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IS Chivalry Dead? If so, Who Killed It?

megaprogman said:
its not about YOU tigger. Its about the fact that someone's bad behavior NEVER gives another person the excuse to be bad themselves, aka responsibility and civility.
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Eventually you folks will catch on that in my world it IS all about me. It always has been and probably always will be. That's what my life experiences have taught me.... Nobody else is looking out for my best interests, so I damn well better.

Until our society gets back to the ideal that poor behavior has consequences, and unpleasant ones, we're simply going to continue down the road to ruin.
 

As I said, you weren't a bad match: "She did call a couple of times...." I've found that men with these kinds of interesting, as you say, proclivities carefully choose their women. They have to. Or they'd be in jail.
 
MaggieD said:
As I said, you weren't a bad match: "She did call a couple of times...." I've found that men with these kinds of interesting, as you say, proclivities carefully choose their women. They have to. Or they'd be in jail.
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Yes, those of us who believe in proper discipline, order, and an old fashioned view of the world do have to choose our spouses carefully; because society no longer believes that actions should have consequences and that there is a proper social order that needs to be maintained.
 

This has to be a joke unless you are into S&M or something. That would never fly here.
 
Chivalry....


I got set up for a blind date with this gal, when I was in my 20's, by a relative. The agreement was that I'd pick her up at home.

Well, she walked out the door and I was very disappointed. She was remarkably homely. It wasn't her fault, she did the best she could with what she had, but she was just not attractive at all. Whatever the opposite of "a spark" is, that was my reaction to her appearance.

I firmly kept my disappointement off my face, smiled and said hello. She got in the car and we went to dinner; as is my custom, I paid for everything. I was pleasant and polite and tried to make good conversation. Afterward we went for a walk around the mall. Apparently she was rather taken with me, as she took my hand while we were walking. I had no interest in this, but I smiled and accepted it anyway.

She was a nice girl and pleasant company and made good conversation, except that she had a grating voice that was most unpleasant to the ear. I learned that her voice was a side effect of some kind of surgery she had, to correct a birth defect that had messed up her palate and skull. She had a number of other inborn health problems as well.

It was a bit early yet when I took her home; I made some kind of excuse about being tired from work. She was reluctant to let me leave and pressured me to promise I'd call her. I finally agreed and left.

I did call her back a few days later, and told her as politely and gently as I could that we would not be seeing each other again; I declined to answer "why" as I do not like to lie but also do not wish to hurt someone's feelings needlessly.

Since "your face would make a train take a dirt road" and "I'd fear for the health and appearance of our hypothetical children if you were their mother" would both have been needlessly cruel, I declined to say anything further.

Even so, I'd agreed to take her out and show her a good time, so that is what I tried to do.

Oddly enough I still think about her sometimes. She was very sweet; I hope she eventually found a man who was able to look past her problems and accept her as she was. I am slightly ashamed to admit that I could not, but there it is.

Still, if I had spun gravel leaving the driveway the moment she stepped out the door, that would have been very unkind. Going through with the date and being as nice to her as I could was the only honorable thing to do; to do otherwise would have been selfish and cruel and a dishonor to my family.
 
I don't think chivalry is even close to dead. I've experienced many scenarios first hand and through observation where men (and women) behaved in chivalrous manners. I think, if anything, people have become numb to chivalry. It happens all around us, but we're so accustomed to it that we simply ignore it or cast it off as insignificant because it's expected.


That said, I think chivalry is about appreciation. If a man offers a woman his coat when it's cold...that's chivalry. But how often today does the women simply take the coat and keep walking with little or no acknowledgment of the deed? If a man holds a door open, intervenes when another man is being a jerk, or stops on the side of the road to help a woman with a flat...do we express our gratitude or simply smile smugly and think, "well that's what he ought to do"?

Two anecdotes:
1. When I was 22 my grandmother passed away. I traveled to Michigan for the funeral and while in town I went out to a bar with my male cousins. During that bar trip, a man asked me to dance. I accepted and we danced to a few songs together before a slow song came on. I thanked him for the dance and walked over to the bar to order myself another drink. He followed me, pressed himself against me, and reached his hand out to squeeze my ass. I hauled around, told him to get away from me and stormed over to my cousins. I told them what the guy had done and, when he came up to me a moment later saying, "c'mon, baby. let's just have a little fun" while putting his hands in inappropriate places my cousins simply stood there. Nobody bothered to help me get the guy away from me despite my rejection of his advances. I ended up driving home alone, telling my cousins to call me when they were ready for a ride.

2. About 6 months before my grandmother passed, I was here in Texas at a bar with friends. Most of the people in the group were male..the only females were myself and the wife of a friend. The friend and his wife left around 11:30, leaving me with the rest of the guys. I had known everybody there since high school and was comfortable with all of them....even considered myself "on of the guys". Around closing time, one of these guys comes up to me and asks if I want to "come home". I respond that I'm quite alright to have another friend of ours drive me to my car (left at the married couple's house), and did a playful punch to the guy's shoulder. He then replied, "no. you need to come home with me" and proceeded to stick his meaty little hands in my crotch. I jumped back, slapped him, and bumped into another of our friends in the process. He asks what's going on, I explain our friend's actions, and the guy grabs the crotch-snatcher by the arm, leads him outside, and proceeds to whoop on him for a good minute. All the while, he's telling crotchy mccrotcherson that he's an asshole and a pig and he needs to learn how to be respectful.

Now, was my friend obligated to tear into his friend for being crude? Was my family obligated to step in and save me from a pig of a man? I don't really think so. But one did something while the others didn't. And the friend, to me, behaved in a chivalrous manner. And I thanked him profusely for placing his sense of right and wrong above his sense of loyalty to a friend who was behaving badly.
 
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stonewall50 said:
This has to be a joke unless you are into S&M or something. That would never fly here.
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No joke and no, I'm not really into S&M or anything. I AM a proponent of a much more traditional, old fashioned style and type of relationship.
 

Do you know what "chivalry" is? It's a 14th century ideal of romantic love between a single man and married woman, both of "noble birth". Assuming it died, do you miss it?

I think what you mean is good manners. They never die....they morph. Men used take off their hats indoors, when they wore hats. Ladies used to retire away from men after dinner. My own mother got dressed for a ride on a plane like she was meeting the Queen.

The essence of good manners is kindness. You make your guests feel at home, feel welcome. You show consideration for pregnant women and elderly people and little kids. You pick up after your dog. The actual customs may change....but not the motives.
 
Pinkie said:
Do you know what "chivalry" is? It's a 14th century ideal of romantic love between a single man and married woman, both of "noble birth". Assuming it died, do you miss it?
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As a student of medieval history I am well aware of what Chivalry was. Assuming it's dead, I miss it quite dearly. Though I think you might want want to do a little more research on the topic, since it's much older than you suggest and has little to do with romance. What you're talking about is Courtly Love, as I mentioned earlier.


No, I do not mean good manners. If that's what I'd meant, that's what I would have asked about.
 
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Tigger said:
No joke and no, I'm not really into S&M or anything. I AM a proponent of a much more traditional, old fashioned style and type of relationship.
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Well let's just put it this way. If I walked upon a man striking a woman in public it would be a very bad day to be him. I suggest you keep that in mind you decide to resort to such an act. It is NOT chivalrous NOR is it your duty to correct poor behavior of a full grown adult, unless said behavior was directly causing harm to another individual in which case intervening is different than correction.
 
MaggieD said:
If you're talking about how things were 500 to 1,000 years ago, then, yes, that kind of chivalry is dead. It's neither needed today nor practical. Chastity belts are very uncomfortable.
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Well, and it was limited to the nobility. The peasants wouldn't have had much use for what is more a sentimentalized literary conceit (the term "courtly love" was coined in the Victorian Age) than was ever a reality for most people.

Silly to pine for a long-ago time that didn't really exist for most people and hasn't existed for many centuries and never will again.

On the plus side, women are generally not considered chattel any longer and are allowed to learn how to read.
 

Where you see chivalry, I see "not being a jerk"

Odd how our perceptions are different.
 

Just realize one thing.... you would have met resistance. I'll leave it at that for politeness sake.

Hopefully that sort of thing will not be necessary again in the future. If it is, maybe I'll just strand her ass out in the middle of nowhere with little chance of getting home easily; which seems to be the preferable option according to the individuals who have commented on this.
 

Yeah, that's better. Leave her stranded. You sure have an interesting concept of how to treat women for someone who longs for chivalry to return. If you're with someone who's acting the jerk, you leave. The restaurant. That's about as jerky as you oughta' get. The actions of a real man would be to take her home and never see her again.
 
nota bene said:
Well, and it was limited to the nobility. The peasants wouldn't have had much use for what is more a sentimentalized literary conceit (the term "courtly love" was coined in the Victorian Age) than was ever a reality for most people.
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Exactly. It was a system for the people who were capable of maintaining the things necessary for the system to work. In this day and age a much larger percentage of the population should be able to do that.

nota bene said:
Silly to pine for a long-ago time that didn't really exist for most people and hasn't existed for many centuries and never will again.
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I would suggest that in today's society the percentage of people who should be capable of maintaining such a system (educated, literate, and middle class or better) is much higher. The fact that you're right that it will likely never exist again simply proves to me that our species really has no value anymore.

nota bene said:
On the plus side, women are generally not considered chattel any longer....
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Not necessarily a plus in everyone's mind.
 

I'm someone who understands that it's a Two-Way street. If she fails to act like a Lady, she will get treated like a wench and nothing more.

The actions of a real Lady would be not to put a Man in that position to begin with. If she cannot live up to the standards of decorum that she knows are expected of her, then don't accept the invitation to spend time with Him to begin with.
 

Tigger, there was no middle class in England until Henry VII. You were either noble (10%) or a peasant, basically.
 
And just FYI, you're using an extremely modern and movie-based interpretation of "wench." Its meaning is "young girl" or "maid."
 
nota bene said:
Tigger, there was no middle class in England until Henry VII. You were either noble (10%) or a peasant, basically.
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I'm well aware of that. However in today's society the middle class has the time, money, and education to maintain the type of Chivalrous society that was reserved for the nobility back in that age.

nota bene said:
And just FYI, you're using an extremely modern and movie-based interpretation of "wench." Its meaning is "young girl" or "maid."
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Yes I am. Mostly because the terms that would have been appropriate back then are not really appropriate anymore.
 
Tigger, if you dislike humans, there are ways to avoid them. It'd be a loss, IMO, but you're an adult. If you need total solitude, seek it out.
 
Pinkie said:
Tigger, if you dislike humans, there are ways to avoid them. It'd be a loss, IMO, but you're an adult. If you need total solitude, seek it out.
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I wish it truly was that simple, Pinkie. Unfortunately I do not have the finances to make a life of total seclusion possible. Besides, that's not what I'm looking for. I would just like to find a way to get through this world without having to violate the most basic principles I believe in on a daily basis just to survive.
 
nah its not dead! Take last night for instance my wife has been feeling a little sick recently and didnt feel like sex so I settled for a hand job...
 
megaprogman said:
Where you see chivalry, I see "not being a jerk"

Odd how our perceptions are different.
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The word "chivalry" has a more elegant and gentlemanly sound to it, and is less awkwardly phrased than "not being a jerk"... otherwise there's not a whole lot of difference really, at least the way I mean it.

To me, it is mainly about seeing someone who has a vulnerability or a weakness of some kind, and exhibiting a little extra kindness toward that person.

That person can be a female trying to do something beyond her physical strength, or a mother struggling to manage kids and packages and a door all at once, or an elderly person, or someone in a wheelchair... anyone who typically has less physical power and capability than you do, should be treated with a little extra consideration.

It could also be called "Gentlemanly behavior".

It is the antithesis of the bully, the wifebeater, the elder-abuser, the jerk, the rapist... those who abuse and prey on those who are commonly less able to physically defend themselves, and the jerks who are too busy to pause and help an old lady with her groceries.
 

Make a 5 year plan. If solitude is that important, you can do it. Not in comfort, prolly, but that's not your main goal, is it?

As for violating basic principles, like what? Don't toot your horn? Don't steal your neighbor's newspaper? Pick up after your dog?
 
Pinkie said:
Make a 5 year plan. If solitude is that important, you can do it. Not in comfort, prolly, but that's not your main goal, is it?
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There are medical issues that make it pretty much unfeasible. Trust me, I wish it were otherwise.

Pinkie said:
As for violating basic principles, like what? Don't toot your horn? Don't steal your neighbor's newspaper? Pick up after your dog?
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Things like who I do business with, who I have to associate with every day, etc.... Just having to deal with the stupidity of the bureaucracy in the world these days. About the only thing that's kept me sane the last couple of months is the fact that I no longer have to deal with my two former roommates, having moved into my own place at the fist of November. My own little Fortress of Solitude. It's still a work in progress but it's a nice little hidey-hole.
 
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