I once wrote a scene in which my cowboy
hero was forced to sit in a formal parlor.
It was during the age of clutter which meant the front room was filled
to capacity with ornate furniture, needlepoint cushions, framed photographs,
musical instruments, and enough doo-dads to create a dusting nightmare. The
poor man in my story couldn't move without knocking over a beaded fringed lamp
or a delicate music box. Worse, he had to trust his six foot two bulk to a
spindly chair since no "sincere" furniture existed.
Of course parlors were never designed
for comfort. Instead a proper parlor had
one purpose and one purpose alone; to showcase a woman's gentility to all who
entered.
In his book Domesticated Americans, Russell Lynes describes the parlor as a chamber
of horrors for children. "It (the parlor) set husband against wife,
daughter against father and swain against maiden." It also took a lump out of the family budget.
No one really knew how to act in a
parlor and this unleashed a steady stream of articles and books on the
subject. Not only were people counseled
on how to enter a parlor without "Jiggling their bodies" but how to
leave it.
The
Ladies Indispensable Assistant
explained the rules of exiting in great detail. "Don't stand hammering and
fumbling, and saying 'Well I guess I must be going.' When you are ready go at once."
Parlor rules existed for every possible
situation, even courting. Never was a
man to sit with his "arms akimbo" or strike an awkward pose. Nor was he to enter a parlor without the
lady's invitation.
Visitors were cautioned against
talking about religion, politics, disease, dress or, heaven forbid, one's self. Cookbook and etiquette writer Miss Leslie
wrote that inquiring about a hostess's children was to be done "with
discretion." Saying that a son
"was the very image of his father," could be offensive if the father
was not a handsome man. Even then the
visitor could be treading on ice if "the mother was vain and wished the
children to look like her."
Several things happened to make the
parlor with its endless rules fall out of favor. Women were admitted to college and some had
entered the work force. No longer was a
woman judged by her parlor but rather by her contributions to society.
The westward movement should also
receive credit for putting sanity into the home. Though some pioneer women tried to carry the
tradition westward, they soon learned the folly of their ways—much to their
husbands' gratitude.
Not
all parlors died a quiet death. Some
lingered into the twentieth century. As
a child, I remember our next door neighbor's parlor—and yes, that's what she
called it. Everything in it including
the lampshades were covered in plastic.
Did any of you spend time in such a room?
There's a new sheriff in town and she almost always gets her man!
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