Inviting Married People.
A married man should never be invited to an entertainment without his wife, nor a married woman without including her husband also in the invitation. An invitation erring in this particular should be looked upon as an insult, and should never be honored by an acceptance. This category, however, does not include gatherings, such as ladies’ luncheons or gentlemen’s game suppers, that are wholly confined to the members of one sex.
Dinners.
Ladies who give many dinner parties usually keep on hand the engraved invitation cards, with blanks left for the insertion of name and date. The invitation for a dinner party is always sent out in the name of both host and hostess, and the usual form is as follows:
The letters R. S. V. P. are simply the initials of the French words, Repondez s’il vous plait, meaning, “Reply, if you please.”
Some very stylish people now use, in place of these letters, the English phrase: “The favor of answer is requested.”
Written invitations, or those engraved for a single occasion, would read as follows:
R. S. V. P. can be substituted for the last phrase, if desired. If the host be a widower with a young lady daughter, the invitation can be issued in the name of father and daughter, as: “Mr. and Miss Van Vleit, etc.,” or, a lady and her daughter, under similar circumstances, would issue invitations in the name of “Mrs. Holt and Miss Holt.”