Etiquette and Shedding Tears

There is a class of woman who cries about everything. If she loses her train — tears; if her servants annoy her — tears; if her husband is half an hour late in getting home — tears. This copious lachrymation is extremely irritating, not only to men but to women.

Tears are often very bad manners. There is no excuse for women who weep on every opportunity. I once saw a hostess cry because one of her callers broke a coffee-cup. This was an unpardonable piece of bad manners. I once saw a bride at a dinner-party cry because her busband nearly choked. It was quite the wrong moment for tears. When a woman loses her purse, and begins to cry in the street, or a shop, or an omnibus, she is behaving like a baby. There is a class of woman who cries about everything. If she loses her train — tears; if her servants annoy her — tears; if her husband is half an hour late in getting home — tears. This copious lachrymation is extremely irritating, not only to men but to women. 

Servants are the worst sinners in this respect. The least thing makes them cry. A cut finger is the cause of a flood of tears. If they do not feel well they go to bed and cry. We once had a flood of water come pouring into the basement of our house. The cook and housemaid began to cry, and my sister and I had to plunge and splash about in six inches of water getting furniture and carpets to a dry place, while the maids enjoyed a good howl together.

An elderly lady was once followed to church by her pet dog. It trotted after her up the aisle, and not till she was about to kneel down in her pew did she perceive the little animal. What did she do? Turn him out? No. She sat down and began to cry! Our amusement at this was far too great for our comfort, in the circumstances.

Men's own stern code forbids them the relief of tears; but sometimes Nature is stronger than any code, and grief will find its natural expression. If women had never made a bad use of tears; had never indulged in them to excess, men would not have withheld from themselves the privilege of shedding a few in moments of emotion. If women could be a little more manly in their power of self-control, men might venture to be just a little womanly; but their natural disgust at the misuse that our sex too often makes of tears, using them as weapons, as leverage, as arguments, has driven men to the extreme of refusing to themselves this almost necessary relief. Do they think that women despise them when they shed a few tears? If so, they are very wrong. 

Though women would certainly feel a keen contempt for a man who habitually gave way to tears (do they not despise even women who do so?) yet the sight of genuine emotion from some worthy cause often evokes the sincerest feeling of sympathy and compassion, awaking that motherly sentiment that always mingles in some degree in the regard of women for men. There have been cases where a few tears shed by a man have made all women think better of him. At Gordon's funeral service at Khartoum, for instance, it was stated in the papers that many officers shed tears. Every woman who read the account honored these men in their hearts.

There are clergymen who make a practice of crying in the pulpit. The soft-hearted dear sweet women in the congregation whose tears live very near their eyes, invariably cry too. In my girlhood's days I became habituated to the spectacle of a crying preacher, and I must confess that the effect on myself was the reverse of softening. Directly the clergyman in ques- tion produced his snowy pocket handkerchief, ready for a little weep, about seventy-five per cent. of the ladies in the church made a dash for their pockets and got out theirs, all ready. This spectacle always made me want to laugh, and however pathetic the words might be that followed, all the pathos had been for me eliminated by the ludicrous preparatory performance. — From Eliza Lavin’s, “Etiquette for Every Day,” 1900

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