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Debutante: Rites and Regalia of American Debdom by Karal Ann Marling Univ. Press of Kansas, 2004 224 pp., $24.95  Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexandra Robbins Hyperion, 2004 256 pp., $23.95 |
Every year, at galas like the Magnolia Debutante Ball and the Rhododendron Royal Brigade of Guards, young women from the finest families don white dresses and long white gloves and make their debut to society. If you're not on the Rhododendron Royal Brigade's invite list, you can settle for reading Debutante: Rites and Regalia of American Debdom, the newest offering by Karal Ann Marling, grande dame of American Studies.
The balls are stupendous, the dresses lovely, but the real meaning of deb teas and cotillions is rite of passage. At their debuts, young women are formally presented to society. In the crassest sense, a debut is an announcement that you are of marriageable age, that all those men from appropriate families can start making their bids. Also, after coming out—yes, I know the phrase means something different for Ellen DeGeneres, but here, think debs—you're allowed to sign your full name underneath your mother's when she sends a note or leaves a calling card. Once debuted, a woman is a grown up.
For most of American history, debuts have been the province of elites; as Marling shows, "debbing is a ritual grounded in aspiration ... and legitimization." Fathers threw expensive balls not only because they wanted to dote on their girls but also because they wanted to shore up their own class-standing. Debuting, of course, has always been as much about who is kept out as who is presented. Most cotillions present girls who boast not only a lot of money but also an old name, and white skin, to boot.
Marling traces debbing from the 18th century to the present. Her historical analysis is rich and detailed, and readers will enjoy vicariously dancing at centuries of cotillions. She explores contemporary debdom as well, arguing convincingly that proms are a modern-day, meritocratic iteration of the debut impulse. And she explores the "different kind of debuts" that have arisen in ethnic and African-American communities—quinceanera, the traditional celebration of a girl's 15th birthday, has become newly popular in Latina communities, and "For every black girl slighted by the selection committee of an Old Guard cotillion, a hundred more have bowed to the high society of their own communities."
Her exploration of contemporary, mostly-white, mostly-rich debuts—the traditional debuts—is a little thin. Marling tells us that although cotillions and balls fell out of fashion in the 1960s and '70s, they are now as popular as ever among the country club set. But she fails to explore why debuting has made such a comeback, predictably wondering why modern-day gals would embrace a coming-of-age ritual in which they are passive and objectified, and quickly—lamely—ascribing the popularity of debbing simply to "a virulent wave of neoconservatism." This quick castigation goes hand-in-hand with the pervasive tone of the book—a tone of unrestrained condescension towards the people about whom she is writing. (One example will make the point: Marling calls her synecdochic, pseudonymous deb "Muffy.")
Perhaps if she'd spent more time in, say, Virginia and South Carolina, Marling would have found more to say about traditional debbing at the turn of the 21st century. Curiously, Marling focuses on Philadelphia, New York, and the Midwest, and almost entirely neglects the American South, surely the home of the most vital deb culture; she notes in an aside that "Texas debs are a law unto themselves," and then she moves back to Chicago.
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