If the cycle theory of parietal rules holds as firmly as it has done in the past, next year should witness the third major liberisation of the rules in two decades, and the fifth controversy over them in that same period. Previous changes were made in 1931 and 1941; there were discussions in those years and in 1936 and 1946. There is therefore no way to account for this year's hubbub but to assume that the parietal cycle, like everything else in the world, has speeded up.

An unprecedented diversity of method has appeared in this parietal campaign. House Committee chairman put in a request for midnight deadlines for women guests on their football weekends. A petition calling for midnight permission every Saturday night throughout the year was circulated, and attracted over 2,000 signatures. One House Committee proposed a midnight deadline for groups of three or more couples. And a Student Council committee meeting met with a delegation of Housemaster to discuss the possibility of a change.

All this will be before the Faculty Committee on Houses when it takes up the issue of women guests at its meeting next Wednesday. Whether that committee will recommend changes is doubtful. Even if its does, a revision in parietal rules would have to be passed on by the Administrative Board and sent on to the full faculty for final approval.

At the bottom level, the masters are sharply divided on the midnight deadline which has been the most frequent proposal. Those masters who support the change reputedly maintain that (1) a women in a student's room at 12 is no more immoral than a woman in a student's room at 8; (2) the "social tone" of the College is damaged more by forcing men with dates to spend their evenings in bars than by allowing them to have dates in their rooms; (3) the high cost of entertainment and Harvard's inadequate common room facilities work a definite financial hardship; and (4) later permissions on weekends could be compensated--for by reducing the hours on other days, so that the average female-hours per week would not be increased.

Masters who oppose a change are said to feel that (1) the College is a man's world and should remain so; (2) there is a desire among the undergraduates themselves to "get the strangers out" after a certain hour; (3) a student's room is, after all, a bedroom; and (4) the present threat of military service may out down the feeling of responsibility among students.

One step higher, the Administrative Board is known to favor shifting the burden of proof to those who want a change. Its basic position is that "there are certain rules in decent society which one observes automatically," and that excluding women from men's bedrooms during certain hours is one of these. The Administrative Board is not planning any revisions on its own; it will wait and see what the committee on Houses does, and then make up its mind.

Faculty Has Final Say

On the top step, the faculty is far removed from parietal rules, its one contact being the meeting each spring at which it reviews and renews the "Regulations for Students in Harvard College." It is usually willing to accept the world of the Administrative Board on matters parietal, but tends to take a generally conservative view because of the high average age of permanent appointees.

The one thing that is clear is that the Houses were built to take care of a different social situation form the one which exists today. Everyone is willing to admit that there is now a problem; nobody has yet taken the responsibility for drafting a solution.

Until the Houses were opened, in 1930 and '31, there had been virtually no change in parietal rules for 20 years. The gist of the rules was that "no young woman, unattended by an older woman, should be received in a student's room," and only with the permission of the proctor during the evening. This applied to all dormitories, and to the rooming houses where the College maintained proctors.

There was little pressure for a change. The most common lady visitors were mothers, and football weekends were not the bisexual affairs that they have since become. Cheering sections at the games were almost entirely male, and the general attitude toward women was one of tolerant disinterest. During the middle twenties, when a couple of Smith Hall (now Kirkland House) students tried to take advantage of the provision for bringing women into dining halls for meals before special social events, there was a terrible uproar.

With the opening of all the Houses, it was felt that the new "communities of students" could have a little more leeway in receiving women in their rooms. Therefore, at a meeting in November, 1931, the Housemasters made an informal decision to do away with the chaperone requirement in the Houses while preserving all the old rules in the Yard and other dormitories.

The new understanding was that students might entertain unchaperoned women in their rooms, provided they had first obtained permission of the master or senior tutor, and provided at least three persons were to be present in the room. This meant that permissions would ordinarily be granted only on weekend nights when general "open house" conditions prevailed.

For a few years after these rules were introduced, there were no difficulties. Minor differences in the application of the rules by the various Houses were noted, but these were not enough to cause trouble. However, it was during this same period that social mores were changing in a way that was to cause trouble later on.

The first big storm broke in 1936, before the last strains of the Tercentenary celebration had faded away. In February of that year, the masters had inserted a "two-woman" rule in the parietal booklet, stating not only that three people must be present when a woman was entertained, but also that two of them must be female. In addition, there was a new requirement that a hosts must sign their women guests in and out, in addition to getting the masters' permission beforehand.