Debutante Balls

... If you want your children to find suitable mates, you must provide them with a pool of such people from whom to choose. Not only does this allow you to use your own judgment, but it saves face for the children by permitting them to deride your matchmaking instincts instead of having to acknowledge their own.

In our time, the form of the début has become so encumbered with obsolete practices as to have pretty much outlived its usefulness. Débutantes are supposed to be eighteen and innocent, but nobody, especially not Miss Manners, checks them at the door. As the purpose of a début is to present a girl just coming of age to adult society, the event was given by her parents or other close adult relatives. It was generally a tea, or a small home or club dance, in addition to which several families might have combined to give their daughters a ball.

Miss Manners speaks of this in the past tense because today's mass events, run by hired specialists, bear little resemblance to a début. They "present" to strangers a girl who has been running freely since she was twelve. Commercially run balls often require that the young women have one or several "escorts" (thus forcing supposedly innocent young women to dredge up young men for a party whose ostensible purpose is for them to meet young men for the first time), in order to provide extra dancing partners or to populate those sideline groups of young men who drink too much and make unpleasant comments about the débutantes. The enormous expense of all this and its association with limited groups (who even then often have difficulty mastering the traditional social practices) make it unsuitable for most people; the specified age is now wrong, because the eighteen-year-olds do have sufficient social opportunities when they are in school but are not yet ready to marry; and the ludicrous custom of presenting débutantes to people their parents don't even know, sometimes in strange cities, defeats the original purpose.

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In modern times, it has become fashionable for a young woman, upon reaching the age of eighteen, to signify her membership in adult society by announcing that she refuses to make a debut. This innovation has many advantages over the old debutante system, including being a lot cheaper.

The reason for this surprising acceptance on the part of Miss Manners, whose usual custom is to fight fiercely for the preservation of outmoded rituals, is that the surviving debutante tradition often makes a mockery of its original purpose, which was to introduce one's daughter to one's friends. If they happened to have sons with good prospects, so much the better.

In some private dances given by close relatives of debutantes, and in some church or civic groups, where cotillions are organized by members who know one another well, this idea still prevails. Far more often, the cotillion is run by a competitive committee, more or less in business for the purpose, which allows debutantes to bow to an artificial society composed of people their parents don't know and will probably never see again. It is not uncommon to have an ambitious debutante presented to strangers in a strange city by parents who have to add their hotel bill to the already substantial costs.

In such a determinedly organized setting, debutantes are usually required to dredge up two or three "escorts" each. Remember that these are supposed to be innocent young girls making their first appearance in the world among eligible men, and then ask yourself how they are supposed to have acquired several. Standards are necessarily lowered for this dragnet, and the young men begin to understand that they are at a premium. So, for the expense and the trouble of the debut, fond parents are able to attach a permanent date to their daughter's youth, have her scrutinized by strangers, and arrange for her to meet a lot of young men who have come to believe that the world owes them free champagne. That is why Miss Manners will not be offended if you decide to skip this particular tradition.

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[Responsibilities of the young people] include acknowledging all other invitations, flowers, presents; dressing properly (which means for the debutante, a white dress appropriate to the occasion and her age); engaging in as many duty dances as ones for pleasure; being hospitable to all guests, regardless of age; discouraging disruptive behavior in themselves and others; and especially for the debutante, remembering that her tea or small dance is but a party, that her parents are the social heads of the family, and that the occasion marks her assumption of the privileges and responsibilities of adult society. The young lady who can do all that should find adulthood to be child's play.

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