Gilberts: New Year’s Day was important ‘calling day’

Dating, or I should say “courting,” was a much more formal, regimented activity in 1908. There was a series of rituals associated with courting and it was the duty of parents to make sure their children, especially their daughters, followed them.

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On almost every major holiday, it was customary for gentlemen to call on female acquaintances, but no holiday was a bigger “calling day” than New Year’s Day. However, receiving a male caller involved many do’s and don’ts for the young ladies, The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette reveals.

Ladies needed to be dressed early on New Year’s Day and “ready to receive friends.” They also needed to ensure there were “suitable refreshments provided such as fruit, cake.” When the gentleman arrived, the young lady would “shake hands with their guests, which is not inconsistent with true politeness.” These visits “always” were to be short and always were preceded by a calling card. If the lady did not feel like receiving a guest, she should have “the bell answered by a servant.”

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When greeting a visitor, a bow should be made “by a slight bend of the body” at the same time as “you incline your head.” The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette also suggests “a smile should always accompany your bow.”

A gentlemen meeting a lady on the street should always “raise his hat” if the lady bows to the gentleman first as a “token that she permits him to recognize her.” However, when meeting in the street, it is considered “impolite (for the lady) to courtesy in the street, for low courtesies are entirely unfashionable, unless made as a mark of respect to an elderly person.”

When meeting on the street it was acceptable for a gentleman to say, “I am very happy to make your acquaintance.” However, this was not an acceptable way for a lady to address a gentleman. A lady should say instead, “I am happy to see you.”

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Promenading or walking around town was a key part of the complicated courting ritual. The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette felt that, although women in North America are considered to be “the most beautiful in the world, their gait is decidedly worse than that of any other nation.”

In order to correct this fault, it suggested young ladies ask men “keep the step with you, as two persons of dissimilar gaits look particularly awkward.” Gentlemen should be to “keep to the outside of the walk” and although it is permissible for a gentleman to walk between two ladies, it is “more polite” for him to “keep to the outside.”

A young lady out walking should not, if she was unmarried, “take the arm of an unmarried man as this is a token of commitment.” However, a married lady may “take the arm of an intimate friend of the other sex. In addition, it was considered “extremely vulgar for two ladies to walk arm in arm unless one is much older than the other” and no lady should ever “take the arms of two gentlemen.”

These rules of engagement may seem terribly restrictive, silly and unnecessary to the young of today’s world, but there are some aspects of these traditional rules of courting that seem, to me at least, utterly civilized, sublimely courteous and terribly romantic. Would it be so horrible to adopt just a few of these old-fashioned customs in 2025? I think not.

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