MANNERS AND OTHER MATTERS

I gave an interview yesterday regarding the place of “chivalry” in modern society…whether it is a dead concept, and how a “gentleman” should respond when his polite behaviour is met with derision by a woman. But what is chivalry?  In his study of Chivalry,   The Broad-Stone of Honour ,   Kenelm Henry Digby   offered the following definition: 'Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world.'   The Oxford dictionary defines chivalry as: courteous behaviour, especially that of a man towards women: he still retained a sense of chivalry towards women . While 50 years ago it was normal for a man to pay his date’s way, hold the door open for a woman and pull her chair out at a restaurant, today’s etiquette is not so simple.  As I was quoted in the article in The West Australian: “I get p...

                                                     I was asked last week during a radio interview if I believed the "days of chivalry"are dead.  And in answering, I questioned how many of us these days actually know what chivalry is?   The Macquarie Dictionary advises that chivalry is first and foremost "the ideal qualifications of a knight, such as courtesy, generosity, valour, dexterity in arms"and that to be chivalrous a man would be "having good and polished manners, and a consideration of others". But given that knighthoods and dexterity in arms have little to do with life in the 21st century, how relevant are the good and polished manners and consideration of others? And how manners have changed.  I...