One summer evening, recently, the daughter was called up on the 'phone
by one of her girl friends and asked to make one of the party, who were
arranging an impromptu dance at a private house. The girl friend and her
brother would stop for her in their car and bring her home afterwards.
When the invitation was referred to mother, after a moment of hesitation
and worry about the propriety of the proceeding, she gave her consent.
Shortly after, the friend and her brother stopped at the house and took
the daughter with them.
When she got back home, after midnight, she went to her mother's room
and told her, at her bed-side, what had happened.
After they got to the house where the dance was to be and the others had
all gathered there, it was decided for some reason to adjourn to another
house. To get to this other house, the daughter was put into an
automobile with a girl and two young men. She sat in front, beside the
young man who was driving. She knew him only slightly, had danced with
him a few times and thought him rather nice.
On the way, after chatting and joking, this young man stopped the car,
then suddenly kissed her and took her in his arms. She didn't know what
to do. When she looked around, she found that the same thing was going
on in the back seat between the other boy and girl.
The young man beside her wouldn't listen to her objections. They seemed
to take it for granted. If you liked each other, why shouldn't you? He
said he liked her.
The occurrence is fairly typical of up-to-date standards--except in one
particular. Most girls refrain from mentioning it to mother.
Here is another symptom, of slightly different complexion which applies
to married life and suggests the extent to which the new principle is
bearing fruit, in society circles.
It was brought to my notice, last summer, that in one colony on Long
Island where I happened to be, there were fourteen different houses
where the wife had deserted the family and the husband was keeping house
alone with the children. This was among members of the fashionable set.
In each of these cases, of course, the wife had come across some man
who, for the time being at least, appealed to her more than her husband
and a divorce had been obtained in some convenient way, or was in the
process of obtaining.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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