Etiquette and Womanly Women

Loud talk and slang words are not for the ladylike girl, and although some people tolerate the loose manner some girls have, they do not admire it. Far more to be appreciated is the girl who openly avows that she likes nice clothes and is given over to many little feminine vanities, than the one who dresses so mannishly, and who imitates the walk of her brother, though she may be able to discuss the most abstruse subjects with an air of confident knowledge that her elders cannot even boast. – Four ladylike college girls in the early 1900’s.

The Womanly Woman

There is nothing more truly lovable than the woman who is genuinely womanly. There is a charm in her femininity that no acquired grace can lend. More especially in this age is the genuinely womanly woman admired, for girls seem to have a desire to be so manly, so loud, not only in mannerism, but in talk and dress, many choosing the sports of men in preference to the pastimes of women. The majority of men, I think, really prefer the quiet, lady-like girl with a soft, sweet voice, an affectionate disposition, and the girl who knows how to be a little lady, not only in her manners, but talk.

Loud talk and slang words are not for the ladylike girl, and although some people tolerate the loose manner some girls have, they do not admire it. Far more to be appreciated is the girl who openly avows that she likes nice clothes and is given over to many little feminine vanities, than the one who dresses so mannishly, and who imitates the walk of her brother, though she may be able to discuss the most abstruse subjects with an air of confident knowledge that her elders cannot even boast.

To be a ladylike woman does not mean that one need adopt fads and follies indiscriminately. The woman who can make her home bright and attractive, who can be the model hostess as well as wife and mother, who is well informed and able to talk intelligently, yet who is wise enough to realize that woman's privileges are preferable to woman’s right’s is the girl or woman we must all admire and the one fit to be taken to any honorable man's heart. - Mc Calls's Magazine, 1914

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

Etiquette: That was No “Lady,” Sir!

 

When speaking of females one has encountered while out and about, please keep mindful of the fact that the terms “Lady” and “ Woman,” just like the terms “Men” and “Gentlemen”— are not always synonymous.
———————————
“There are many good chances wasted by lack of promptness and businesslike habits, also by the inability to take up new ideas.” from ‘The Lady Magazine,’ on ‘How to Live,’ 1903
—Photo source, Pinterest 

No True “Lady” Would Indulge in Such Bad Manners

Not long ago, a resident of New York went into the post office in that city to procure a money order. As there were half a dozen persons ahead of him he naturally awaited his turn, although he was in a great hurry, as most New Yorkers try to make themselves believe they always are. The other prospective customers of Uncle Sam did not form into line, but herded themselves about the window. When those who were there first had transacted their business, this New Yorker, considering that his turn had arrived, stepped to the window to be served. What happened at this juncture, he relates in these words:

“Just as I was about to enter my application, a lady, who had just come, crowded past several people who had been waiting, as I had, and calmly shoved her application in before mine. I told her as politely as I could that I had been waiting there at least fifteen minutes and thought that, seeing I was in a great hurry, I should have precedence before her, whereupon she told me I was the rudest man she had ever seen, and besides went into a long discourse concerning the manners of modern men. I, nevertheless, held to my point and saw that I was served first.” After having cooled off he asks: “Was I right In doing so?” He thinks he was, but to satisfy himself on the ethics of the case, he has asked, through the New York Times, that others express their opinions regarding his course of action. 

We are genuinely surprised that any man who has long enjoyed the refining social advantages of the peerless town upon the historic Hudson; who has knocked elbows with the descendants of Diedrich Knickerbocker; who has been privileged to gaze upon the sacred person of a descendant of the famous game-leged governor of New Amsterdam; who, perhaps, may have enjoyed the more than a bowing acquaintance with the creator of that justly prized appendage which in a later day wrought the undoing of the distinguished mollycoddle from Indiana; who certainly must have read more or less of the newspaper condensations of the work of the illustrious Ward McAllister, entitled “How to Behave After You Have Succeeded in Breaking In” — we are surprised, aye, we are astounded that there should have arisen any doubt as to the channel into which this anxious inquirer should have diverted his behavior.

Under any and all circumstances this New Yorker, whose appeal for enlightenment indicates his gross ignorance of the commonest laws of etiquette as they relate to social intercourse between ladies and gentlemen, should have.

Avaunt there! The Herald narrowly escaped committing itself! It retreats in time! It seeks further enlightenment, more definite evidence, before it dare to pass judgment.

This New Yorker has not been fair. He has tried to trip us. He is paradoxical, equivocal, deceitful — we may be pardoned, we trust, for suggesting the possibility that he has innocently perpetrated an untruth, lacking the antecedent intention to deceive.

He says: “A lady who had just come crowded past several people who had been waiting.”

Impossible. No “lady” would ever “crowd past several people who had been waiting.” Our friend from New York needs one of two things: A new pair of spectacles or a new lexicon.— Los Angeles Herald, 1907

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