “receive” them, sat stiffly in the “front parlor” and made politely formal conversation. Invariably they addressed each other as Miss Smith and Mr. Jones, and they “talked off the top” with about the same lack of reservation as the ambassador of one country may be supposed to talk to him of another. A young man was said to be “devoted” to this young girl or that, but as a matter of fact each was acting a rôle, he of an admirer and she of a siren, and each was actually an utter stranger to the other.
Emily continues in the next section…
Chapter XX
ENGAGEMENTS
Friendship and Group System
Pgs. 300-301
To-day no trace of stilted artificiality remains. The tête-a-tête of a quarter of a century ago has given place to the continual presence of a group. A flock of young girls and a flock of young men form a little group of their own—everywhere they are together. In the country they visit the same houses or they live in the same neighborhood, they play golf in foursomes, and tennis in mixed doubles. In winter at balls they sit at the same table for supper, they have little dances at their own homes, where scarcely any but themselves are invited; they play bridge, they have tea together, but whatever they do, they stay in the pack. In more than one way this group habit is excellent; young women and men are friends in a degree of natural and entirely platonic intimacy undreamed of in their parents’ youth. Having the habit therefore of knowing her men friends well, a young girl is not going to imagine a stranger, no matter how perfect he may appear to be, anything but an ordinary human man after all. And in finding out his bad points as well as his good, she is aided and abetted, encouraged or held in check, by the members of the group to which she belongs.
Suppose, for instance, that a stranger becomes attentive to Mary; immediately her friends fix their attention upon him, watching him. Twenty-five years ago the young men would have looked upon him with jealousy, and the young women would have sought to annex him. To-day their attitude is: “Is he good enough for Mary?” And, eagle-eyed, protective of Mary, they watch him. If they think he is all right he becomes a member of the group. It may develop that Mary and he care nothing for each other, and he may fall in love with another member, or he may drift out of the group again, or he may stay in it and Mary herself marry out of it. But if he is not liked, her friends will not be bashful about telling Mary exactly what they think, and they will find means usually — unless their prejudice is without foundation— to break up the budding “friendship” far better than any older person could do. If she is really in love with him and determined to marry in spite of their frankly given opinion, she at least makes her decision with her eyes open.
There are also occasions when a young woman is persuaded by her parents into making a “suitable marriage”; there are occasions when a young woman persists in making a marriage in opposition to her parents; but usually a young woman either belongs in or joins her particular circle of intimate friends, and one day, it may be to their own surprize, though seldom to that of their intimates, they find that each is the only one in the world for the other, and they become engaged.
While it can sound a little crass to hear Emily describe the ebb and flow of friendship groups and encourage friends not to be bashful about telling their opinion of a potential suitor, it’s also a fairly accurate description of how we still operate today. Today we encourage a combination of listening to friends and family who love you when it comes to a potential partner and trusting your gut or following your heart and your own experience of the person. Today, we also encourage friends to be thoughtful and considerate in voicing their opinions about a partner — whether these opinions are asked for or offered up freely. Even if there are still shades of the formalized one-on-one introduction that Emily described as “the past” in what we call dates today, they happen within a world of individual choice where the freedom to choose the nature and details of those experiences is in the hands of each individual.
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Lizzie and Dan
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