A Few Don'ts For Girls

This is from an article in an 1891 issue of The Ladies Home Journal. It is part of a feature called "Side Talks with Girls" and is subtitled "A Few Don'ts for Girls".

Don't keep the fact that you are corresponding with some man, a secret from your mother.

Don't let any man kiss you or put his arm about you unless you are engaged to be married to him, and even then be a little stingy with your favors.

Don't let Tom, Dick or Harry call you by your first name, or greet you with some slang phrase.

Don't let any man believe that simply for the asking he can get "that pretty Smith girl" to go out driving with him, to accompany him to the concert, or to entertain him for an hour when he can't find anyone else.

Don't write foolish letters to anybody, men or women; you never know who may see them.

Don't think that you can go untidy all day and then look very fine at night, for fine feathers do not always make fine birds.

Don't believe that you can be careless in speech or manner without it's absolutely having a bad moral effect upon you.

My dear girl, it's in your own hand as to what you will be. An intelligent, charming woman, or a foolish, ignorant one, and certainly if a few "don'ts" will save you from being the last, you ought not only to read and learn, but inwardly digest and practice.