Bachelors and Etiquette

Except in a fashionable society, the bachelor who leaves cards of courtesy on all the friends of his social circle once a year is rare. Women are much more thoughtful about sending notes of condolence and congratulation than men. In fact, bachelors as a class bother their heads very little about the nice points of etiquette unless they find themselves in a position where it will be clearly to their advantage to do so. 

Certain Universal Rules

“Bachelors have a right to be fussy, especially old bachelors.”— Fanny Fern

In the minds of some persons bachelors are more or less beyond the pale of conventional etiquette. This is especially true of the American point of view, for here social matters are left much more largely to women. Women are supposed to conform to the laws of etiquette, but bachelors —when they are not in the society of women of their own families —may supposedly give conventional etiquette very little thought. 

No one expects a bachelor to pay party calls. Men never do, anyway, unless their wives or sisters or mothers lead them to it. Except in a fashionable society, the bachelor who leaves cards of courtesy on all the friends of his social circle once a year is rare. Women are much more thoughtful about sending notes of condolence and congratulation than men. In fact, bachelors as a class bother their heads very little about the nice points of etiquette unless they find themselves in a position where it will be clearly to their advantage to do so. 

Some of us seem to agree with Franklin that “bachelors are a nondescript in human society, like the odd half of a pair of shears of little use until joined to its mate.” It will be recalled that in Colonial New England bachelors were especially taxed, and that the puritanical legislators stipulated that every bachelor should either live with some family whose duty it should be to see that be attended meeting on Sunday with certain regularity and otherwise to watch over his behavior. Apparently, then as now, bachelors were supposed to be the class of persons most indifferent to social regulations and social requirements. 

At the present time, however, especially in large cities the man who is not married is coming to be regarded as a more responsible sort of person. He can no longer excuse himself on the ground that rules of etiquette were not made for him. In fact, there is a social code of etiquette especially devised and applicable for the unmarried man who is no longer a youth. If he wishes to have the comforts of his own home, he may keep house and he may entertain his friends in his home—but all this has to be done with a certain conformity to convention or he is just as much, criticized as is the woman who defies convention.— By Mary Marshall Duffee, Morning Union, 1918

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