I imagine back then, the women socialized with each other while the maids did the dishes.
IME on three different continents, most social gathering, unless very close family and friend tend to segregate into a male and female section.
Also a vote here for specific social class. You need a fairly large house to have both a formal dining table for more than say, 8 dinner guests - then a separate comfortable room for both groups afterwards. In a common suburban home, it’s more likely to be barbeque on the patio then the inside and outside groups. I don’t know about you, but my not small living room is only set up for about 6 or 7 people crowded onto the sofas. The rec room - out of the way - less.
OTOH, a fellow I knew who worked in Saudi Arabia described a set of folding doors across the living room to hide the dining room. He could hear shuffling, then a little bell rang, and the men folded back the doors to reveal a fully set table. When they were done, they left and closed the doors and he could hear the table being cleared. he never saw his host’s family women. But then, being Saudi Arabia, no port or brandy was served.
I guess it depends on who you hang out with. I’ve seen this, but only rarely. (And “while the girls do the dishes”? Are they all in their teens or younger?)
When my parents gave parties, clear back into the 1950’s, my mother and I and/or my sisters might well be the ones doing the cleaning up; but female guests, like the male ones, stayed in the living room, though they were more likely to offer to help. By the time it was my generation giving the parties, the men helped with the cleanup.
The other purpose was that the ladies didnt smoke and gentlemen didnt smoke around ladies.
This also prevented the ladies expensive dresses from getting smelly.
Smoking in gathering is one thing that has really become unacceptable. Even in the 1990’s, my parents used to have ashtrays (neither smoked, at least not in front of us) in our living rooms…they pretty much disappeared by the 2000’s.
Which more or less correlates with gatherings I saw, with the exception I was alwasy expected to help clean up, despite being male.
I am guessing maybe “segregated” is too strong a worth, lets say clusters would form in the party, typically predominantly of one gender, although mixing was pretty common.
My father was in the Army and at formal dinners at his regimental mess, when the ladies were present, the" old ways" were followed, the ladies retired to the sitting rooms after dinner while the officers sat in for a while,before joing them.
They abandoned it after women started getting commissioned.
Not urinals in the modern sense, like what you’d find in a mens’ room, but chamber pots.
Naturally. Onceuponatime, gentlemen and ladies were different species.
Victorian- and Edwardian-era houses tended to have more and smaller roomsThe custom of men and women separating after dinner ended died out gradually, starting with the end of the Edwardian era. The tradition was long gone by the time suburbia sprang into being post-WWII.
I’m not convinced it was a small sliver of society that practiced this, either. It’s easy to get that impression from books and movies, but standards were different then. Few households were Downton Abbey, but most tried for some measure of gentility and gracious living. Even middle class households typically had at least one servant. (Wages for domestic workers were abysmal, so servants were more affordable.)
As I understand it, politics and business were considered inappropriate for dinner table conversation. No hostess wanted tempers flaring over the scalloped oysters or galantine of veal, and business and politics were considered too dirty and complex for women to worry their pretty little heads about. Yet many a dinner party sealed a business deal or launched a political career–after dinner, away from the ladies.
<smooth voiceover>
It was yesterday. At Biltmore.
</smooth voiceover>
(Man, I hope that ad campaign is national.)
I always rate parties at the beginning: if the crowd gathers divided by gender, it’s gonna be boring. If all the folks mingle, it’s gonna be fun.
I didn’t have any brothers.
One summer we did have a couple of male cousins spend the summer with us (they and I were all between around 11 and 15). At first, I was expected to help clean up after meals and they weren’t. I complained to my mother that this wasn’t fair; she agreed with me, and for the rest of the summer they had to take their turn at it also. This was in the early 1960’s.
Which specific novels did you have in mind?
If you’re talking about novels involving upper middle class people and above written or set between 1800 and 1930, it might be easier to list the ones where it doesn’t happen. Off the top of my head I would say it’s directly mentioned in ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ and several of Anthony Powell’s books.
I see more natural segregation because the women and men talk about different things. At least some of the time. So conversations and minglings eb and flo so like a couple of women give each other a look and walk away to talk privately. The men might mention something about say a car or their latest woodworking project or something wrong with plumbing and they go and check on that.
Regarding old novels, the tradition of ladies withdrawing is invariably taken as read. If it says ‘over port, he told us that…’ then you can assume that there were only men in the room.
Yes. It’s often used as a convention for advancing the plot in a particular way along sexual divisions, such as the beginning of Chapter 11 in Pride and Prejudice:
This is my experience, too.
At my grandmother’s house, the maid did the dishes and the rest of us gathered in the living room. Same at my aunt’s house.
At my aunt’s house, the hired-for-the-night staff did the dishes, and the adults gathered in one part of the house and the children elsewhere.
At my mom’s house, she and my father did the dishes, while everyone hung out around the table, and then everyone moved to the family room or the living room, depending on the size of the party
At my house, my husband usually does the dishes, although I also do some of it, and some of the guests help out. If it’s a small party, everyone hangs out in the kitchen and talks with the people doing dishes. If it’s a larger party, people disperse by interests. (which tend not to correlate with sex.)
Again, I think that depends on who you hang out with. I haven’t noticed any gender difference in who’s interested in plumbing, and among my friends the biggest car nut is female.
BTW, I’ve tried hard liquor like brandy and scotch and I personally find the taste nasty. Dont know what port tastes like.