Wagers and Etiquette of the Sexes

If you felt that it was wrong for your daughter in college to stake a “batch” of fudge versus a pound of chocolates with her roommate’s brother as to the marks she was to receive at mid- year examinations or even theater tickets over the outcome of a basketball game between the “Freshs and the Sophs,” then the chances are that you would look with disfavor on your son when he staked a goodly share of his next month’s allowance on the next football game.

No Impropriety in Small Wagers

“That makes the good and bad of manners, namely what helps or hinders fellowship.” -Emerson

“Lay no wagers with a gentleman and have no philopenas with them,” cautions a “behavior book,” in wide circulation half a century ago. “In betting with a lady it is customary for a gentleman to pay whether he wins or loses. No delicate and refined female ever bets at all. It always reminds gentlemen of the race course or gambling table.

That many have been very good advice for women fifty years ago, when most women really wanted to be looked upon as “delicate and refined females,” but it would be as absurd for the girl of today to act upon that advice as to wear hoop skirts and to affect a modesty that made it appear indecorous to show more than the toe or at most the instep— beneath those encumbering petticoats.

Sensible and well bred girls of today feel that they have done nothing indescreet in laying small wagers. If they do object to it it is a matter of principle rather than of etiquette. No sane person would consider a girl as ill bred just because she stakes a pound of candy on the outcome of an election or a football game. 

Though the fairness and desirability of equal suffrage is still a moot question among many persons, there are few who lament the fact that the tendency in manners today is toward equality among the sexes. The same characteristic of betting that might make it in bad form for women would also make it in bad form for men. 

If you felt that it was wrong for your daughter in college to stake a “batch” of fudge versus a pound of chocolates with her roommate’s brother as to the marks she was to receive at mid- year examinations or even theater tickets over the outcome of a basketball game between the “Freshs and the Sophs,” then the chances are that you would look with disfavor on your son when he staked a goodly share of his next month’s allowance on the next football game.

The man nowadays who “pays whether he loses or not” is regarded as a poor sport, or at least rather old fashioned. A girl with spirit would never wish to lay a wager with that sort of old school gentleman and she might quite naturally be a little offended if, after he had fairly won a bet, he refused to accept the stake.

Needless to say the girl who bets in season and out and who habitually suggests laying wagers is tire-some and troublesome to her friends. And since, anything that binders the smooth running of friendship is an act of bad manners she is herself ill bred.

For the sake of Mrs. Grundy, may I add that the rule that limits the gifts a young woman may receive from a young man to flowers, books and candy and taboos any article of clothing, ought to be considered in connection with this question of wagers. It is really better— and any sensible girl will agree with me, I am sure —not to suggest such things as hats, silk stockings and gloves or other apparel as the stake for a bet with a man outside of her own family. 

A girl of independent spirit does not like to give any man the satisfaction— if indeed he takes any satisfacton in it— of feeling that he has assisted in the purchase of her wardrobe. That it seems to me is a matter of common sense and not of arbitrary etiquette.— By Mary Marshall Duffee, 1917

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia