Is Chivalry Dying Out?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue XIX, 10 November 1900, Page 897

Is Chivalry Dying Out?

IF SO, WHY? We hear a great deal these days about the lack of courtesy on the part of women in street ears, and a great many sharp criticisms and cutting paragraphs are indulged in anent this alleged state of things. But it does not take very long for a crtical observer to discover that there is a good deal of nonsense in this kind of talk, and that much of it is talked and written merely as a cloak for indifference and lack of politeness on the part of men. That there are times when women fail to respond with a “Thank you!” for courtesies extended is unquestionably true, but the times and occasions are few and far between, as compared with those where the response is immediate and all that could be required. There is a certain class of men always on the look out for some excuse for criticism and fault-finding. These persons are instant in season and out of sea son in making public their ideas of the out-of-placeness. so to speak, of the women of the age. The enlargement of her sphere is a serious grievance to them, and they have no hesitation in saying so. and in predicting all manner of evil <o follow. As a matter of fact, the more intelligent the woman, the more likely she is to fill al] of the positions to which her circumstances call her. with credit tho herself and pleasure with credit to herself and pleasure some ill-bred woman in a street ear fails to say, “Thank you!” it is not at all just, to say nothing of being generous. to have the entire sex berated in consequence. It is a pity when men have so little to do that they can descend to pettishness of this sort. It is a pity, not so much on their own account and that of the women whom they abuse, as for its effect on the minds of children and youth: for the youngsters through this means ac-

quire a sort of contempt for the courtesies of life and those who observe them. They grow to believe that it >s not manly to offer a seat in a tiuin car or other publie conveyance >o a woman, because, perchance, she may be a woman’s rights woman, or one of those who are trying to supersede men in the various walks of life, the girl gets disgusted with the. boy’s rudeness, and if she have not careful home txr.ining, is likely either to return it in kind or to express herself in a way that might be characterised as extremely unladylike. If these croakers, these men who can see all sorts of ini|>ending dangers in the path of the universe on account of the advanced education of women, could be induced to keep their vaporings to themselves, the world would be better for it. They have a right to their opinions, but they have no right to poison the minds of the rising generation by a process of reasoning that for the most part has its origin in selfishness and brutal indiffei ence to anything else but their own ease and comfort.