Etiquette Made Easy

by Edward Summers Squier

A similar formal call should be paid to the hostess by each guest at a dinner, or breakfast, or other special entertainment. Such a call must be made within two weeks. The obligation is the same even in cases where the invitation has been declined.

As to the returning of calls, such visits should be made on the day at home if there is one, and otherwise at a suitable time according to the social usage of the neighborhood within a fortnight. But this ruling applies properly only to the return for a first call. Afterward, a longer or shorter interval may elapse between visits according to the desire of the parties concerned. A former acquaintance may be maintained merely by an annual exchange of calls. It must be noted, however, that a call in person demands a personal visit in return. The formal leaving of a card at the door does not suffice.

Persons giving up their residence in a community or going on a long journey should send their cards to their full visiting-list with the initials P.p.c. (Pour prendre congé, for leave-taking).

It occurs often that a person wishes to call on a friend in the home of a stranger. Such a call is permissible, but the visitor should ask for the hostess as well as the friend, and leave a card for her.

In the matter of initiative, it is fitting that an elder woman should invite a younger to the exchange of cards and calls, and that the matron should thus invite the maiden. Where there is equality of years or station, the first advance must depend on the personal inclinations of the parties.

The proprieties in reference to calls between women are thus seen to be simple enough. There is more complexity in the procedure when it has to do with the calling of men on women. It is not deemed proper for a young unmarried woman to invite calls from men. Such visits on their part are left to the discretion of the mother or chaperon. But, undoubtedly, the débutante will see to it that mother or chaperon does not fail in her functions. As to the older women, and those married, there is some variation locally in the polite usage. Sometimes the woman feels it her privilege to invite the man to call without awaiting solicitation on his part; sometimes she requires that the advance should be on the part of the man in the form of a request for permission to visit her.

If any person requires that a definite time should be given for the emancipation of a girl from the social dominance of her mother or chaperon, it may be set at about the twenty-fifth year, after which time a young woman is theoretically fitted to decide for herself as to who her visitors shall be.

A young woman of sensibility will be extremely chary of her invitations to men, and very sure before extending them that they are really desired. If at any time a man fails to avail himself of such an invitation, her self-respect will not permit her to repeat it.

The strictness of the above rules of conduct has been greatly relaxed in the case of the average American girl, who democratically insists from the outset of her social career on her own choice in the matter of acquaintances and friends. But even this laxity does not permit an invitation to a man on the first meeting. Such haste is neither good form nor ordinary prudence.

In a consideration of formal calls, it should be noted that in practise the offices of the wife are commonly accepted in her husband’s behalf by her leaving his card when she pays her dinner-call, or the like. The exigencies of business are supposed to justify this vicarious method.