An interesting power struggle is at work in mass and private debuts. The struggle is one that hinges on the issue of display. On the one hand, supporters of the private debut associate status with exclusivity. Status is understood because it is not published. Privacy reigns over celebrity. On the other hand, the mass debut, gives participants the opportunity to flex their social muscle, to let the public witness their place in society. The evidence is conspicuously presented in the form of clothing, food, and décor. The mass debut is also powerful because of the sense of communitas, felt not just by the debutantes, but by all of the participants. There is a feeling of pride and privilege in witnessing something meaningful.

Indeed, publicity of this sort can also be politically expedient. In his discussion of the history of the tonsure ceremony in Thailand, Tambiah relates the story of King Mongkut, who "broke precedent by himself personally taking the part of the God Shiva and aspersing his son" (157-161). (Until 1866, it was customary for a representative of the king to perform the tonsure (the king being feared though never actually seen by his subjects). Shattering years of tradition, King Mongkut decided to perform the ritual himself, and in so doing, sent three important messages to the public: 1) to foreign onlookers, he said, "I'm modern," 2) to his subjects, he said "I'm powerful and secure," and 3) to his son, he said "this ritual is special."

For debutantes, this last message is perhaps most important. At the mass debut, the ritual is special because it is public; at the private debut, the ritual is special because it is intimate.

Bibliography:

-Barron, D. Susan. "Reviving the Rituals of the Debutante." The New York Times Magazine. 15 January 1984, 26-37.

-Birmingham, Stephen. "Our Debutante Daughters." Holiday. November, 1958, 62-7, 202, 204-5, 207- 8, 210, 212.

-Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.

-Day, Beth. "After This Party She'll Be Invited Everywhere." The Saturday Evening Post. 3 December 1966, 34-9.

-Knudsen, Dean. "Socialization to Elitism: A Study of Debutantes." The Sociological Quarterly 9 (1968): 300-308.

-Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja. Culture, Thought, and Social Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

-Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1995 [1969].

-Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1994.