The Weirdest Etiquette Rules People Used To Follow

The British writer and critic Quentin Crisp once wrote: "Nothing more rapidly inclines a person to go into a monastery than reading a book on etiquette. There are so many trivial ways in which it is possible to commit some social sin." Being British and rather posh, you would expect Crisp to know what he's talking about. But the fact is that etiquette books telling people how they should behave are hugely popular in both Europe and the U.S. — where, historically, etiquette takes its cues from what the bona fide upper-class members of European society are doing. Whole dynasties of etiquette teachers are still active today. 

But what is etiquette? One way of describing it is in terms of good manners, that etiquette is made up of the rules society deems necessary to stop us from impinging on other people's lives as they go about their day-to-day business, which sounds like quite a noble purpose when you think about it. Talking with your mouth full, for example, can look gross enough to put other people off their dinner. The etiquette that says it should be avoided serves a social function.

But what about those rules that society has followed that really don't seem to make a whole heap of sense? Here's a look at the changing face of etiquette over the previous centuries, how its purpose changed, and what we might learn about how we approach rules of behavior today.

When it comes to etiquette, the rules that we might find hardest to process today are those that govern acts of violence. (Or, maybe not — there are "rules" for war which nations are meant to follow today.)

At around the turn of the 17th century — but with its roots going back much farther than that — the ritual of dueling was still a common occurrence in many European countries, especially in France, where it is estimated that more than 10,000 duels took place within a roughly 20-year period. As you probably know if you're familiar with Dumas' The Three Musketeers, which later reinvoked the practice to entertain Victorian readers, duels normally occurred as a result of some form of an offense occurring between one party and another: an insult, perhaps, or, also commonly, physical attacks.

The offended party might challenge their agitator verbally, with a slap — perhaps, famously, with the back of a glove — or even via written note. The pair would then meet and duke it out with swords, sabers, or pistols. According to historian Geri Walton, all aspects of their encounter from the moment of the insult onward were governed by a set of rules called a "code duello," which sought to define how such a brutal practice might be undertaken both fairly and honorably. Dueling etiquette was altered and adapted throughout the centuries, and although the practice thankfully died out, the final duel in France enacted under such guidance occurred as recently as 1967.

It might be argued that saying exactly what you mean is celebrated in the 21st century. It shows honesty, and in a world where we are superconnected and constantly communicating across multiple media, it doesn't suit our current lifestyles to beat about the bush too much. But back in the 19th century, decorum dictated that skirting around an issue was the polite thing to do, even to the point that it was considered bad etiquette to ask direct questions in public, per Good Housekeeping.

For example, at a fancy Victorian gathering, no one would ask, "Sir, how are your mother's hemorrhoids?" (Though, to be fair, it's unlikely someone would ask that at a party today.) Rather, they would turn it into something indirect: "I do hope your mother is well." It's a remark that can be answered in a number of ways, giving the receiver ample leeway to avoid discussing his mother's, er, problems. This example illustrates the purpose of the rule, but the etiquette itself went further than preventing blushes and dictated the style of speech that we're aware of today from period dramas and Jane Austen novels.

Also in the late 19th century, the etiquette around marriage, who should marry whom, what the courtship should be like, was rampant. If you feel like you're ever under pressure to get married nowadays, it's nothing compared to what young people — especially women — had to put up with in terms of social pressure back then. 

It was all about marrying into a wealthy or respectable enough family. Love didn't come into the equation very much at all, at least in the early stages of the courtship. On top of that, there were some other hilariously shallow codes and practices at play in the marriage madness of the 19th century. As detailed by the Old Farmer's Almanac, Thomas E. Hill's popular etiquette guide Manual of Social and Business Forms contains some jaw-dropping advice for young singles seeking a spouse: "Anyone with bright red hair and a florid complexion should marry someone with jet-black hair. The very corpulent should marry the thin and spare, and the body, wiry, cold-blooded should marry the round-featured, warmhearted, emotional type."

This idea that two people could "balance" each other out in marriage is pretty odd — but then again, they do say that opposites attract.

Though still practiced in some countries, chaperoning is now best known to many of us as a plot device in old American sitcoms from the 1950s and '60s. The idea is that dating couples — or "courting" couples, as they used to say — would also be accompanied on their meet-ups by a third party, a "chaperone" who would basically make sure they weren't getting up to no good before marriage.

According to Prohibition: An Interactive History, this practice, which has its roots in the very family-centric idea of courtship that existed in the 19th century, eventually died out during the Prohibition era, during a greater societal swing against conformity by young people who had been through the scarring experience of World War I. And it really isn't too difficult to work out why chaperoning went out of fashion. As many sitcoms have made clear, chaperoning is a perfect recipe for an awkward night out, with the added bonus of ensuring that the young couple doesn't really get to know each other in any personal or intimate way at all.

This is a phrase that even many millennials can remember from their own childhood, though in recent years, it has often been deployed more as a plea for some quiet than a parenting maxim. The praise originated in England during the 15th century but is especially representative of the societal attitudes toward children and their role within the family in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Most societies now generally accept the childhood need for interaction, self-expression, and creativity. But according to How To Adult, a century ago, the same people who were telling parents to ignore their babies were also telling them that their children's brains were basically like a sheet of blank paper and that, until they were more fully developed as human beings, they were not to be given the benefit of the chance to share their own opinions or to properly interact with the adults around them. The expected childhood behaviors of quietness and meekness were reinforced in schools, where children were taught discipline via corporal punishment.

The demand for etiquette guidebooks and training in the accepted behaviors of social life is still surprisingly high. Time Magazine suggests that, for Americans, this stems from a shared sense of "status anxiety" arising from the concept of the United States as a "society of equals," basically that the country doesn't have such a rigid class system as many of its European counterparts. 

But the rules, as Time also mentions, that American society deems to be correct are co-opted from such class-based societies, and the truth is that such attempts at mimicking etiquette show little more than the desire to carve society up along the same lines. Because although many of the strange and outmoded codes of behavior of the past had their origins in something akin to practical necessity, many more do not and exist solely for those in the know to tell themselves apart from those who aren't.

The purpose of such behaviors is nothing but exclusivity masquerading as manners, or etiquette for etiquette's sake. It's worth stepping back occasionally to try and examine what this looks like in today's society, as difficult as that may be without the wisdom that hindsight offers.