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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Darkwing Manor, post: 3685381, member: 738&quot;]It&#039;s possible that yours is a fancy dress chatelaine, not the usual household accessory. I don&#039;t know if the utilitarian ones were worn in public. It&#039;s really a fascinating topic of social custom and material culture. I&#039;m sure far more than one historical costume grad student has done a thesis on them. </p><p><br /></p><p>From Wiki: &quot; The chatelaine was also used as a woman&#039;s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keychain" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keychain" rel="nofollow">keychain</a> in the 19th century to show the status of women in a household. The woman with the keys to all the many desks, chest of drawers, food hampers, pantries, storage containers, and many other locked cabinets was &quot;the woman of the household&quot;. As such, she was the one who would direct the servants, housemaids, cooks and delivery servicemen and would open or lock the access to the valuables of the house, possessing total authority over who had access to what. Frequently, this hostess was the senior woman of the house. When a woman married and moved into her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father-in-law" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father-in-law" rel="nofollow">father-in-law</a>&#039;s house, her husband&#039;s mother would usually hold on to the keys. However, if the mother became a widow, the keys and their responsibilities and status were often passed to the oldest son&#039;s wife. Younger women and daughters in the house often wanted the appearance of this responsibility, and would often wear decorative chatelaines with a variety of small objects in the place of keys, especially bright and glittering objects that could be used to start a conversation.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatelaine_(chain)#cite_note-8" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatelaine_(chain)#cite_note-8" rel="nofollow">[8]</a> In the case of the absence of a woman of the house, the controller of the keys was often a hired <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housekeeper_(domestic_worker)" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housekeeper_(domestic_worker)" rel="nofollow">housekeeper</a>.&quot;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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