Rush of Debutantes

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 149, 25 June 1937, Page 14

Rush of Debutantes

One of our society chroniclers has an- ’ nounced the dreadful news that “hundreds of girls” will not bo able to ■‘come out” this year, states tho Manchester Guardian. Apparently there is no number of “Courts” which could be fitted in with the engagements of the king and Queen that would be proportionate to the number of young women who are possible applicants for “presentation” to their Sovereign. The fortunate few will emerge into the state of being “out” this summer; the unfortunate (though not necessarily foolish) virgins must remain “in.” Happily this is not quite so serious an affair as it was in more austere days. It is true that it has always been possible for the vast majority of the young women of this country to emerge from “in” to “out” without ever having been presented to their Sovereign, but for “society” of the past three was a great distinction between the two states. A girl who was not yet “out” was more or less in purdah. The most she was allowed in the way of balls was the small and early or Cinderella form. She was still considered a schoolgirl, and the period of her emergence was not necessarily fixed by age, but more often by the state of the marriage market. If she bad sisters who were already “out,” and had not been “got off” the chances were that she would remain in the schoolroom” a long time, wearing still the dresses of the mid-teens and being alluded to as “our little girl.” On the other hand, if there was whac was called “an eligible parti” in prospect, she might be brought out as early as possible. In those days, the numbers of the "presentable” were much smaller than now, and although according to an American writer there were complications sometimes owing to the inability of the American Minister to satisfy demands from the United States there can never have been “hundreds of girls” left outside the gate.