Conversation

All the people mentioning competitive sports… no. The key feature of a debutante ball is an age cohort being formally presented to society for the first time. You do it only once and together. Possibly medieval tournaments might count for first-timer jousting knights though
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Kinda weird. It’s like batch-processing IPO of young women into marriage market. I’m kinda surprised the tradition has survived in the south at all. Feels vaguely like racehorse breeder’s market or something. Like those races they have specifically for first-timer young horses
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Couldn’t stop thinking about this! Because yesterday I was thinking about how different genders relate to one another. So when this tradition started, being seen with the other gender in public meant that it was a pairing. 1/
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So there was a formal way to introduce girls and boys to each other. I think the age cohort thing was just logistics. Now that gender relationships have relaxed in the US that’s no longer the case. 2/
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Now that’s no longer the case. You can’t assume seeing a man and woman together in public meant that they were a pair. So with the exception of perhaps the beautillion, I don’t think this exists, except maybe in matriarchal societies 3/
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