Etiquette Pre-Marriage and Post

Why is it that a man will liberally sprinkle his conversation with “thank you.” and “I beg your pardon.” before marriage, and when the glamour of the honeymoon has faded into the past forget to assist his wife with her coat? What is the reason that a woman will spend an hour at her toilette before meeting her fiancé, and when married will appear positively unattractive?

Manners and Married Life

Why is it that a man will liberally sprinkle his conversation with “thank you.” and “I beg your pardon.” before marriage, and when the glamour of the honeymoon has faded into the past forget to assist his wife with her coat? What is the reason that a woman will spend an hour at her toilette before meeting her fiancé, and when married will appear positively unattractive?

I fear that the answer is in the fact that somewhere in either person’s conduct there is a lack of good breeding. Just because a person is married is certainly no excuse for a neglect of the ordinary social customs. Indeed, a lapse of good manners in the behavior of married people always fills me with disappointment and dread for the years in the far-away future.

It is the first step that counts. Never let yourself forget that you owe to your husband a consideration and politeness equal to, if not surpassing, that given to others: check your first impulse to answer him rudely: think twice before you act once when a wish to be impolite arises.

There are many little rocks upon which the happiness of married life comes to grief. First, there is the question of letters. Now, a letter that your husband receives belongs to two persons, to him and to the writer. His marriage has nothing to do with this, and the conventional understanding must not be undermined by a wife reading her husband's correspondence when the fancy strikes her. This rummaging propensity is ill-bred. The wife who complains that her husband never tells her anything will never win his confidence by reading his letters unasked.

Frequently there is an exchange of confidences in the first weeks of married life in which every memory, every past love affair and all friends and relatives are discussed. And frequently these easily made confidences are returned under the guise of chastisements in moments of irritation. A sufficient amount of reserve is lacking in this mode of action, and reserve is the sign of good breeding. Every little thing should not be told to the husband or wife. Remember that an account of past affairs involves the other person.

Bad temper is an evidence of bad manners in an aggravated form. Married people should exercise self-control just as carefully as those in single-blessedness. In closing, let me urge that politeness be emphasized in married life with the same care that occurs in the days before. A pardon should be asked of one's husband just as quickly as of the grocer: an entrance to his dressing room should be preceded by a knock just as surely as that to a guest’s room. 

The great wheels of married life will move infinitely more smoothly if urbanity be the guiding thought. Be polite, even to your husband! Consider his feelings and his opinions as carefully as you do those of his nephew. Let there be an amiable manner at breakfast when alone with him as well as at dinner when guests are present. Never allow the familiarity of married life to breed a contempt for good manners. –Chico Record, 1909

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

1955 Etiquette Book for Family Living

“Etiquette rules are designed to make life simpler and more pleasant, after all, and life around the house could stand a little of both. Perhaps it is impossible for most husbands to understand everything about their wives.” — Amy Vanderbilt 

Manners for Family Living Told in New Etiquette Book

NEW YORK (UP) People used to refer to etiquette books
when there was a question about forks or formal invitations, but that's the least of a modern book on manners. Husband grouchy when he gets up in the morning? Consult the etiquette book.

Under the heading, “The Agreeable Husband,” Miss Vanderbilt writes that if a man must be grouchy before coffee in the morning, he should be sure the family understands that there is nothing personal about it.

She also lists the following rules for agreeable husbands:

• The agreeable husband conducts himself at the table exactly as if guests were present. 
• He is clean, combed and generally presentable... 
• He should limit his smoking to the end of the meal, using an ash tray instead of dishes as ash receptacles....
• “No well-brought-up husband should ever bring anyone except a most intimate friend home to dinner without sufficient warning to his wife.”

There is also a section on agreeable wives, with emphasis on personal good grooming and tidy habits around the house. “Etiquette rules are designed to make life simpler and more pleasant, after all, and life around the house could stand a little of both. Perhaps it is impossible for most husbands to understand everything about their wives.” — By Elizabeth Toomey, 1955

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

Marital and Family Etiquette

Though words may seem little things, and slight attentions almost valueless, yet, depend upon it, they keep the flame bright, especially if they are natural. The children grow up in a better moral atmosphere, and learn to respect their parents, as they see them respecting each other.

Married to Politeness

There is as much of truth, as well as of that kind of philosophy which comes into every-day requisition, helping to strengthen and brighten the ties of social affection, in the subjoined brief article: 

"Will you?" asked a pleasant voice. And the husband answered, "Yes, my dear, with pleasure." It is quietly but heartily said; the tone, the manner, the look, were perfectly natural and very affectionate. We thought, how pleasant that courteous reply; how gratifying it must be to the wife. Many husbands of ten years experience are ready enough with the courtesies of politeness to the young ladies of their acquaintance, while they speak, with abruptness to the wife, and do many rude little things without considering them worth an apology.

The stranger whom they may have seen but yesterday, is listened to with deference, and although the subject may not be of the most pleasant nature, with a ready smile, while the poor wife, if she relates a domestic grievance, is snubbed, or listened to with ill-concealed impatience. Oh, how wrong this is — all wrong. Does she urge some request? "Oh, don't bother me!" cries her gracious lord and master. Does she ask for necessary funds for Susy's shoes or Tommy's hat? "Seems to me you are always wanting money is the handsome retort. Is any little extra demanded by his masculine appetite, it is ordered, not requested. "Look here, I want you to do so and so; just see that it's done;" and off marches Mr. Boor, with a bow and a smile of gentlemanly polish and friendly sweetness for even casual acquaintance he may chance to recognize. When we meet with such thoughtlessness and coarseness, our thoughts revert to the kind voice and gentle manner of the friend who said, "Yes, my dear, with pleasure."

I beg your pardon, comes as readily to his lips, when by any little awkwardness he has disconcerted her, as it would in the presence of the most fashionable stickler for etiquette. This is because he is a thorough gentleman, who thinks his wife in all things entitled to precedence. He loves her best; why should he hesitate to show it, not in sickly, and maudlin attentions, but in preferring her pleasure, and honoring her in public as well as private. He knows her worth, why should he hesitate to attest it? 'And her husband he praised her,' saith holy writ; not by fulsome adulation, not by pushing her charms into notice, but by speaking, as opportunity occurs, in a manly way, of her virtues. Though words may seem little things, and slight attentions almost valueless, yet, depend upon it, they keep the flame bright, especially if they are natural. The children grow up in a better moral atmosphere, and learn to respect their parents, as they see them respecting each other.

Many a boy takes advantage of a mother he loves, because he sees often the rudeness of his father. Insensibly he gathers to his bosom the same habits, and the thoughts and feelings they engender, and in his turn becomes the petty tyrant. Only his mother, why should he thank her? Father never does. Thus the home becomes the seat of unhappiness and disorder. Only for strangers are kind words expressed, and hypocrites go out from the hearth-stone fully prepared to render justice, benevolence, and politeness to any one and every one, but those who have the most just claims. "Ah! give me the kind glance, the happy homestead, the wiling wife and courteous children of the friend who said so pleasantly, 'Yes, my dear, with pleasure." –– The Daily Alta, 1857

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

Etiquette and an American Monarch

Another unsolicited opinion from"Rita," the Brit who doesn't care for American women marrying into Britain's titled families... "Can America be induced to have a reigning monarch I should like to see King Theodore on the throne!" – Rita, 1910

“The happiest marriages I was fortunate enough to discover in America were the marriages of a professional man; the happiest homes of their wives and families. Possibly the brutalizing force of money-making was less an element of existence in these instances.

“Commerce and speculation get into the business man's blood and vitiato his tastes and habits. The perpetual excitement of ‘deals,’ the perpetual chink of gold, are always more vital interest than his wife's companionship, or his children's dawning intelligence. To the professional man such things are welcome relief.  To the mere "wealth accumulator" they are of secondary importance. Hence the very small amount of family life seen in the United States is in any way to the professional man such things are welcome relief.

“I could not discover if there was a "middle class" in America. I believe not.  Every one is enormously rich, or insignificantly poor. If they are not rich, they try to pretend they are by taking expensive houses or apartments, and keeping automobiles, and attending every possible millionaire function that gives out ‘names of the guests’ to the reporters.”

Was “Rita’s” disdain of American women marrying into Britain's titled families, due to envy? A broken-off love affair of her own? An over zealous feeling of British patriotism? We'll never know. But we do know that jealousy and envy are not conducive to maintaining a civil and polite relationship with others.  “Excessive gaiety, extravagant joy, great depression, anger, love, jealousy, avarice, and generally all the passions, are too often dangerous shoals to propriety of deportment. Moderation in everything is so essential, that it is even a violation of propriety itself to affect too much the observance of it. It is to propriety, its justice and attractions, that we owe all the charm, I might almost say, the being able to live in society. At once the effect and cause of civilization, it avails itself of the grand spring of the human mind, self-love, in order to purify and ennoble it; to substitute for pride and all those egotistical or offensive feelings which it generates, benevolence, with all the amiable and generous sentiments, which it inspires. In an assembly of truly polite people, all evil seems to be unknown; what is just, estimable, and good, or what we call fit or suitable, is felt on all sides; and actions, manners and language alike indicate it. Now if we place in this select assembly, a person who is a stranger to the advantages of a polite education, he will at once be made sensible of the value of it, and will immediately desire to display the same urbanity by which he has himself been pleased.” –From Elisabeth Celnart's, “The Gentleman and Lady's Book of Politeness and Propriety of Deportment, Dedicated to the Youth of Both Sexes”

 

The word “Equality” has more than one interpretation.

“I have spoken about the conspicuous absence of a maternal instinct as a feature of American marriages. The American woman does not desire a large family or indeed any family at all. When she has a child she proceeds to bring it up on the most free and enlightened principles. It's nourishment is a series of experiments in patent foods; it's clothing a compromise between French, German, Russian, and English ‘styles.’

“When it is three or four years old it is called a ‘kid’ and goes everywhere with its parents, and becomes a general nuisance to everybody in hotels, or on steamer, car, or train. It is never rebuked or kept in its place like an English child, because that would be acting against true American principles. 

“It has nerves; it looks pasty and unhealthy; it is allowed to eat any sort of food at any time of day or night and it would never grow up a healthy or intelligent human being if it were not for school life and college training. They do some good in that respect, and the American youth and the American-maiden are the result. 

“Whether the training explains that no one –even an American citizen– was ever born ‘free,’ or could possibly be the equal in brains, character, or social position, of every other American citizen I cannot say.  But it does turn out men and women of whom their country may be proud. 

“One need not go further than Col. Roosevelt as an example. He speedily discarded the false for the real; feeble things for the strong things. No one has read his countries limitations more accurately, its possibilities more proudly, than this much beloved and much-abused ex-President. Can America be induced to have a reigning monarch I should like to see King Theodore on the throne!

“What Napoleon was to France, what Wilhem II is to Germany, what Edward the Peacemaker was to Great Britain, so might Roosevelt be to the United States could they but see into their own future and throw aside their greed, brutality, and narrow-mindedness in one effort, to achieve greatness.” –“Rita,” for the New York Times, 1910

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

Gilded Age Title Hunting Etiquette

"These matters are beautifully managed in the States. No wonder that an English husband finds it difficult to act up to the etiquette of such a position!"– From "Rita," in New York Times, 1910 

“Transatlantic matches became so much the rage among the newly rich that a whole industry sprang up to serve their needs, including professional matchmakers and magazines. Typically, the American heiress would start by consulting the quarterly publication The Titled American: a list of American ladies who have married foreigners of rank. This contained a register of all the eligible titled bachelors still on the market, with a handy description of their age, accomplishments and prospects – for example:

‘The Marquess of Winchester is the fifteenth Marquess and Premier Marquess in the Peerage of Great Britain. He is also the Hereditary Bearer of the Cap of Maintenance. The entailed estates amount to 4,700 acres, yielding an income of $22,000. He is 32 years of age, and a captain of the Coldstream Guards. Family seat: Amport House, Hampshire.’ From ‘The Titled American’ No 2, March 1890

This 19th-century version of match.com was in great demand in the Fifth Avenue and Newport mansions where these American heiresses lived. Many came from families whose wealth was very recent, and who were desperate to stand out in a famously snobbish New York society where mere money was no guarantee of acceptance. The upper echelon, known famously as The Four Hundred, was based on the number of people who could fit comfortably into Mrs Astor’s ballroom – Mrs Astor being the most powerful woman in New York society on account of both her breeding and her fabulous wealth.” –Daisy Goodwin, Cash for Titles: The Billion-Dollar Ladies, for Daily Mail Online 

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

Etiquette and a British View of Dollar Princesses

“Rita” was actually British
authoress, Mrs. Desmond Humphreys – Dollar Princesses, unlike their British peers, had loads of confidence, were not as restrained by rules of etiquette, and were considered very outspoken. They made an indelible impact on British society that continues to this day. Princess Diana's great-grandmother, Frances Work (later the Honorable Mrs. Frances Burke-Roche), was the daughter of another Wall Street millionaire, and was a Dollar Princess whose great, great grandson is now heir to the British throne.

It may seem as if I was prejudiced, but indeed I am not. If the real truth were spoken of most of these international alliances they would be proved not only unsatisfactory but immoral. Wholly and entirely immoral as concerned with the true obligations and the true meaning of marriage. But the truth never is spoken of such matters. It hurts too much; or humiliates to cruelly.

I had been told so much of the perfections of the American husband that I naturally studied him as a valuable addition to my snapshots of American character. Except that he made money for his wife to spend, and gave her too little of his time for quarreling, and let her do exactly as she pleased, there was nothing to discover. His public attitude was what his National pride in himself demanded. His private life and his views of marital obligations were just those of the ordinary selfish polygamist creature who has existed since the foundations of the world.   

Luncheons and teas in New York, at the Plaza, the Waldorf, Delmonico’s, or in private houses or clubs, did not interest me very much except as a surprise at the absence of men. No American — I ask pardon — New York man attends any “function” until the evening. He is too busy making money, commercially or professionally; but the women take so much pains to entertain each other and their guests that one scarcely notices the omission. Also, they have the good sense to dress as carefully and expensively for their own sex as the women of Europe deem necessary for the other. Still, I must confess to some natural surprise at the absence of men. Not that I consider the American man an ornamental addition to room or restaurant.

The American husband is neither better nor worse than any other husband, but it is considered unwise for his wife to say so. She praises him in notes of exclamation, and effects of pity for her English sister who has "freedom," and less money to spend on her own pretty, selfish, vain person.

The story was going through the length and breadth of the States as to a bogus title purchased by the usual American dollars for the new usual American daughter. I felt so sorry for the sordid story, the shame and misery that it entailed that I could not even say, “Well, you deserve what you get!” But I did ask, “Will this be a lesson to the American father, and the American daughter?” No one believed it would.

Which brings me back to my starting point. If marriage is not looked upon as a sacred obligation, it must of necessity sink to sordid barter. And when an “alliance” between two absolutely indifferent, yet commercially minded people is published, advertised, and gloried in, there is no one on earth to be more commiserated than those two people. And in their heart of hearts they know it, or will know it, ere the echo of their wedding bells has ceased to haunt their ears.

I was perpetually worried by interviewers as to my idea on divorce. American divorce, of course. I refused to give any opinion, so it was given for me in that airy independent fashion of your American interviewer. However, I read up on “statistics” on the subject, and made all sorts of judicious inquiries, and I learned that reports as to the number of divorces being a third of the number of marriages, were much exaggerated.

True that marriage is not looked upon as a binding contract; it has a pleasing illusion of instability, but that does not necessitate divorce. It only simplifies marriage. The “lamb” is led to the “slaughter” with a chastened hope of green meadows and sweet pasturage beyond the slaughter house. She grows less fearful of the ordeal, and looks forward to the escape. Just a leap into blindness, darkness, momentary confusion and then – Freedom.

To the American girl, Freedom is the breath of life. She expects it as her right and she only accepts a marriage as one of its prerogatives. Thus it is that no self-respecting American husband denies his wife her coterie of boys; her faithful admirers; The donors of candy and flowers, and corsage bouquets; the escort to theater and restaurant; the glad wild hooliganism of Coney or Manhattan Beach, or Long Island, or the romantic shelter of the Adirondacks. With all this liberty there is absolutely no need for any radical “change of partners,” unless indeed the lawful husband desires it or obliges it by some untoward scandal.

With a little discretion an American marriage might be the happiest and most tolerant of American contracts. Far less exacting than the professional or business one. It is certainly less important. –“Rita” for the New York Times, 1910

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

More Etiquette and Dollar Princesses

English society resented the way the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria’s oldest son, was so keen on the interlopers. But he defended his choice saying, “American girls are livelier, better educated, and less hampered by etiquette. They are not so squeamish as their English sisters and they are better able to take care of themselves.” The Prince, or Bertie as he was known, almost certainly had an affair with Jennie Churchill and was friendly with a number of the dollar princesses. 

Bertie once said to Winston Churchill, “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here” – the implication being that without Bertie’s patronage, a British aristocrat such as Lord Randolph Churchill would not have married a mere American like Jennie Jerome. As Jennie says in her memoirs in 1910, “Thirty years ago, in England as well as on the Continent, the American woman was looked upon as a strange abnormal creature with habits and manners something between a Red Indian and a Gaiety Girl.”

– Daisy Goodwin for Daily Mail Online's “Cash for Titles: The Billion Dollar Ladies”

Transatlantic Marriages Begin with a Show and Usually End up with a "Show—Up" 
– More from "Rita" on America's Dollar Princesses

Example after example we have had, and still will have. The American Duchess, or Princess, or Countess, or Baroness soon learns to loathe her empty honors. She is been spoiled, petted, adored in her own land by her compeers. But when it comes to holding her own against blue-blooded rank, against European exclusiveness, against the heredity assurance of the well-born and a haughty aristocrats of Court circles, she feel she is as out of place as a ballet dancer in a monastery.

This does not mean that the American Duchess or Countess is not very charming, very chic, very popular, but it doesn't mean that she is only a sham Duchess, a copy of a Countess, and that the genuine article always makes the imitation look–well, let us say– an imitation. No one is to blame except the nationality that marks division. When the Daughter of Independence takes a fancy to a title, or desires to exchange democracy for Royal prerogatives, her adoring parents never seek to deny her wishes. On the contrary, they beat them with such glittering tempt that the foolish Princeling or needy Peer rushes into clinch the bargain with all possible speed.          

Winston Churchill, Lady Jenny Jerome, and Randolph Churchill – "American girls are livelier, better educated, and less hampered by etiquette." – Queen Victoria's son, the Prince of Wales, aka "Bertie"

It's a purchase– money is paid; the press has a good time in cataloguing presents and making ludicrous mistakes over the arrogance of titles. The beautiful bride (no American bride was ever anything else) is carried off into exclusive banishment, there to find out the worth of her bargain, or reconcile herself to its obligations.

But the free and enlightened spirit usually kicks at restraint, mocks at feudal customs, and lives by “comparisons,” the aristocratic union soon falls short of promised bliss. Sometimes for sake of pride, for fear of mockery, the disappointed wife puts up with dissolution and consoles herself with frequent visits to her own beloved land and the home of her dyspeptic but heavily-dollared “poppa.”
                                                                   

From 1933 – Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage comprises information concerning the royal family, the peerage and baronetage. First published in 1769 and revised every 5 years. It is a comprehensive guide to the titled nobility of the United Kingdom.

Sometimes the English husband or the foreign “blackguard” agreed to go their way and leave the American wife to go hers–irrespective of confusion in Debrett’s, or the Almanac de Gotha. Sometimes a real desire for genuine happiness and the real things of true marriage give one or other the courage to break conventional fetters. But very, very rarely doesn't happen that the transatlantic marriage is a suitable or happy one.

When I visited American homes and noted the paramount importance of the wife I was not surprised that the American girl does not bear transplanting. We may be “cousins”; we may even regard ourselves as belonging to the same race, but apart from far-off claims of blood or birthright, the American, and the English are absolutely foreign to each other. They live a different life, they hold a different creed, (of honesty,) they speak a different language (metaphorically,) they are domestically and physiologically apart in all matters appertaining to domestic life. Each in his own country is admirable and admirably suited to what that country demands, but let them change places and they are a failure all the time. – By “Rita” in the New York Times, 1910

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

Etiquette, Manners and Dollar Princesses

A parody of the brokered 1895 marriage of Consuelo Vanderbilt and the Duke of Marlborough? Don't sugar-coat it, Rita. Tell us how you really feel... “The American Duchess or Countess is only a sham Duchess, or copy of the Countess, and the genuine article makes the imitation look an imitation.”

                                                                   

American Marriage a Mere Jest, 

says “Rita”

Our Wives Have No Maternal Instinct, According to Her, and Our Weddings Are of Less Importance Than Business Contracts

“That another life may be born, another soul sent into this world of misery and suffering. That high duties and great responsibilities attend this possibility, and these should not be lost sight of beneath the overwhelming importance of worldly considerations.”  According to correspondent “Rita,” “The American child is allowed to eat any sort of food at anytime of day or night.”

“From the obligations of things spiritual to the supreme necessity of things temporal, is not such a wide leap as it appears. Therefore I place the importance of wedlock as only secondary to the importance of those Invisible Mysteries we take in Faith and feed on in secret. Religion and Marriage are both possessed of spiritual significance-rightly considered. Of course this consideration is not obligatory on the contracting persons, even in America, the country of half a million creeds.

It has become the custom to treat marriage as a jest, or a mere legal contract capable of being dissolved at will. Ambition, rank, wealth, policy, necessity, each and all of these are concerned in that contract. What is more concerned and less considered is the one important factor in the matter. That another life may be born, another soul sent into this world of misery and suffering. That high duties and great responsibilities attend this possibility, and these should not be lost sight of beneath the overwhelming importance of worldly considerations. 

When the American bride concerns herself so deeply with the details of her wedding toilet, the latest thing in bridesmaid eccentricity, the probable amount of diamonds she will receive, and the knowledge that a tiara is eminently be coming to a Gibson girl head, she is not entering into the true spirit of marriage. She is merely setting herself up as an ornamental figurehead at which reporters can aim pallets of admiring adjectives, and the monde ou sont amuse may sneer.

The more I see of transatlantic marriages the more convinced I am that they are disastrous to anything like mutual happiness. Of ‘respect’ the less said the better. They begin with a ‘show’ and usually end up with a ‘show-up.’ And who can wonder?

The Englishman and the American woman are the most dangerous objects for the experiment of marriage. The one is perpetually running up against ideas, manners, and customs for into his own: the other is engaged in a continuous high-handed battle with such prejudices, manners, and customs. She takes refuge in defiance, and her husband in disdain. The chain girds and irks and tortures both until it is forcibly snapped in twain, or dragged through mire of scarcely concealed scandal.”–The New York Times, 1910

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

Etiquette, Marriage and Divorce?

He looked and acted "like a longshoreman."  He wielded a toothpick in company and broke the rules of etiquette in other ways! – Longshoreman on strike in New York, circa 1910

Husband Acted "Like a Longshoreman" Says Wife

Suit of Wealthy Riversider for Divorce Is Denied


Judge Houser of the divorce court yesterday rendered judgment for the defendant In the suit of Thomas Morehouse for a divorce from his wife, Emma I. Morehouse, a wealthy property owner of Riverside, whom the plaintiff charged with cruelty and desertion. Morehouse alleged there was no community property, but his wife, in her response to the suit, declared there was $50,000.

The case was marked with testimony regarding complaints made by Mrs. Morehouse against her spouse because of his manners. She alleged he looked and acted "like a longshoreman," and that he wielded a toothpick in company and broke the rules of etiquette in other ways. He alleged cruelty on the grounds that he was "called down" continually as to his manners. The defendant alleged that he deserted her on critical occasions when she required his presence, and her evidence showed she tried to keep him from leaving her. On the latter ground the verdict was rendered against Morehouse. — Los Angeles Herald, 1910

On Etiquette and Social Happiness of the Day

“There is in every human nature the desire for social happiness—which is, frankly, in other words, the desire so to impress by one's manner that one will be welcome and respected wherever one chances to be. And it is only by adhering to the fundamental laws of good society that this social happiness can ever be attained.

In observing the established etiquette of modern society it is necessary to pay particular attention to one's appearance, manner, and speech. It must be remembered that the world is a harsh judge and is perfectly willing to condemn us by outward appearances. In the street-car, in the ball-room, at the theater—every day people are reading the story of our characters and ideals.” – Book of Etiquette / Volume I

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

Etiquette and "Good Breeding"

Retrieving one's handkerchief does not necessarily make one a "gentleman" and being "well-bred" doesn't automatically make one a truly polite young lady.

The Letter and Spirit of "Good Breeding"

An excellent old gentleman, once upon a time, discussed the virtues and faults of his son with the young woman who was to be his daughter-in-law. "Dan's mother died when he was a baby," he said; "he has no near female relatives, he has spent nearly all his life in school and at college, so that he has never had that training which comes from association with well bred women. He is a good boy—as good as gold. There is nothing that he would not do for you. He will give you all that he has, he will be as true as steel, he will honor you and love you with all his heart, although he may forget to tell you so. He would die for you, but he will probably not pick up your pocket handkerchief for you." The young woman listened respectfully to a father's pardonable praise of his son, then she said, "But I do not want him to die for me, and I shall want him to pick up my pocket handkerchief." 

She preferred, says a correspondent of The InterOcean, who relates this little incident, the letter to the spirit. There are among many superficially polite people tremendous respect for certain requirements which they believe are an index to social position and indication of honorable origin, says the same writer. They would consider themselves hopelessly disgraced were they to put the knife to an improper use; to confuse the various spoons, forks and glasses about their plate at dinner, but other matters which affect their relations with their fellow being are passed over as of no consequence. 

One of the most common offenses among the superficially well bred is the slight and discourtesy which they show to dependents, or those whom they consider their social inferiors. The poor relation in his shabby coat and patched boots receives scant courtesy. The faithful dressmaker, met by chance in a public assemblage, is confronted with a stony stare, or is passed by and not seen at all. This is always the ill breeding of the snob, of the newly rich who, not feeling sure of themselves, knowing well what they are and whence they came, believe that their hardly earned place can be retained only by this stern discrimination. They believe that, like liberty, eternal vigilance is the price of "position."
–Los Angeles Herald, 1891

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