Proposals

Your letter "Jessie" (Woodlands), is quite right in its tone and sentiments. It is considered very bad form for a woman, generally speaking, to allow a man to propose whom she has no intention or idea of accepting. As you say, she can, in most cases, let him see beforehand that such a proposal would not meet with her approval, and, as a rule, a man will not persist further. To encourage proposals merely to boast of having had so many is, as you justly remark, both heartless and wrong.
Editorial Chit Chat - Home Chat Magazine, May 30, 1896.