In large cities where it is impossible to know everyone this rule is practically disregarded, and business men invite one another and ask their wives to do the same according to the way convenience and chance make most natural. Women whose husbands are longest in the employ of a firm, or whose husbands hold high positions, as a rule call first on the wives of newcomers or subordinates.
It all comes to the same thing whether it is in a city or a small town or the country. Those who are already established in the neighborhood or the business extend the right hand of welcome and good fellowship to those who are not.
In order to bring their employees together socially most big houses now give various entertainments such as picnics, parties, dances, and banquets. They are in no way different from other entertainments of the same kind so far as the etiquette of behavior is concerned. Formal dances and banquets in the evening require evening dress just the same, except with that very enormous group (to which most of us belong) who do not own evening dress. This does not mean that evening parties must be foregone by this group or that they should hire gala attire for the occasion, but simply that the men wear their business suits and the girls their “Sunday” dresses. It is just as correct, it is just as much fun, and it is infinitely wiser than giving a dollar down and a dollar a week for a décolleté gown or a swallow-tail outfit.
XIV
LADIES FIRST?
Most girls who are in business are there to earn a living.
It is true that an increasing number of wealthy girls who are under no necessity to work but who want a definite place in the economic life of the world are entering business every year, but the great army of workers is made up of those who enter business because they are driven into it (driven, many of them, while they are yet very young), because it is the only way in which they can have their own money, or because it is the only way in which they can raise their standard of living.
The majority of business girls come from the homes of parents in moderate circumstances. They have had advantages—a high-school or a college diploma, a certificate from a business school, travel, specialized training—and all these they have added to their business capital. In many instances the opportunities they have had have not been brilliant, but every opportunity, however small, carries with it the responsibility to make the best of it. Upon these girls, since they outnumber the others and because they have had advantages (a high-school education is an enormous advantage if you are looking at it from the point of view of a person who wanted one but was not able to get it), rests the responsibility of setting the pace for others. And the standard of behavior for the business girl, whether she be rich or poor or in between, is the same.