The evening times., 1898-06-07
DOVE PHRTIES
NOT POPULAR
Social Entertainment Minus
the Sterner Sex a Delusion.
Women Unable to Enjoy Little Co
teries Fasbioned After JoviaI
s'stag Parties. of Men.

Although dove parties have been intro
duced into society," and have enjoyed a
qualified success during the Winter. 1t Is
improbable that they will ever become
| popular. The fact OF the matter Is no
party minus men is likely to be very en-
| tertaining. Such parties are really very
dull affairs. and It would be very wonder
ful If they were not. Sit down to lunch a
party of women. Intentionally having ex-
cluded men. and what an absence of zest
there is! Invite number of friends. all
female ones. to tea. and your gathering
Will be as lamentably a failure. though
all the women present should declare it is
too sweet for words. as lamb without mint
| sauce. or Strawberries without cream.
VI course, men can enjoy parties to
which men only are asked. They have
done so for generations. but to go upon
the hypothesis that because men enjoy
| things women must naturally like doing
| them too Is totally absurd. Men and wom-
en- are, broadly speaking. the very oppo-
site of one another. The spirit of coquet-
| ry dominates every true woman-the in
| nate desire to please man and fascinate
him. Nature has SO constituted the eter-
| nal feminine from the beginning of all
things that, sneer at the trait as the
strongest-minded woman or the most rig
orously scrupulous old maid may. there
1t Is. and there IL will remain. That is
why dove parties are so uncompromising-
ly dull-why the laugh is forced and the
pleasure they afford merely simulated be-
cause II is a fashionable craze that it is
modish to copy and to pretend 10 like In
reality. no woman can find herself one of
a party of women without wishing that ar
least one man. one even miserable little
spirltless man, was there 10 leaven the
undesirable loneliness of the position.
For women without men do feel lonely
Even the end of the nineteenth century
has not eliminated that essential princi-
pie.
1t must not be imagined that women,
as a rule. do not like their own SEX
though, to be sure, this is an erroneous
tenet that is often asserted. What Is
more charming than a tete-a-tete of two
women, when two sisters or two friends
meet together, be 1t at luncheon, tea,
dinner or an entertainment? What a
comfortable chat they have, How they
like showing one another their newest
gowns, discussing the latest books and
the smartest plays! But, then, party a
deux is always amusing, and SO fash
ionable. too.
But there are broader issues than those
of pure entertainments in which women
are the friends of women. II has become
quite modish pGstime for women to
travel. They roam the world with all the
freedom men have enjoyed for so many
centuries. and really it was about time
they did go abroad. seeing how closely
they were kept at home, cramped and con-
fined with their families, even when there
was no real need for them to be so mewed
up for ages past. Perhaps the feminine
travelling party idea started in America.
where the dove party certainly did. and II
we have no praise to give to the latter
We have every need OF gratitude to pay
to the former.
Certainly the best way possible in which
women are the friends of their own sex
is found when one tends another In sick
ness, sees her through a threatening es-
capade sustains. comforts and helps her
morally and Decuniarily.
But 1t was not with any intention of
probing deeply that these lines were writ
ten. The only intentional effort was di-
rected against the idea that women should
ape men, and pretend they enjoy parties
where women only are to be met, with the
admission that. for purposes of a tete-a-
tete enjoyment and for travelling. there
are no friends more heartily glad of one
another's society than women. Again,
should that last sentence bear the sem-
bIance of excluding men, 1t should be
understood that the very women who so
honestly like the society of their own sex
are the ones who find masculine compan-
ionship. in its proper place, most charm
ing and delightful.