Hello!
I think we need to have a conversation about the “Rules of Etiquette”. Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of videos and demonstrations that say things like, “Women in the Victorian Era never showed their ankles.” Or, “Until the 1920’s only prostitutes or actresses wore make-up.” And even, “Middle Class people in the Victorian age had more relaxed rules because they needed to have jobs to support themselves, which left them with less time to worry about etiquette and fashion.” Um… no, no, and no.
So let’s try to unpack some of this.
Firstly, etiquette changes often and is not a progressive line from restrictive to permissive. Different eras might be more permissive, while others are less so. A time that was wildly decadent could be followed by a religious fervor. We’ve all seen a liberal government followed by a conservative government and back again. Etiquette is a reaction to the history surrounding it. It can change slowly for decades and then suddenly irrevocably alter in what seems like the blink of an eye. It can also reverse course and rush backward in a doomed attempt to turn back time. When people speak of etiquette as a movement from the formal olden days to the free-for-all modern era, they are deeply misguided.
A problem I also see is the penchant many have of thinking that British etiquette is the only “true” set of etiquette rules for all places and in all eras. I feel like if you’re reading this, you already know that this is false. Not only do different countries have different standards for etiquette dictated by religious differences, but also cultural, historical and even the climate will alter the modes and mores of a people. The same peoples might find they have multiple etiquettes for differing locations. The British who lived in England behaved differently from the British who lived in colonial India. People may travel, but not every rule of etiquette does.
Add to all of this the fact that because etiquette is inextricably linked to food and fashion, it could be temporarily effected by fashionable fads. Indeed, etiquette could be effected by subjects as wide ranging as literature, art, science and medicine. There are direct correlations between the introduction of gas lighting and the etiquette surrounding personal hygiene. Medical advancement in germ theory altered the length of women’s skirts. Capitalism has had a profound effect on etiquette. And don’t get me started on how wars consistently upend the status quo of social behavior.
Then there is the woefully wrong conclusion that only the upper classes had a strict etiquette. Classes may have followed different etiquettes, but depending on the place and situation, each class could be more rigid in certain areas while being more permissive in others. These are complex relationships between people and etiquette, and like the humans who create it, is malleable.
The etiquette of upper class England at the turn of the century might permit a married lady, (who had already provided heirs) to engage in multiple affairs as long as they were discreet, while a middle class woman could not as easily done the same. While an upper class woman of a certain era might be a pariah if she didn’t know how to use multiple utensils in eating a vast number of exotic dishes, even a well-equipped middle class gal would not only have never learned to use many of those accoutrement, but she could never have hoped to afford to consume most of the foods they were intended to service.
This brings me to to another really important point that my father used to remind me of, “there is nothing that everyone does”. There are always contrarians. There are always people who through a mix of charisma and charm, get away with things that others can’t. There are those who are too rich and powerful to be made to follow the rules, those smart enough to figure out how to bend the rules and those too kind and inclusive to exclude those who were meant to be excluded. When you start to add up all of the people who might opt out of certain rules, you’ll find it’s quite a few.
Etiquette books are a very good indicator for some of the general rules that were being followed at any given time, but as we’ve discussed before, these guides can change drastically over a short span of time, are subject to vast regional differences and often contradict one another. Plus, they were written for people who did not know the rules, so likely the middle class, the newly rich or those entering service. If you were raised by a nanny and governess from birth, you didn’t need a book to tell you how to act. They taught it to you or you learned by watching. Etiquette books were also read by a certain type of person, sort of like self-help books today. There are always people who don’t care about fitting in and they didn’t buy etiquette books. So while etiquette books are very, very helpful, they are not infallible.
Guides to Manners also do not often describe the etiquette of less obvious groups. Prisons have etiquette, surfers have etiquette, there’s an etiquette to passing a joint. One might not think of these as etiquette, but they are. They are the rules by which a group indicates membership and fidelity. I love it when I’m able to learn these as they tell you so much about the values of the people in differing groups.
All this is not to say that there weren’t real codified codes of behavior that have been followed. Just that their application was more nuanced than most people acknowledge. More importantly, specific rules were rigidly followed by narrow bands of people, but only at a very specific period of time in history. A wealthy Edwardian woman would place her gloves beneath her napkin at dinner, while that woman in Victorian times might have unbuttoned the glove and tucked the fingers into her wrist. Glove etiquette changed dramatically in the 19th and 20th centuries, but very few people ever needed to know these rules. The etiquette of how to live with ten people in a tenement house was I’m sure as ingrained from birth as were the rules learned in upper class nurseries, they just didn’t get written down into books. Equally the rules of precedence for royals is likely no more intricate than the rules of precedence within an organized crime family, I dare say there may be considerable overlap.
Just remember that while in the past there might have been fewer options for how to behave publicly, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t differences. When you read a book, remember that the author has not only a point of view, but also a mission in mind. Even books by historians have a point of view and biases you may not be aware of.
There is so much more to discuss, but I’ll stop here. I hope the new year brings you peace and love.
