How Did Bachelor and Bachelorette Parties Begin?

Bachelor and bachelorette parties are staples in modern culture, evoking images of gender-exclusive gatherings, limos, matching sashes and revelry. But pre-wedding celebrations are nothing new and have long served as a rite of passage to mark a major life transition. Such traditions date back to at least fifth century B.C. in ancient Sparta.

Pre-wedding traditions were different for men and women in ancient Sparta. For the groom’s last night as a single man, Spartan soldiers gathered for a meal and raised toasts to his impending marriage and symbolic departure from bachelorhood. For women, the lead-up to marriage was more spiritual. Brides-to-be made offerings and sacrifices to the gods, particularly Artemis, the goddess of chastity and childbirth.

In other cultures and centuries, pre-wedding traditions similarly emphasized purity. In 17th-century Sweden, for instance, the bride celebrated her last virgin night by taking a bath with her virgin friends. This might also include late-night feasting and drinking.

Accounts from early 18th-century Scotland describe the custom of “feet-washing,” during which loved ones would symbolically cleanse the bride and groom by separately washing their feet on the eve of the wedding. This tradition evolved into present-day Scottish rituals where the engaged pair are dirtied and then cleansed.

Modern bachelor and bachelorette parties largely developed out of the “stag” (male-exclusive) and “hen” (female-exclusive) parties that began in the mid-19th century. Originally, they weren’t related to weddings. Victorian stag parties involved fishing trips, oyster suppers, costumes and magic shows. A few decades later, hen parties featured singing, dancing and tea.

The term “bachelor party” is thought to have been first used in 1922 in the Scottish publication Chambers’s Journal of Literature, Science and Arts, though celebrations for grooms-to-be had existed long before. One infamous party in 1896 thrown by Herbert Barnum Seeley for his engaged brother (both grandsons of the famed showman P.T. Barnum) was raided by police amid rumors of a nude belly dancer. However, most bachelor parties didn’t involve debauchery until the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

The 1960s also saw some of the first bachelorette parties, alongside the arrival of women in the workforce in large numbers. Brides-to-be celebrated their nuptials with their female coworkers, often to mark the transition from unmarried worker to housewife and mother. By the 1970s, these tame office parties began to mirror men’s bachelor parties in clubs and bars.

Bachelor and bachelorette parties grew in popularity and scale over the subsequent decades, becoming elaborate, expensive affairs. Today, they’re undergoing another evolution as more couples move away from gendered, raucous partying in favor of “coed bach parties” with their full wedding party, featuring various bonding activities.