Bachelorette parties

A bachelorette party (United States and Canada) or hen night (United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand) is a party held for a woman (the bride or bride-to-be) who will soon be married. While Beth Montemurro concludes that the bachelorette party is modeled after the centuries-old stag night in the US, which is itself historically a dinner given by the bridegroom to his friends shortly before his wedding, Sheila Young argues that its British counterpart evolved from a number of earlier pre-wedding traditions for women (Ribbon Girl, Pay Off, Bosola, Taking Out, Jumping the Chanty, to name but a few) whose origins are obscure but which have been around for at least a century in factories and offices across the UK. Despite its reputation as "a sodden farewell to maiden days" or "an evening of debauchery", these events can simply be parties given in honor of the bride-to-be, in the style that is common to that social circle.