1894: Hen- and Stag-Do Feb 21, 2020

The formation for 'hen-do/hen-party' and 'stag-do' may seem odd, but they did not come about in a vacuum. Ascribing animals to a gender, and in particular connoting birds as feminine and bulls or stags as masculine has happened in some ways or another for milenia in some ways. Much of this, however, is not semantic, but stems from the fact that 'stag' and its cognates used to refer to any male animal, and including foxes and even dragons, and the same is true of 'hen' referring to any female bird. The use of these animals (including 'bulls') for same-gender gatherings has existed since that's 17th century for women, and at least the 19th century for me, though neither initially only related to prenuptial celebrations.

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