Proper manners: then and now

While rummaging among some dust-covered books in my attic recently, I came across Etiquette by Emily Post, which was originally published in 1922.Mrs. Post was well-known to most us of advanced years as the final word on manners, good and bad. Some of her pronouncements make good sense today, others seem quaint, and yet others appear affected, even for 1922.

Following are some of her choice pointers:

Proper dress for male college students. The best description of a college boy’s clothes would be that they were those which suit his type (she doesn’t provide any description of the “type” she has in mind). In its best expression it is merely the result of rather loosely fitted clothes that have a comfortably worn look, a collar not too high nor too tight, tie neither too thick nor too stiff, comfortable woolen socks and thick-soled shoes. (p. 734).

Proper dress for female college students. Here Mrs. Post talks of knit skirts with matching blouses, “two suits of tweed…and several sweater blouses of varying lengths.” And, of course there must be evening gowns for formal occasions and, also, “a dress or two to wear under a coat to church on Sundays or to town for lunch on Saturdays.”

One has to laugh at these dicta—a collar not too high, a necktie; knit skirts and matching blouses, sweater blouses--when one sees college students today. Most likely they are wearing blue jeans (with ripped-out holes around the knees) or shorts, along with Army surplus flack jackets, work shoes of the type worn by laborers or $120 name brand sneakers, and T-shirts with all manner of inscriptions on them. And, of course, baseball-type caps (often turned backwards).

When I was a college student back in the 1940’s the attire called for by Mrs. Post was pretty much the standard. Both by my recollection and by looking at my college yearbooks, men wore long trousers, button-up shirts (sometimes, incredibly, with a necktie) or T-shirts in warm weather with no inscriptions on them other than maybe the name of the college in small letters around the pocket (and perhaps the football team’s mascot). And, oh yes, they usually wore white buckskin shoes (loafers were a secondary choice).

College women most often wore skirts and sweaters and saddle Oxford shoes. Slacks were only worn for picnics and other very informal social occasions.

Hallmarks of a “gentleman.” Mrs. Post sets all manner of booby traps around the man who aspires to be a gentleman; he had best write them down and study them daily lest he inadvertently trip up one day and forfeit that distinction.

The honor of a gentleman demands the inviolability of his word and the incorruptibility of his principles; he is the descendant of the knight, the crusader; he is the defender of the defenseless and the champion of justice—or he is not a gentleman. (p. 616)

A very well-bred man intensely dislikes the mention of money and never speaks of it (out of business hours) if he can avoid it. (p. 616)

A man of honor never seeks publicly to divorce his wife…but for the protection of his own name, or that of the children, he allows her to get her freedom…the man who publicly besmirches his wife’s name, besmirches still more his own, and proves that he is not, was not, and never will be, a gentleman. (p. 617)

No gentleman goes to a lady’s house if he is affected by alcohol. (p. 617)

A gentleman does not bow to a lady from a club window; nor according to good form should ladies ever be discussed in a man’s club! (p. 617). Hey, I can get by on that one—I have never bowed to a lady from a club window. Nor have I discussed ladies in a club, mainly because I never knew anything titillating enough to interest anyone in a club (also because I have only belonged to two clubs, each for only a brief period of time).

Introduction of a gentleman to a lady. The genteel way for a gentleman who is visiting or moving to a city new to him, and wants to meet a lady in that city, is to obtain a letter of introduction from a mutual friend. However, there are strict rules to be followed:

A letter of introduction is handed you (the gentleman) unsealed, always. It is correct for you to seal it at once in the presence of its author…If you are a man and your introduction is to a lady, you go to her house as soon as you arrive in her city, and leave the letter with your card* at her door, without asking to see her. (This obviously means that she has a maid or some other servant who will answer the door.) She should—unless prevented by illness—at once invite you to tea or to lunch or to dinner or at least name an hour when she will receive you. ( p.20)

* According to Mrs. P., everyone older than a toddler must have a visiting card; she even prescribes their dimensions (one set of dimensions for a married woman and another for “very young girls”). “That very little children should have visiting cards is not so ‘silly’ as might at first thought be supposed,” she says. “Many mothers think it is good training in social personality for children to have their own cards, even though they are used only to send with gifts and upon very rare occasions.” (p. 115)

Highway etiquette. In addition to common sense actions while driving a car, such as avoiding impatient maneuvers or giving in to road rage, she lists the signals that drivers should give by sticking their left arm out the window: hand held flat (slowing down or stopping), finger pointing straight out (left turn), arm bent at the elbow with hand raised (right turn). I well remember those signals from the days when I first drove a car—there were no built-in turn signals or rear lights flashing as the brakes were applied.

On Mrs. Post. According to the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia, she was born Emily Price into a high-society family in Baltimore in 1873. At age 19 she married Edwin Main Post, a society banker in New York, and had two sons by him; they were divorced in 1905 (when she was 32) “due to her husband’s infidelity.” She wrote books and magazine articles on various topics, but her Etiquette was by far her most successful work. She died in 1960 at age 86.

The latest edition of Etiquette (apparently its 18th, published in 2006) is available through on-line booksellers.