Ladylike behavior

“ Gallantry and Ladyism should be a prominent feature in the education of young people. Politeness to ladies cultivates the intellect and refines the soul and he who can be easy and entertaining in the society of ladies has mastered one of the greatest accomplishments. There is nothing taught in school, academy or college, that contributes so much to the happiness of man as a full development of his social and moral qualities.
4. Ladylike Etiquette.—No woman can afford to treat men rudely. A lady must have a high intellectual and moral ideal and hold herself above reproach. ”

“ Though some ladies, of intelligence and refinement, do fall unconsciously into such a practice, it is certainly very unlady-like, and in very bad taste, to scold; and the further a woman departs from all approach to it, the more perfectly she sustains her character as a lady. ”

“ These are a few suggestions only among many we would hint to the stronger and more exciting sex to be reflected on for the improvement of their tastes and manners. In the mirror thus held up before them, they can not avoid observing the very different standards by which the behavior of the two sexes is constantly regulated. If any reason can be assigned why one should always be a lady, and the other hardly ever a gentleman, we hope it will be done. ”

“ There is no period of history which records the authority of the gentler sex without also recording its injurious effects. Leaving out the darker shades of the picture, are not impulse and sentiment the two mainsprings of all female action? ”

“ The inherent narrowness of the feminine nature, its unswerving devotion to the traditional dogmas of womanliness, now expressed itself in every line of her face and figure.
“I don't think any woman has any call to talk as you are doing,” she said with grave reproof. ”

“ What fathers, husbands, brothers, lovers can be thinking about, to be willing that the women they respect and love, should appear in public, looking like women whom they despise, is a marvel to me. Why they do not say this to them, and shame them into a decent appearance—if their glasses cannot effect it—I do not know. Oh, the relief it is to meet a lady, instead of a ballet-girl! Oh, the relief it is to see a healthy, firm-stepping, rosy, broad-chested, bright-eyed woman, clad simply and free from bunches and tags! ”

“ Indeed, your ladyship does not know what you are asking for. To sit and simper through a comedy in which the filthiest subjects are discussed in the vilest language; to see all that is foolish or lascivious in your own sex exaggerated with a malignant licence, which makes a young and beautiful woman an epitome of all the vices, uniting the extreme of masculine profligacy with the extreme of feminine silliness. Will you encourage by your presence the wretches who libel your sex? ”

“ I have noticed in feeble-minded and insanity institutions that the eclipse of personality is more complete among the females. Perhaps it is because we are used to especial comeliness in women; and to see a vacant or disfigured countenance above feminine habiliments instead of the sweet flower of woman’s face, is dreadful beyond the dreadfulness of man’s features under similar misfortune. ”

“ Young ladies were taught to be very demure and formal in their behavior in company, where they sat bolt upright, with their hands crossed, or in other constrained attitudes. In a poem, written about 1430, entitled How the Good Wife Taughte Hir Dougtir, we have the rules which were enforced upon girls for their conduct in society, and particularly the advice which was tendered the girl with regard to her marriage and her subsequent conduct. ”

“ It may be, from his previous conversation on woman's foibles, that you have been, ready to form a very different opinion,—but you are mistaken; and so will you often find yourself in the journey of life, should you thus estimate character in general. Deceit frequently lurks beneath the smile and honeyed words of the flatterers, and he who believes that the avenues to woman's heart are only accessible by such means, proves, beyond a doubt, that he has associated with none but the frivolous, the vain and weak-minded of the sex. ”

“ Neither is it well to bring together a gay, lively woman of the world, and a solemn, serious, repulsive dame, who is a contemner of the world and all its enjoyments. There can be no conversation that is mutually agreeable, between a real lady of true delicacy and refinement, and a so-called lady whose behaviour and talk are coarse and vulgar,—or between a woman of highly cultivated mind, and one who is grossly ignorant of every thing connected with books, and who boasts of that ignorance. ”

“ As for that little sharp-featured, flirting, deceitful countess, she can’t hold a candle to her. What fools and blind men are with regard to women! It is quite impossible to decide why one piece of femininity should hold them as in a vice whilst they pass over or ignore the virtues of another. ”

“ Nor will race, education and wealth combined make a woman a true lady if she shows a want of refinement and consideration of the feelings of others.
Good manners are only acquired by education and observation, followed up by habitual practice at home and in society, and good manners reveal to us the lady and the gentleman. He who does not possess them, though he bear the highest title of nobility, cannot expect to be called a gentleman; nor can a woman, without good manners, aspire to be considered a lady by ladies. ”

“ The young women inevitably grow up mere creatures of impulse. Where are those high qualities which are necessary to give them their proper influence over the minds and actions of the other sex? Where is that powerful sense of the duties of their calling and position, that is necessary to create confidence in the breast of the lover or the husband? ”

“ I wish not to describe it in too flattering a manner, by telling how many a young heart is made to throb for the first time with vanity, and idle thoughts, and foolish calculations, in consequence of his flattery and attentions; but it is most important he should know, that while women naturally and necessarily look to the stronger sex to give character and decision to their own sentiments; it is in the common intercourse of society, that such sentiments are implanted, fostered, and matured. ”

“ Didn't it lay up needless future misery to go on deceiving helpless women into putting a preposterous overvaluation upon the mere possession of their sex? Lastly, and above all, wasn't it a colossal libel on all womanhood to accept the strut and mannerism born of this deception as the true essentials of "womanliness"? ”

“ It becomes the duty of ladies of influence to rise above the silly vanity which, I fear, affects some of them, of seeing their ladies'-maids as smart as ladies, and to oppose innovations on the decencies of society, so pernicious to the class upon whom much of our comfort depends. ”

“ One day she is all smiles and gladness. A stranger seeing her in the house will praise her. ‘In all the world,’ says he, ‘there is not a better or a fairer lady.’ But another day she is insupportable to look at or to approach. ”

“ It is labor in vain to point out to them that an affection, unaccompanied by the necessary precautions, should be repelled by a young lady as an insult to the dignity of her sex. But they will readily listen to any language that flatters their vanity, which paves the way to so many fatal friendships that often entail a lifetime of woe and sorrow. ”

“ Women's instinctive attitude had a unique chance of displaying itself, and one wondered at the combined prudery and sentiment with which the subject was approached, while the most offensive part of their conventionalism was the sex-obsession, which was clotted, like cream turned sour, on all their judgments. ”

“ Now I think the quality which so attracts is womanliness, the most desirable of all the gifts a girl is permitted to cultivate. All the littlenesses in the social customs of girls; all their raw, untrained, ungenerous acts, their indulgences, their prejudices, are the weak and despised signs of unwomanliness. ”

“ Even now I am returning from a series of meetings in England, which I attended as a delegate from New York, and mixing with these noble-minded women has completely cured me of that false modesty that so [335] handicaps our sex. I believe now that it is a woman’s privilege, just as much as a man’s, to declare her affection. ”

“ She has a look—a way, that even women feel. You may judge, sir, if we, old stagers at the business, have been willing to take her in and keep her, at any price,—a woman who won't show her face except to me, and who will not leave her room without her veil and then only for walks in places where no one else wants to go,—she must have some queer sort of charm to overcome all scruples. ”

“ So habitual is this to gentlemen, that a young lady meeting with deference and attention every where, is apt to fall into the error of supposing that it belongs to her sex as a right, instead of being yielded by good feeling. We can suppose no other to be the reason why so many ladies, instead of waiting for these preferences to be shown, boldly claim them ”

“ She may be too largely gifted with the male virtues, but then she has a very sparing collection of the female vices. Nature may be to blame for having made her one of the weaker vessels, but imperfect and manly as she is, she still retains the inward gentleness of the woman, and many fine ladies, who stand the highest in the pulpits of society, would preach none the less effectively if they had only as good a heart—even with the trumpery straw in which, like a rich fruit, it is enveloped—as the MODEL FAST LADY. ”

“ And is it so, that woman is responsible, in a great measure, for the fashions and habits of the community in which she lives? It is even so. If she discard that foolish frippery and passion for display, which occasionally characterize her own sex, it will not long live. ”

“ Exact attention to points of etiquette, gracefulness, accomplishments, proper subservience to the will of others, do not of themselves make womanliness; many more than these characteristics, and greater, are needful. First of all, a girl must feel she is a woman, with a heart to cultivate in its affections, restrain in its desires, curb in its selfishness ”

“ It sounds mere idiotcy, the thing is so obvious, when one reduces it to words, but yet neither men nor women themselves—for the most part—seem to recognize the fact that womanliness is a matter of sex, not of circumstances, occupation, or clothing; and each sex has instincts and proclivities which are peculiar to it, and do not differ to any remarkable extent even in the most diverse characters ”

“ This association of the sexes operates as a restraint upon both, salutary to good conduct and good morals. Such restraints are far more effective than the staid lessons of some old, wrinkled duenna of a school-mistress, whose failure to find a sweetheart in girlhood, or a husband in youthful womanhood, has soured her toward every man, and filled her with hatred for the happiness she witnesses in wedded life, and which is ever present all around her. ”

“ You’ll remember how we all cried out that the delicacy of her sentiments, her respect for the punctilio of her family, the fear of directing public attention to her own equivocal position, and a dread of finding herself repulsed, would all prevent a female of elegant feelings from taking so bold and resolved a step. ”

“ If she eats peanuts in public places, and talks loud, and flirts with strange boys, and chews gum or displays a toothpick she is common, even though she wore a four-foot placard emblazoned with the misnomer, "lady." If she is quick to be courteous, unselfish, gentle and retiring in speech and manner in public places, she is true gold, even though her dress be faded and her bonnet be old. You cannot mistake any girl any more than you [233] can mistake the sunshine that follows the rain or the lark that springs from the hawthorn hedge. ”

“ I can fancy these ladies laughing at the cautions, and resenting or despising the remonstrances of their friends of the other sex on this particular matter, and claiming to be the sole judges of what they shall wear. I have seen some of them enjoying the opportunity of defying opinion, and of proving that they dress to please their own notions, and not men’s taste. ”

“ She recognizes the superiority of her sex in matters of taste and in the enjoyment of "serious pleasures which make only the MIND LAUGH and do not trouble the heart" She reproaches men with "spoiling the dispositions nature has given to women, neglecting their education, filling their minds with nothing solid, and destining them solely to please, and to please only by their graces or their vices." ”

“ XV. So true is the statement concerning the vastly greater and superior relative value of the Feminine Principle, that even in the present lubricious age, when woman is almost everywhere wrongly rated, badly educated, and worse placed than she should be, there is still, deep down in the hearts of most, even the coarsest men, a measure of gallant respect, which occasionally gleams forth in noble deeds, and brave championage of the sex, in such guise as to give great hope for fuller and better things by and by. ”

“ It is a crisis in the life of a young maiden when she becomes conscious for the first time that she is an object of special interest to a member of the opposite sex; that interest being conveyed in a thousand delicate yet unmistakable ways, which cause a strange flutter at her heart, and make her examine her own feelings to find whether there be a responsive chord. The modest, sensible, womanly girl, who is not yet extinct, in spite of sundry croakers, will know much better than anybody can tell her how to adjust her own conduct at this crisis in her life. ”