Gilded Age Courtesy and the Sexes

Michelle Pfeiffer’s “Countess Olenska” in the classic film based on Edith Wharton’s tale of the gilded age, “The Age of Innocence,” was one young woman who was continually exhibiting rudeness throughout the tale. Above, she is shown arriving late to a dinner party in her honor and blithely unaware of her faux pas; in the film she refused to remove her gloves completely, but merely parroted the sociably questionable action of removing just the glove “fingers” and shoving them into the hands at the wrists at the dinner table; and she abruptly left a conversation with one gentleman, to walk across the room to bend the ear of another gentleman. All were solecisms of the time period. – Image source, Pinterest

When Men Are Rude

“My dear, isn't he the rudest thing you ever saw?” This is shrilled in an indignant nasal twang as a man walks rapidly by two giggling girl’s and does not hold the door back for them to pass.

It does look rude, but they forget that that same man just held back the other door and that they teetered through it without a smile of acknowledgment or the faintest, “Thank you.”

The girl who continually complains that men are growing rude is very frequently rude herself. The girl who is gentle and appreciative generally has no grievance along this line. She has learned that the average man likes to be courteous as much as the average woman wants him to be.

Watch a girl who is modestly gracious. Doors are held open, window shades are adjusted, seats are given up - yes, even this last sacrifice is made - and precedence is yielded her at every step. She does not demand attention, but by her very presence she inspires it. It is not only the obviously cheap girl who is rude. The woman who bears every mark of refinement and wealth will ignore the commonest civilities in a manner that leaves the observer gasping.

Look around you and see the women who are left to struggle with heavy doors and to pull themselves up the high steps of the trolleys and then look at the women who are always helped, always considered, even by the most negligent member of the male sex. – Good Form, Riverside Enterprise, 1911

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia