Gilded Age Propriety: Walking Alone

Young girls who were privileged enough to be raised with a governess, had a companion and chaperone all in one, to walk about town if they needed fresh air. — “Parents and guardians have to discriminate between those who can and those who cannot be trusted to take care of themselves.”

 

Under “Odds and Ends of Etiquette”

Young girls of high social position are never seen walking alone in town. Young girls of the higher middle classes have been of late so emancipated (chiefly by the bicycle) that they usually are free to go about alone. 

Of course, very much depends upon the girl herself. Some are as self-possessed at twenty as if they were forty at least, and quite as capable of quietly putting impertinent persons in "their place." 

Other girls retain an expression of childish simplicity, which is not a safeguard against insolence; and again, others are very nervous, and easily frightened. Parents and guardians have to discriminate between those who can and those who cannot be trusted to take care of themselves.— From Eliza Lavin’s, “Etiquette for Every Day,” 1900

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