Conduct and Politeness

The Lady's Realm: Vol XX: May to October 1906, © Mary Evans Picture LibraryUsers can find a range of material in Gender: Identity and Social Change exploring changing attitudes towards conduct and politeness. Whilst some of the earlier diaries, periodicals and letters reflect dominating patriarchal perspectives on both female and male manners, some documents record attempts made by both sexes to deconstruct the restrictive, standardised behavioural models of their time.

Periodicals sourced from Mary Evans Picture Library offer a good place to start an examination of conduct and politeness in this resource. Publications such as The Queen, and The Lady’s Realm, include various poems, articles, and short stories which predominantly portray women busying themselves with domestic or religious duties in line with prevailing societal expectations of Victorian England. For example, see articles giving women advice on household management, gardening, childcare, and fashion pointers.

However, amongst articles advising women on “How to stand correctly” and “How to Serve a Dainty Tea”, users may identify murmurings of more progressive attitudes to women in articles discussing “The New Woman and the Old”, and reports of women participating in jujitsu. Volumes of The Lady’s Realm disrupt the traditional societal expectations of the era further still by posing provocative questions such as “Are elopements ever justifiable?” and “Why do so many women no longer marry”. Regular foreign features such as “The Chinese Lady of To-day” and “Marriage Customs in Many Lands” within these periodicals also offered women a chance to compare their own conduct and politeness models with those of women abroad.

Excelsior, © Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America

 Although several texts were published in an attempt to standardise women’s behaviour by providing thorough advice for “modern conditions of home-life, self-support, education, opportunities, and every-day problems” (see The Woman’s Book and Eve’s Glossary), surges in support for the suffrage movement at the turn of the twentieth century catalysed new drives to deconstruct such behavioural standards. Movements driving women’s enfranchisement and equal opportunities are chronicled throughout various militant feminist records, personal accounts, literary critiques, and correspondence collated in this resource (see Henrietta Muir Edwards' diaries, and The Carrie Chapman Catt papers, and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique).

Featuring articles “and anecdotes, conveying the healthiest of moral and best advice”, The British Workman 1855-1858 demonstrates that men’s conduct was under no less scrutiny in the nineteenth century. Similarly, various printed books sourced from the Schlesinger Library give both men and women direction in "The manners that win", and “Christian Politeness”. “Advice to young men on their duties and conduct in life”, also recommends ways by which men might “act from the highest principles”, promising “that those who read it […] cannot fail to have their good purposes strengthened, and their minds elevated”.

During the twentieth century, the scrutiny of men’s behaviour intensified, especially in terms of sexual conduct. Material published by the National Organisation for Changing Men records actions taken, and demonstrations made, by themselves and affiliated organisations to destigmatise LGBTQA+ behaviours and relationships (see the Brothers in Charge: Newsletters, minutes and miscellaneous papers, and the NOCM: 2nd Council meeting minutes).

 

 Achilles Heel, 1978, © Michigan State University Libraries