In honor of Mother's Day in the USA, another specialized (and much smaller) dance event from the pages of the October, 1891, issue of Demorest's Family Magazine:
A young mothers' reception, with dancing, is the unique entertainment to which only young married couples are invited. Round dances are tabooed, and what time can be spared from the discussion of the charms and precocious sayings and doings of their little ones is devoted to sedate square dances. To give a little touch of piquancy to the affair, partners are selected by favors, children's toys being used for the purpose. The following day the guests call on the hostess, with their children.
-- Demorest's Family Magazine, Volume XXVII, No. 12, October, 1891, p. 756
This brief description appeared in a "Chat" column which primarily covered the decor of several autumn-themed events (the "Dahlia Tennis Court" was my favorite).
Being neither young nor a mother and having no interest in sitting around discussing other people's adorable young children, this is not the sort of social event I'd be interested in attending. But corralling all the young parents who can talk about nothing but their offspring in one place seems like a good idea to me, and certain aspects of the event are worth noting:
- Limiting the attendance to young married couples completely removes the potential courtship element typical of so much social dancing and refutes the idea that people stopped dancing after marriage.
- More interesting is the restriction of the dancing to quadrilles (squares) only, with no couple (round) dances. I'm not sure what the logic of that was; perhaps they were considered a little too romantic or intimate to do with other peoples' spouses?
- Finally, while it's not stated outright, this event would be in the form of a favor-German, or cotillion evening, with a variety of games of the sort I have described a number of times previously used to select partners and the participants practicing "favoring", in which one bestowed small gifts (provided by the hostess) on partners as part of the selection process. The dancers, in effect, slowly assembled the equivalent of modern swag bags as the event wore on. I'm not sure whether the favors here were literal children's toys, of a size suitable for playing with, but if so, the event would resemble a collective baby shower. All the guests would go home with a pile of toys for their children. It's possible that the favors were more symbolic, just tiny decorative models of toys, but I think the first idea is much more clever. It could be practical in a modern setting if a group of parents joined forces to each provide some of the favors, making it into an elaborate gift exchange less burdensome for the hosts.
I'm also charmed at the idea that after spending an evening talking about their children the guests actually bring them along the next day for a social call.
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