Ball-planning and etiquette

eldergrantaire

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I'm writing a historical fantasy story set in the early 1900s. The concept is based off the fanfiction trope of the 'soulmate AU'. The very basic rundown of my version is that at some point in their lives, everybody (or almost everybody) gets a band of skin on their wedding-ring finger that means they'll find their soulmate within a year. I'm not really interested in how or why this happens- the point of the story is to explore the ways a patriarchal Edwardian society interprets it. Soulmates recognise each other when they touch skin-to-skin, but it happens only between them- nothing happens that's visible to anyone watching.

Generally speaking, I'm trying to be as historically accurate as possible. Obviously there are some things that are different from real-world-1905, because there's a different set of societal conventions, laws etc. that have been built up around the facts of the universe, but I want those things to feel consistent with the real-world elements.

One of the things that's different is that upper-class girls 'come out' in society basically as soon as possible once their marking appears. My question is, how long would it realistically take to plan a coming-out ball? Would a month be believable?

Another, unrelated question- when an untitled girl is talking to Lady X (widow of a baronet, so it's a courtesy title, if that's relevant), is it rude for her to just answer questions without adding a title or anything? (e.g. 'How old are you?' 'Sixteen'.) Does she have to say 'Sixteen, Lady X' every single time? Does she call her 'madam'? She's not a servant, she's from a well-off family, and 'ma'am' feels too servant-y to me, but I fully accept I may be wrong and that may be correct.
 
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angeliz2k

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elder, welcome!

This sounds interesting. I have a question about the concept of the coming-out party being planned as soon as the marking appears. Who's to say that a person is going to meet their soulmate while they're young? What if it doesn't happen until you're 35? Do you not come out in society until that time? And if so, would it really be a "coming out" party at that point? What about people who are doomed to never meet their soulmate?

Also, I imagine there would be a lot of class issues with this. Young working class ladies might not have a coming out party because they can't afford it. How would that affect them and their chances of meeting this soulmate?

For that matter, are you fated to meet this person no matter what? In which case, does the coming out party matter/make a difference, or would the soulmates have met anyway?

And I'm assuming this is romantic. I mean, you could be a soulmate with a really good friend, but it's not romantic.

The reason I have questions is because this is an interesting premise.

To answer the actual question . . . a party could be got up as quickly as you wanted, depending on how many corners you're willing to cut, how much preparation you've already undertaken in anticipation of the marking's appearance, and how much money you have. I mean, if you have lots of money, you can probably get up a pretty good party in a week or even a few days. You just hire lots of people to make it happen. Rent a space, pay a lot of laborers, buy lots of flowers and cakes and whatever. Of course, getting your guests there on short notice is also an issue.

As for addressing a baronet's wife . . . I'm not as familiar as I could be with that, but I wouldn't think she'd need to say "ma'am" or "Lady X" at the end of *every* sentence. She'd probably throw in a "ma'am" or "Lady X" from time to time, out of politeness. I also think she would try to answer in complete sentences, e.g. "I'm sixteen years old, ma'am," rather than, "Sixteen."
 
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eldergrantaire

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There's nothing to say that people will meet their soulmate while they're young. However, because Patriarchy, there's a strong stigma for women who don't develop their marking while still young. It's possible for a woman who hasn't been marked by the age of 23 to go to a doctor and get them to 'diagnose' her with 'anulo parvulus’ ('stunted ring'- I used an online Latin translator so I hope that's vaguely grammatically plausible), which is a bogus 'condition' where the mark just hasn't manifested properly, but this is seen by a lot of people as fairly audacious, because if God wanted you to be an old maid you have to accept it etc. etc.

I suppose for an older person it wouldn't be a 'coming out' in the same sense- it's basically just kicking off the ritualised soulmate-seeking process. Dancing is different in this universe because it's designed so that every woman and man makes skin-to-skin contact (of the hands, obviously, it's still 1905), as that's the way soulmates recognise each other.

There are people who are doomed not to have a soulmate and never get markings. It's rare and highly stigmatised, particularly (surprise!) for women. There's a lot of moral judgement along the lines of 'what's wrong with you that God doesn't want you to have a soulmate'.

With regard to the class issues: the government holds monthly state-run cotillions for different social tiers. My first POV character is an upper-middle class girl, and she's heard of state cotillions but looks down on them, because they're unfashionable. I'm just going to quote her:

Alice wrinkled her nose at this. She had heard of these cotillions, but nobody she knew had ever been to one. The way her mother talked about them, they were shabby affairs, attended only by those who either could not afford to come out on their own or who lacked the breeding to realise their mistake. Sending a child to a state cotillion was as much a mark of parental insufficiency as dressing them in cast-off clothes.

Among working-class people who can't afford the subscription to state cotillions, working-class teenagers have semi-ritualised hand-touching games that they play in the streets or wherever they can, which operate on a similar principle to the dancing- everyone touches hands with everyone else.

You are fated to meet them no matter what, but people have no way of knowing that. One of the central issues of my story is that there is a big gap between how it actually works and how society thinks it works. What being marked actually means is that you'll meet or identify the person you're meant to be with in some capacity, romantically or not, within a year. It could be a platonic soulmate. However, the way it has been universally interpreted is 'you will meet the person you will marry within the year'.

The only non-romantic soulmate relationships that are thought to exist are those between two women. I'm basing this off the real-world concept of romantic friendships. In my universe these are referred to as 'soul marriages' or (for reasons that are explained in the text) 'honeysuckle marriages', and are generally seen as spiritual bonds of two virtuous women dedicating themselves to each other and God. This in particular is based on a really fascinating bit in a book by Lilian Faderman, 'Surpassing The Love Of Men', which talks about how pre Havelock-Ellis and Freud, since women were assumed to be asexual, two women choosing to live together instead of marrying was seen as virtuous, since forgoing men = forgoing sex. A lot of women who were charitable organisers in the nineteenth century were highly praised for choosing to live with another woman instead of marrying. However, this concept has limitations- both women have to be perceived as virtuous, otherwise nobody is going to believe that they're 'worthy' of being in a soul marriage. It's also very much class-based, since a) a lot of people wouldn't believe women of the 'lower orders' were capable of that level of spirituality, and b) being able to live as two women in a virtuous, spiritual soul marriage generally necessitates having the support of at least one wealthy family.

A major part of my plot is going to involve my upper-middle class girl matching with her best friend, initially thinking of it as a soul marriage, and then freaking out when they starts having pants feelings because it doesn't fit with her concept of soul marriages as this chaste, semi-holy thing and OMG I'm tainting it angst angst. I didn't want to do standard 'oh no I'm a lesbian', so it's more like 'oh no my concept of same-sex love doesn't fit with the reality I'm discovering.'

Thanks, that's helpful. Her marking manifests when she's sixteen, which is on the young side, and her mother makes a big display of 'Oh my goodness, so young, I'm so unprepared, whatever will I do', but she has actually been thinking about it for years already. I'm going to go with a month, it seems fairly safe.
 
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benbenberi

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If it's normal in your story-world for upper-class families to put on a ball a month after their daughter's mark shows up, I imagine there's probably a social understanding that parties like this will normally happen on short notice, and people will set their expectations accordingly. There's probably a party-organizing industry that specializes in helping upper-class families put on these affairs properly despite the short notice, so they'll have everything ready to start rolling whenever a client calls for it.

Interesting world concept, btw. Good story stuff there!
 

eldergrantaire

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Yeah, one of the main differences between how 'coming out' works in this world vs. real-world 1905 is that the concept of 'The Season' necessarily can't exist. Otherwise it'd be a huge disadvantage to people whose marks happened to manifest at the wrong time of year. So it has to be widely socially accepted that coming-out balls can happen at any time of year, with relatively short notice.
 

benbenberi

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In many places in our world "The Season" was a by-product of the socially important families happening to be together in the same place at the same time for some other reason -- depending on the place, the underlying reason might be political assemblies, legal sessions, religious or educational calendars, shipping schedules, etc. There were sometimes secondary "Seasons" in places where people gathered to avoid bad weather or sickness in the main center. These patterns may still exist in your world too, because the underlying reasons for people to all be together in the city at the same time still exist independent of the marriage-mart -- just the linkage between coming-out festivities and other social activities may be different.
 

eldergrantaire

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Huh, I hadn't considered that. I've only got one ball happening in my story so it may not end up being relevant, but I'll think about it nevertheless.
 

AnnieColleen

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A couple of thoughts not necessarily related to your questions:
- I could see precautions being taken against any appearance or claim of ‘improper’ soulmates. So, say, if the young Quality go barehanded at these balls, would the help be gloved for propriety? I could see a complex set of glove conventions depending on station and occasion.

- if nobody but the two soulmates knows when a true connection has happened, you have all kinds of potential for false claims in one direction or the other. Pressure to deny a connection with an undesirable party or claim it with a good match — maybe as deliberate deception, but self-persuasion is also powerful. And all kinds of scope for gossip and wild stories among the younger set about what the connection feels like, how to bring it on or direct it to a particular individual, etc. And, tying back to your question about scheduling balls, I could see the timing or location being pushed to accommodate the availability of a particular candidate — with of course lip service saying they’d never try to influence such matters.
 

eldergrantaire

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- The young Quality do wear gloves at balls to begin with- removal of the gloves is a choreographed part of the dance. They have little loops sewn into the ring finger to allow them to be smoothly whipped off at the right moment. And yes, the help would definitely be gloved.

- Aha! You have in fact stumbled onto the actual plot of my story! Basically what happens is my main character dances with a guy, they touch hands as part of the dance, nothing happens, and then he starts loudly proclaiming that she's his soulmate. She's like 'no you're not wtf' and then basically everyone gaslights the shit out of her and says that she's made a mistake, that she's got an overinflated idea of what the connection feels like from reading too many romantic novels, etc. etc. It becomes apparent over the course of the story that stuff like this happens to women A Lot but the majority don't say anything either because they're like 'well he felt it so it must have happened' or they're just scared of making a scene and accusing a respectable man of lying. Some women are institutionalised for continuing to insist that the man who claims to be their soulmate is lying. If it's not obvious this whole thing is sort of a metaphor for rape culture- men are always believed, women don't speak up when men do this because it's their word against his, etc.
 
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ULTRAGOTHA

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I was going to say basically what benbenberi said. If the convention is to throw a party when the mark appears, then throwing parties quickly would be A Thing in that society.

As to WHAT you need to throw a party, Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy has a section where they put together a party: wine, drinks, food, music, parking for the carriages, police to direct traffic, awnings, carpet, straw on the street, etc. She was writing in the early 20th century about events just post-Waterloo so not all of it would apply to your time period.

One thing I that particularly tickled me was that they would chalk the ball room. They'd hire an artist to do a chalk powder design that they'd then dance across. Ephemeral art and traction! Whether they still chalked floors in the early 20th century, I kinda doubt it.
 

eldergrantaire

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Oh man, that's super interesting! FWIW I have already written the ball scene, and as the planning is done by my POV character's mother, not by her, I didn't need to go into detail about it. The reason I want to know how long it would take is a timeline thing- somebody asks my POV character how much time has passed since her marking appeared, so I need to factor in ball-planning time to that.

Another thing I wasn't sure about, though, is whether her coming-out ball would take place at a venue or at home. She's from a wealthy family (not titled, just rich- her father is a barrister) but they live in London, so I guess it's unlikely that they'd have a ballroom. Would they have it at a hotel or something?
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Another thing I wasn't sure about, though, is whether her coming-out ball would take place at a venue or at home. She's from a wealthy family (not titled, just rich- her father is a barrister) but they live in London, so I guess it's unlikely that they'd have a ballroom. Would they have it at a hotel or something?


The early 20th century is sooo not my time frame.

However, I can say that just before and during the Regency, very rich and/or titled folk were building houses large enough for ballrooms. I do not know about a rich barrister. If he was a rich landowner, I'd say absolutely yes he could have a ballroom of his own. I don't know enough about the class or income of a barrister in the early 20th century to advise.

However, it's your society, not actual history. If you have enough worldbuilding to support it you could go either way.
 

angeliz2k

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You'd have to be pretty wealthy to have a real honest-to-God ballroom. In cases where only an honest-to-God ballroom would do, one would hold their event at a hotel (especially true in London). That'd also solve a lot of the party-planning issues, since the hotel would take care of most that (for a consideration, naturally). Of course, you could have a fine to-do without an honest-to-God ballroom. Often rooms in a house could be opened into one another (two parlors, say, with the doors open between them) for entertaining. Push the furniture aside and you have a decent space for people to dance and mingle.
 

eldergrantaire

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Yeah, I don't think they're quite wealthy enough to have a full ballroom in London. Hotel it is, since her mother is definitely the sort of person who would be like 'BALLROOM OR NOTHING.'
 

CWatts

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Since it's important to have the ball quickly, wouldn't it make sense for the better hotels to have them on a regular schedule? So it's less of a scramble to plan one just for her than to schmooze to get her into the "right one."
 

eldergrantaire

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Thanks, that looks perfect! I have already written the ball scene but I'll try and work in a way for it to be there without it being too name-droppy.
 

Tanydwr

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Re the initial query about addressing nobility, it would usually be a response with Lady X at the end the first, and 'my lady' thereafter. There's a great resource at https://www.chinet.com/~laura/html/titles12.html regarding this.

In Emma, they used the upper rooms of the local inn for a ball - although I suspect there were far more hotels where this was suitable by the 20th century. There might also be local assemblies (such as the Meryton ball near the beginning of Pride and Prejudice), where a greater group of people might mingle and, if not so wealthy, a monthly ball could perhaps serve for any and all girls who received their mark that month - there could be a 'congratulatory announcement' at the start or at supper, with those girls considered the guests of honour, while the wealthy elite and aristocracy would look down on them, although your state-sponsored balls might be your universe's equivalent.

It sounds like a really interesting concept - good luck with your writing!
 

eldergrantaire

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Thanks Tanydwr, that's really helpful!

I think what you suggest about monthly balls definitely might be the case in more rural areas. My story probably won't touch on it, but I'll keep it in mind in case it does.

P.S. your sign-off is mega relatable. I seem to be finding myself on etymonline.com about every fourth word I type.