1896 - Love Lessons from the Lowly

Indeed we may smile, as we often do, at the primitive customs of the lowly, and their homely phrase of “keeping company.” It makes a delightful jest. But beneath it is a greater regard for the rights of a man or woman in love than one is apt to find higher in the social scale. With them to select one another “to keep company” is like an offer of marriage. “To keep steady company” is the formal announcement of an engagement, which is a potential marriage. It is the first step toward matrimony, and it is almost as sacred and final. With their moro fortunate and envied sisters in the smart set and engagement is the loosest kind of a bond, and neither man nor woman is safe from the wooing of other men and women until the marriage vows have been pronounced, and, if your society is very fashionable, not even then. So that this society of which I speak would undeniably be called “good.” - Ladies' Home Journal

Plain Dealer, Ohio, November 16, 1896