Etiquette and Leap Year Proposals

Could this “The Gilded Age” proposal have been any more romantic? Etiquipedia thinks not, especially if Peggy Scott had done the proposing! Besides, 1883 was not a Leap Year.
 – “Considered in the abstract we do not see why a woman should not express her natural preferences as freely as a man in regard to the opposite sex. Indeed, she seems to be free to do so in every other respect but that of love and marriage.”

A Leap Year Proposition

As leap year is upon us the momentous question, Shall women propose? confronts us in various newspaper columns, with its usual four yearly regularity. Conservative people will of course pooh-pooh the idea, and the more frivolous laugh at the same. Some of our radical, would-be social innovators will be advocates, and others will fulminate their varied denunciations.

Considered in the abstract we do not see why a woman should not express her natural preferences as freely as a man in regard to the opposite sex. Indeed, she seems to be free to do so in every other respect but that of love and marriage. And yet is not this the most important of all earthly relations to the human race as society is at present organized?

Mere reasoning aside, however, other considerations enter into our estimates of propriety. Here we have sentiment, which so largely makes up the sum of womanly opinions on most subjects outside of bread and breathing.

As the majority of people think now, and as they will probably continue to think for many years to come, there are certain moral and social questions wherein old time precedent will doubtless continue to rule! The realm of courtship and marriage still lies fully within these prescribed limits.

In this affair it has from time immemorial been her inalienable and altogether charming privilege to be the one who should be sought, wooed and won. Whether this be abstractly right or wrong it is so ingrained in the very nature of society at large that the isolated kicks which are here and there made have so far produced little or no effect. Yankee Blade, 1893

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

Gilded Age Leap Year Etiquette

Any lady insulting a gentleman will be put out of the hall at once, and all gentlemen will be protected from rudeness while in the hall regardless, of expense.” – The next opportunity for a Leap Year Party, will be in February of 2028

The Observances of Leap Year Parties

In answer to numerous inquiries as to the rules of etiquette to be observed at Leap Year parties, the unmarried local reporter on the Record-Union, who has been disappointed in love several times and is open to almost any kind of an engagement, suggests the following, which he thinks, if strictly adhered to, will answer all purposes:

• Every lady is expected to act like a perfect gentleman.
• Ladies will take gentlemen to and from the ballroom in carriages.
• No gentleman will dance unless asked by a lady. 
• No gentleman will walk across the floor unless leaning upon the arm of a lady.
• Any lady insulting a gentleman will be put out of the hall at once, and all gentlemen will be protected from rudeness while in the hall regardless, of expense.
• Gentlemen will dance on the right side of ladies, as a matter of course.
• Any ungentlemanly behavior on the part of a lady will he promptly checked by the floor committee, who shall have intimidating powers.
• Any gentleman showing a lady attention will be warned once and put out twice.
• Any gentleman attempting to put on his own overcoat will be shown the error of his ways in a decisive manner, and the overcoat will be given to the Board of County Commissioners,
• The orchestra will be composed exclusively of lady musicians.
• Any gentleman asked by a lady to dance can excuse himself by fibbing about his engagements if he chooses and all will be well.
• If a gentleman is not invited to go to supper by a lady, he is not to eat until a Democrat is elected President of the United States, then he will never eat again. – The Sacramento Daily Union, January, 1884

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