I suppose it depends on the definition of dinner party. (I only skimmed TFA, so apologies if you're addressing something specific in the article.)
IMO, a dinner party doesn't have to be some stuffy affair. It's just a group of people getting together to share a meal, typically in someone's home. I often host a Sunday dinner for family and occasionally a friend or two and their families. The numbers are sometimes in the 10+ range, including kids. It's usually a pretty casual event, some food, some drinks, some nice conversations.
You might say that's just having a few people over for dinner, not a "dinner party." Maybe you're right. But I think the act of communal in-home dining, involving some family and/or friends, is very common across cultures. The WASPy "dinner party" is just one variation on that.
Yeah I get the feeling just based on the article and the comments here that people are referring more to the waspy formal dinner party and not so much the more casual / common incarnations. Obviously growing up and all that we would get together with families around the neighborhood all the time and have barbeque or whatever. As an adult I've been living apartment life, along with everyone in my social sphere, so dinner parties aren't really a thing but getting people together at a bar/restaurant is..
Dinner parties to me are just sort of a funny cultural quirk that I don't really get, I guess. Another one is how everyone else knows all the common dances at weddings. I've been to a few but not enough to, you know, get the choreography right lol.
IMO, a dinner party doesn't have to be some stuffy affair. It's just a group of people getting together to share a meal, typically in someone's home. I often host a Sunday dinner for family and occasionally a friend or two and their families. The numbers are sometimes in the 10+ range, including kids. It's usually a pretty casual event, some food, some drinks, some nice conversations.
You might say that's just having a few people over for dinner, not a "dinner party." Maybe you're right. But I think the act of communal in-home dining, involving some family and/or friends, is very common across cultures. The WASPy "dinner party" is just one variation on that.