Eccentric etiquette among the elite

SALISBURY — Cultural historian and food writer Francine Segan has done specials for the Discovery Channel and the Food Network, but on Saturday, Feb. 23, she was at the Scoville Memorial Library as part of the Era of Elegance series, discussing the pomp and peculiarity of being a Gilded Age host or hostess.

Filled with the repressed conflict of wanting to both bring young couples together and conceal the true intimacy of marriage, Gilded Age balls and dinner parties were laden with ritual and social code. 

With delicate sensibilities supposedly bred into the upper class, even the hint of an awkward conversation was too much to bear for young single women. Fortunately, they were spared from ever having to turn down an over-eager flirt. A man who wanted to ask an unfamiliar woman to dance at a party had to first request that the host introduce the two — and even then, if it went poorly, the woman had an easy way out. In the Gilded Age, just because a man and woman had been introduced at one party it did not mean he was free to speak to her at any future occasion. If the man later tipped his hat to her while at a public event, and she did not return the gesture with a smile or hint of recognition, the rules of etiquette stated it should be as if they had never met before. 

The idea of course, was to prevent bad matches and facilitate a clear path toward good ones. 

Themed parties and parlor games, including musical chairs, were designed to get young men and women interacting, no matter how ridiculous they might have looked in the process. 

Imagine for instance, a balloon party, in which the ladies danced with a balloon while men with needles attempted to pop them.

But once the couples were successfully matched, the reality of married life was too titillating and scandalous for guests to look upon. So when married men arrived at a dinner party they were assigned another woman to escort to the table and sit with, keeping wedded couples far apart and any hint of consummated romance out of reach. 

Similarly, when houseguests stayed over, unmarried women were expected to come down for breakfast in the morning, but married women, presumably having enjoyed sharing a bed with their husband, were not to be seen. The flush of the aftermath would be too easily spotted and shocking. 

Instead, wedded women were served breakfast in bed, by modern standards a good incentive to get married and stay often as a houseguest. And so, puritanical reasoning in the Gilded Age gave way to popularizing one of the greatest inventions of Western comfort: the breakfast tray.