Edwardian Etiquette Wisdom

“Yes, I toy with men's affections. I don't see how it is any of your concern!”

From “The Morning Chit-Chat”

The Very Pretty Girl, being in a bad mood, had been treating the Very Devoted Young Man with the most studied arrogance during the whole evening. She had ordered him hither and yon with almost insulting tyranny. She had refused an invitation of his with a shortness that was decidedly rude.

She had contradicted him flatly several times and laughed at him again and again with the unpleasant laughter that savors of mockery rather than friendly fun.

When he had finally taken his leave, the sandy haired, plain little girl who shared the Very Pretty Girl's apartment with her, cried reproachfully: "How could you treat him so? I think you were perfectly horrid to him."

The Very Pretty Girl sank down in the most comfortable chair—which she habitually arrogated to herself—and laughed with evident delight. "He seems to like it pretty well, doesn't he?" she responded. "While you were out in the kitchen he just begged to come again day after tomorrow, and I told him I thought that he was simply ridiculous, and that if he thought I had nothing else to do than sit around with him every evening, he was very much mistaken."

The sandy haired little girl looked at the Very Pretty Girl a moment, just about the way any one who knew the value of jewels would look if he saw a child throwing a very wonderful pearl or diamond into the water—only much more so—opened her mouth as if to say something and then shut it again and walked out into the kitchen and started to wash the chafing dish— a part of apartment bliss which the Very Pretty Girl most decidedly did not arrogate to herself.

Whereupon the Very Pretty Girl sat back in the most comfy chair and laughed aloud to herself, enjoying at the same time the silveriness of the laugh and the recollection of the Very Devoted Man's discomfiture.

Altogether, she felt that she had been most clever and brilliant in walking over a human being just because he was chained down by an infatuation into a position where she could walk upon him. You see she was forgetting several little facts. She was forgetting that no matter how willing the victim, walking on people is not good form.

She was forgetting that no matter how willing to endure rudeness and arrogance a foolish man may be, rudeness is just as much rudeness and just as ugly and undesirable a quality. She was forgetting that even if a man is willing to stand for being contradicted and laughed at, that does not make contradiction and mockery pretty things.

She was forgetting that no matter how generous and ready to give everything and receive almost nothing in return a man in love may be, it is just as selfish and soul killing for a woman to get in the habit of taking everything and making no proper return.

The Very Pretty Girl—and her hundreds and thousands of sisters, incidentally—who forget all these things, always think that their attitude is fascinating and attractive. Some day, perhaps, they will find out the contrary. And then for a time they will be very unhappy. But it will be a blessed unhappiness, for it will bring vastly greater and truer happiness in its train. — By Ruth Cameron, 1911

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

Etiquette and the Anti-Flirt Club

Depiction of a Gilded Age / Victorian Era “lounge lizard” or “slick, dandified cake eater” flirting with two young women. By the early 1920’s, one woman, in particular, Miss Alice Heighly, was wary of men like this dandified cake eater, who would drive by in automobiles or hang out on street corners.

“Why do we flirt? Flirting is much more than just a bit of fun: it is a universal and essential aspect of human interaction around the world. Flirting is a basic instinct, part of human nature. This is not surprising: if we did not initiate contact and express interest in members of the opposite sex, we would not progress to reproduction, and the human species would become extinct. According to some evolutionary psychologists, flirting may even be the foundation of civilisation as we know it. They argue that the large human brain – our superior intelligence, complex language, everything that distinguishes us from animals – is the equivalent of the peacock’s tail: a courtship device evolved to attract and retain sexual partners. Our achievements in everything from art to rocket science may be merely a side-effect of the essential ability to charm.” from Kate Fox for Social Issues Research Centre

The Anti-Flirt Club of Washington D.C. 

Charter members of the Washington D.C. “Anti-Flirt Club” 

The Anti-Flirting Club began in the early '20s in Washington D.C, as a reaction against young women recieving unwanted attention from men, usually in “automobiles or in street corners.” Apparently, just like today, flirting and harassment were pretty interchangeable in the 1920s.

Miss Alice Heighly was the Anti-Flirt Club President 

Apart from establishing ‘Anti-Flirt Week,’ the club also created a set of rules, or etiquette, to help young ladies avoid the “slick, dandified cake eaters” they might come across. The rules are as follows:

• Don't flirt: those who flirt in haste oft repent in leisure. 
• Don't accept rides from flirting motorists—they don't invite you in to save you a walk. 
• Don't use your eyes for ogling—they were made for worthier purposes. 
• Don't go out with men you don't know—they may be married, and you may be in for a hair-pulling match. 
• Don't wink—a flutter of one eye may cause a tear in the other. 
• Don't smile at flirtatious strangers—save them for people you know. 
• Don't annex all the men you can get—by flirting with many, you may lose out on the one. 
• Don't fall for the slick, dandified cake eater—the unpolished gold of a real man is worth more than the gloss of a lounge lizard. 
• Don't let elderly men with an eye to a flirtation pat you on the shoulder and take a fatherly interest in you. Those are usually the kind who want to forget they are fathers. 
• Don't ignore the man you are sure of while you flirt with another. When you return to the first one you may find him gone. 

“Flirting, and a too obtrusive manifestation of preference, are not agreeable to men of sense.” Marilyn Monroe gets flirtatious with Cary Grant, in “Monkey Business”

Women reach maturity earlier than men, and may marry earlier—say (as an average age), at twenty. The injunction, “Know thyself,” applies with as much emphasis to a woman as to a man. Her perceptions are keener than ours, and her sensibilities finer, and she may trust more to instinct, but she should add to these natural qualifications a thorough knowledge of her own physical and mental constitution, and of whatever relates to the requirements of her destiny as wife and mother. The importance of sound health and a perfect development, can not be overrated. Without these you are NEVER fit to marry.

Having satisfied yourself that you really love a woman—be careful, as you value your future happiness and hers, not to make a mistake in this matter—you will find occasion to manifest, in a thousand ways, your preference, by means of those tender but delicate and deferential attentions which love always prompts. “Let the heart speak.” The heart you address will understand its language. Be earnest, sincere, self-loyal, and manly in this matter above all others. Let there be no nauseous flattery and no sickly sentimentality Leave the former to fops and the latter to beardless school-boys. Though women do not “propose”—that is, as a general rule—they “make love” to the men none the less; and it is right. The divine attraction is mutual, and should have its proper expression on both sides. 

If you are attracted toward a man who seems to you an embodiment of all that is noble and manly, you do injustice both to him and yourself if you do not, in some way entirely consistent with maiden modesty, allow him to see and feel that he pleases you. But you do not need our instructions, and we will only hint, in conclusion, that forwardness, flirting, and a too obtrusive manifestation of preference are not agreeable to men of sense. As a man should be manly, so should a woman be womanly in her love. From “How to Behave,” by Samuel R. Wells, 1887 

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Has Tech Made Us Anti-Social?

Steve Jobs at the launch of the iPod in 2001

It's 13 years since the iPod was unveiled, but has the MP3 player turned us all into headphone-wearing, anti-social people?

It sounds like a dystopian vision. Half of humankind wired up to a parallel universe that leaves them oblivious to their surroundings and fellow man.

Those used to travelling on public transport will recognise the scene - a carriage full of commuters sprouting white wires that plug into the ear with little white buds. In the car, children listen to their own music on headphones.

Once upon a time footballers travelling to away games would bond over a game of cards on the team bus. Now they step off the coach with headphones on, as if their journey has been a solitary exploration of a favourite playlist or movie. Many runners, cyclists and even swimmers train with headphones.

The personal stereo has been around for three decades. But the iPod - by far the biggest selling MP3 player - has taken it well beyond the limitations of its bulky earlier equivalents, like the Sony Walkman or Discman. Since Apple unveiled its first iPod in October 2001, promising "1,000 songs in your pocket", the company has sold more than 300 million of them.

In 2005 the media greeted the revelation that President George W Bush owned an iPod with surprise. Now that the iPod's tentacles creep through society, such news would be greeted with a shrug.

By 2007 over half of Western city dwellers were using an iPod or MP3 player, says Prof Michael Bull, author of Sound Moves: iPod culture and urban experience.

Research suggests that when people switch to an MP3 player, they listen to music for twice as long as before.

It has gone beyond the anti-establishment youth market of the personal stereo to embrace everyone from children to grandparents. And research suggests that when people switch to an MP3 player, they listen to music for twice as long as before, Prof Bull says.

Leander Kahney, editor of Cultofmac.com, based in San Francisco, argues the iPod has enriched people's lives, allowing them to escape the daily grind. "It's been a great boon to people on the way to work. There's nothing like music to be a mood lifter. The iPod is a mood drug."

And despite attempts by competitors like Microsoft to launch their own versions, Apple's product has not had significant opposition, never slipping below 70% market share, Kahney notes.

Here Thierry Henry has his headphones in the "you may talk to me" position

German-Brazilian inventor Andreas Pavel can be regarded as the spiritual father of headphone culture, having invented the first personal stereo in the 1970s. Pavel's initial aim was to free recorded music from the yoke of the household music system.

But when he first tried out his prototype - "this magic combination of sound source and headphones" - he experienced something transcendental. "It was like a dream. It is the pleasure of the music combined with the vision of your environment. You are putting a soundtrack to life so that it becomes like a film."

In those days he was laughed at for wanting to move around while listening to music on headphones, he recalls. And Sony's marketing department told him his prototype was too expensive and wouldn't find a market.

But they later went on to develop the Walkman. In 2003, after 23 years of legal negotiations with Sony's lawyers, the Japanese electronics firm agreed to settle out of court.

So ubiquitous is headphone culture today that it has become a sort of cultural shorthand - often for a spoilt, selfish generation who lack civic values.

"Getting creative with a slow news day, NPR convinced classical music expert Miles Hoffman to create an iPod playlist for Honest Abe in honor of President’s Day. Hoffman’s picks include:  Friedrich von Flotow: “Ach so fromm” from Martha, a love song from an opera that Lincoln liked. Louis Moreau Gottschalk: The Union, a Fantasy on Patriotic Airs, Traditional Scottish: “Annie Laurie”
“I Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land” (Bob ‘n’ John Minstrels)  If “Dixie” comes as a surprise, Hoffman says it shouldn’t: “It had already been a popular song before the Civil War and came from a minstrel show.”  Lincoln had been quoted as saying, ‘I have always thought “Dixie” one of the best tunes I have ever heard.’ ”
“After the war,” Hoffman adds, “Lincoln is reported to have said, ‘That tune is now federal property, and it is good to show the rebels that, with us in power, they will be free to hear it again." From Cult of Mac.com

When British sailors were taken prisoner by the Iranians in 2007, Able Seaman Arthur Batchelor admitted he had "cried like a baby" after his iPod was confiscated by his captors. He was branded a national embarrassment by newspapers. In the same year, a Muslim juror was discharged from a murder trial after being caught listening to her iPod under the hijab.

But the most visceral concern is that the iPod is making people anti-social. It's not just the tinny noise that leaks out of the puny ear buds but the barrier the device erects between people. Telegraph columnist Bryony Gordon says young people have grown up to be "plugged in" to their iPod, rather than relating to their surroundings.

"I wouldn't stop someone wearing those white wires to ask for directions. It's like they're putting up a big closed sign," Gordon notes.

Prof Bull's interviews with iPod users confirm this perception. Many iPod users told him they resented people interrupting their listening to talk to them.

The iPod has thus created a minefield over how to behave. When entering a shop, should the user take off their headphones to talk to a sales assistant? Should they take one out? Or leave them both on and turn the volume down?

Debrett's etiquette adviser Liz Wyse says that both of them must come out. "It's very belittling to a shop assistant if you can't be bothered to take your headphones out. And the half on, half off, look is compromised - it's like you're going to put them back in any minute."

Many people wear headphones in circumstances where they would not anyway want to be disturbed 

But in a reflection of what a battlefield public space has become, she defends the iPod as a means of defence against a still worse public nuisance - the mobile phone. "An iPod is a brilliant thing on trains. Otherwise you're forced to listen to people's loud conversations on their mobile phones."

Psychologist Oliver James says the reluctance to take one's headphones out shows the "self-absorbed and atomised" state that people have got themselves into. "It's almost like madness. Will I come out of my bubble? How much of a compromise will I make to my external reality?"

But the fact is, it fits our modern desires, says Prof Bull. People have never talked much on trains - hence the famous commuters' trick of hiding behind their copy of the Daily Telegraph. The iPod is merely amplifying that trend.

"It can be lonely travelling through public space and using music warms it up," he says. The downside is that while the individual feels warmer - and has the perception of being safer despite not being able to hear an approaching assailant - the public realm becomes a less social, "chillier" space.

Mocked the world over in the press, on his first visit to Buckingham Palace in 2009, President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth II an iPod. Given a second chance, his 2011 gift for the British monarch was decidedly more Presidential and traditional.  According to the White House, Mr. Obama gave the queen a collection of rare memorabilia and photographs in a handmade leather-bound album that chronologically highlighted her parents' 1939 visit to the U.S.

The MP3 player dominates the Western world

But the iPod hasn't caused this move from public to personal space, it is just reflecting the trend, Prof Bull argues. Nowadays people work out to their own playlists in the gym rather than hearing the same tunes. But that's not to say people are becoming anti-social.

"The actual presence of people next to you in the street is not recognised as social any more. We get our intimacy from nearby loved ones or people who are absent over chat sites and social media," he says.

Pavel says he never set out to isolate people from the outside world when he made that first rudimentary personal stereo. Indeed he recalls how his patent suggested a non-recording microphone so that users could hear the world around them during the music. And there were to be up to four outputs so that people could listen in groups.

In the end, it's a trade-off, Pavel believes. Sometimes we want privacy and escapism, other times interaction with our fellow man.

"It is somewhat isolating. But when I'm on the bus I don't necessarily want to talk to people. I want the aesthetic involvement of listening to music."

main article originally published September 2011, by Tom de Castella for BBC News Magazine

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia