In the column on the origins of the phrase, soup to nuts, (which, incidentally, P.G.Wodehouse used quite often, writing in America c.1920s) SDSTAFF Lara commented on the Victorian habit of women leaving the room while the men drank port and ate nuts, asking how that got started.
Now, (and I know it’s been hard for you, getting up in the morning thinking “Why, why did they leave the room? I must know.”) I hope to set your mind at rest. It’s all to do with Victorian attitudes to bodily functions, or rather the Victorian attitude (singular) which was, “Don’t talk about it. We don’t admit to such things in public.” Particularly for women. So, after a long dinner party, starting, lest it be forgotten, with soup and involving a deal of fluid consumption, rather than women embarrassing themselves (and more importantly their husbands) and offending the rest of the table by specifically excusing themselves, thereby suggesting that they had internal plumbing and were not in fact filled from top to toe with plaster of paris or some such, ALL the women would leave the table at once, while the men stayed behind long enough to allow nature to take its unmentionable course. During this interval, they would divert themselves by passing the port (another story altogether) and eating nuts.
Just goes to show how taboo subjects can give rise to quaint social traditions. Or civilisation, as the Victorians would doubtless have preferred to call it.
Rest easy
Andrew