The British equivalent of your hope chest is called the Bottom Drawer (which would literally be the bottom drawer in the chest of drawers in your bedroom). My mother gave me mine when I went to college.
In the day, when closeness between families had a higher value than currently, the bridal shower also served the purpose of an opportunity to meet the aunts, friends and cousins of “the other side” since these often were people with whom one’s life would be entertwined.
Less so now than it used to be. I’ve been to a couple of showers that included males - usually brothers and husbands/SOs.
It wasn’t a very exciting vacuum. They’ve become much more interesting the the past two decades.
And it certainly wasn’t the “my parents didn’t give us our honeymoon to Hawaii as a shower gift like I asked them to!” Bridezilla rant.
Without bridal showers the people that make edible panties would go out of business. Do you want that on your conscious? 
No, silly! That’s for the bachelorette party! Bridal showers are going to have mothers and grandmothers…nothing more risque than a topless casserole dish (or maybe a prim and functional nightie) should be involved.
In the traditional law in England, of which American law is a sucessor, women lost their right to own property at marriage, losing all legal identity themselves, and in divorce/dissolution, they had no right to marital property, nor even their own earnings while married.
Then the Married Women’s Property Acts, which came into being in the US in the mid-1800s (I believe around 1880 in Britain), came along, and they gave women the right to own that which they already owned before marriage.
Thus, the shower, which is not akin to “wedding gifts” (gifts for the couple) but gifts for the bride specifically, at one time provided the bride with essential property (perhaps the only property) she would be legally entitled to keep should the marriage dissolve.
Great answer! Thank you. It suddenly all makes perfect sense.
Just a clarification: you are under NO social or other obligation to send a gift or even a card if you do not attend the event. Your only social obligations to ANY invitation are to promptly r.s.v.p. and to actually attend if you accept. Maybe you feel obligated to send a card and gift to the employee showers because your husband is the boss, but basically, no obligation. It’s a nice and thoughtful thing to do if you are close to the honoree, but an invitation is not a subpoena or an invoice. And a gift stops being a gift once it is obligatory.