The Perils of the Victorian Parlor

I checked, between the hours of 8 and 10, the arts of courting. With the lamp low and the heater in the parlor, I sat and waited for the young men to reach their remarks on the other, and their critical analysis of the young performer. Upon their departure, I heard each trip to the other side of the charmed circle. As I left, while their forced laughter was yet ringing in the parlor, I went home and ruminated. When I was young and my sisters had company, no one thought of the 'parlor' while the family spent their evening in the kitchen. In those days, they honored their parents and thought it was quite as well to find out their lover's characteristics in the bosom of their families. But they have changed, and marriages are not so numerous—and no wonder. When a young girl banishes the family from the parlor, she says in actions, 'My dear Charles Augustus, here I am alone; court me. I expect to entrap you for a husband.' Now, is it strange that breach of promise cases are numerous, when a man is almost forced to propose, and then so dulled with sweetness before the wedding day that he is surfeited? I would have a happy medium, where kisses and caresses were not so numerous as to be a necessity after marriage. It would leave a little to the imagination. As the day wore on, George's wife rapped at my office door. When I asked her ideas on the subject of the exclusiveness of courting, she burst out into a merry laugh and said, 'I want no big glaring parlor all to myself. Only give me a low dim nook, like the shadow of curtains, a window, or a projecting grand piano, and I’ll get all the proposals I want.'