Gilded Age Word on the Street

A Question of Street Etiquette… Offer her your arm, young man, every time, and never under any circumstances commit the familiarity and offense by forsaking hers.

“The question is often put to me,” says a lady whose opinion in matters of etiquette is wholly competent, “whether it is permissible to take a young lady’s arm in acting as her escort on a promenade after nightfall. Unhesitatingly and peremptorily, no. Not after nightfall, nor by daylight, nor at any other time. 

An invalid may lean upon a young woman's arm; a grandfather, if he is infirm, may avail himself of a familiar support, and a Broadway policeman seems to have acquired the right to propel his charges in petticoats across that thoroughfare by a grasp upon the arm, but these are the only male persons so privileged. 

For an acquaintance, a friend, or one who aspires to a still nearer place, to take the arm of a young woman when walking with her on a public highway is inexcusable. You may be sure nothing will so quickly offend her good taste, although she may lack the social skill to resent and avoid it. And the spectacle in itself is most unpleasing. 

To see a young woman pushed along, a little in front of her escort, by his clutch upon her arm is neither suitable nor picturesque. It reverses all preconceived ideas of gallantry. The fair should lean upon the brave. Virile strength ought ever to support feminine frailness. Offer her your arm, young man, every time, and never under any circumstances commit the familiarity and offense by forsaking hers.– New York Sun, 1888

 

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