A Concession in Card Leaving.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue I, 5 July 1902, Page 60

A Concession in Card Leaving.

There appears to be a growing desire on the part of girls to dispense with the received custom of having their names printed upon their mothers' cards, in favour of cards of their owp—that is, of having visiting cards independent of mothers or sisters, and bearing only their individual names and addresses.

Until within the last few years daughters were well on in life—they were women rather than girls—before they aspired to this freedom of action, and even then they were rather loth than not to relinquish th , social support given by their mothers' names in conjunction with theirs on visiting cards; indeed, it would have occasioned much surprise, if daughters, however long they had been “out,” had ventured to leave cards as distinct from those of their mothers upon either married ladies or girls of their own ages. It was taken for granted that the names of mothers and daughters would remain on the visiting cards until one of three things occurred —marriage (writes the “Queen”) on the part of the daughters, or confirmed illness or death on the part of the mothers. "There are still some few remaining to remind us of the. past,” and there are still .very many mothers and daughters who have no wish or desire to break this time-honoured link, even when the latter are well into their twenties; while in the case of young girls just out there is no question of emancipation in this direction; their names are printed on their mothers’ cards as a matter of course, and there is no idea of it being otherwise, at least, for the present.

The condition of social life at the present day accounts for and justi-

ties this advancing change in the matter of visiting cards as far as many daughters are concerned, and their claim to this privilege is well founded when they are of a reasonable and responsible age, and able rightly to make use of this social concession. The great difficulty, however, lies in accurately defining when thia reasonable and responsible age is arrived at, as it is reached at a much earlier period in the lives of some girls than in others. For instance, some girls are very grown up, staid, and self-reliant before they have reached 20, while others are unconventional and even daring in ideas at the same age.

As a matter of fact, most girls in these days number a great many people amongst their acquaintances who are quite unknown to their mothers. Some girls move in sets in which their mothers take no interest; consequently their .mothers’ (Cards could not be left by the daughters when calling on these separate acquaintances, or on young married ladies who have been girls contemporary with them. To pencil through the names of their mothers on every such occasion is, they think, not quite an up-to-date proceeding—it is a continual reminder that their mo-

there are unacquainted with these friends of theirs, which is not complimentary to those called upon, while not to pencil through the mothers’ names would be taking an unfair advantage of them, inferring they have done that which they had not intended doing—viz., calling upon the mothers of their daughters’ friends.

Another side of the subject is that not infrequently young married ladies are well inclined to invite girls to their houses whose mothers they do not care to number amongst their calling acquaintances. The girls are pretty and well dressed, and able to take part in all that is going on, and their mothers are perhaps the reverse of all this, not up-to-date, decidedly old-fashioned, if not commonplace; therefore, it is considered a waste of time to know them, and whether cards are left after a danee, or whether they are. left when calling in the ordinary way, the names of the mothers would convey no meaning to those upon whom they were left; but it should be well understood that girls under five-and-twenty would be ill-advised to take up the line of independence evinced by having separate cards of their own.