Bachelor party
A bachelor party (in the United States and in Canada), also known as a stag weekend, stag do or stag party (in the United Kingdom, Commonwealth countries, and Ireland), or a buck's night (in Australia),[1] is a party held/arranged by the man who is shortly to enter marriage.
For other uses, see Bachelor party (disambiguation).
A stag night is usually planned by the groom's friends or family.
The first references to Western stag nights in the Oxford English Dictionary date to the 19th century.[2] Traditionally, stag nights involved a black tie banquet hosted by the father of the groom that included a toast in honour of the groom and bride.[3] Since the 1980s, some bachelor parties in the United States have involved vacationing to a foreign destination,[3] or have featured female company such as strippers or topless waitresses.
History[edit]
The bachelor party dates back as early as the 5th century B.C. The ancient Spartans celebrated the groom's last night as a single man in which they held a dinner and made toasts on his behalf.[4]
In 1896, Herbert Barnum Seeley, a grandson of P. T. Barnum, threw a stag party (known as the "Awful Seeley Dinner") for his brother at the restaurant Sherry's in New York City. The party had a dancer nicknamed "Little Egypt" who allegedly danced naked in desserts. The party was dissolved in the early morning by an officer. Afterwards, the Seeley family brought the police officer to the police board trial for "conduct unbecoming to an officer of the law."[5] At that time, that incident brought the light to the "behind closed doors" matters with bachelor parties.
The term "bachelor", originally meaning "a young knight-in-training", was first mentioned in the 14th century to refer to an unmarried man in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. In 1922, the term "bachelor party" was published in William Chambers's Journal of Literature, Science and Arts and was described as a "jolly old" party.[4]