HAT CHANGE WITH LOCALITY=

In New York, for instance, no young girl of social standing may, without
being criticized, go alone with a man to the theater. Absolutely no lady
(unless middle-aged-and even then she would be defying convention) can go
to dinner or supper in a restaurant alone with a gentleman. A lady, not
young, who is staying in a very dignified hotel, can have a gentleman dine
with her. But any married woman, if her husband does not object, may dine
alone in her own home with any man she pleases or have a different one
come in to tea every day in the week without being criticized.

A very young girl may motor around the country alone with a man, with her
father's consent, or sit with him on the rocks by the sea or on a log in
the woods; but she must not sit with him in a restaurant. All of which is
about as upside down as it can very well be. In a restaurant they are not
only under the surveillance of many eyes, but they can scarcely speak
without being overheard, whereas short-distance motoring, driving, riding,
walking or sitting on the seashore has no element of protection certainly.
Again, though she may not lunch with him in a restaurant, she is sometimes
(not always) allowed to go to a moving picture matinee with him! Why
sitting in the dark in a moving picture theater is allowed, and the
restaurant is tabu is very mysterious.

Older girls and young married women are beginning to lunch with men they
know well in some of the New York restaurants, but not in others. In many
cities it would be scandalous for a young married woman to lunch with a
man not her husband, but quite all right for a young girl and man to lunch
at a country club. This last is reasonable because the room is undoubtedly
filled with people they know--who act as potential chaperons. Nearly
everywhere it is thought proper for them to go to a dancing club for tea,
if the "club" is managed by a chaperon.

As said above, interpretation of what is proper shifts according to
locality. Even in Victorian days it was proper in Baltimore for a young
girl to go to the theater alone with a man, and to have him see her home
from a ball was not only permitted but absolutely correct.

="MRS. GRUNDY"=

Of course every one has his own portrait of Mrs. Grundy, and some idea of
the personality she shows to him; but has any one ever tried to ferret out
that disagreeable old woman's own position; to find out where she lives
and why she has nothin