What Happened to Chivalry

Found an interesting article on this subject. It's mostly made in reference to black society, but it's still a good article. I'm only going to touch on points. Here's the link if you want to read it in full:

http://www.chivalrytoday.com/Essays/James/James-Darryl.html

In its purest definition, chivalry is truly dead. Chivalry refers to the code of ethics and conduct of a knight (or chevalier) during the Middle Ages, where his horse, weapons, attendants and flag were concerned. The code had nothing to do with conduct in love until much later.

After the Crusades, poets turned chivalry into something beyond the code of the chevaliers. The new chivalry became a code of courting and a code of honor in love, as opposed to war.

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So this is where chivalry came from. But remember what was going on until the 20th century...

Strangely, many people today who speak of chivalry and tradition frequently fail to spell out the woman’s obligations during the medieval institution, and in many ways romanticize yesterday’s chivalry far deeper than the post-Crusade poets.

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Women today have the attitude of "you ask, you pay" for dates. However...

The part of chivalry that dictated that men pay for all dates is outdated. It began in a time when women either didn’t work or worked in jobs that paid very little.

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What I found interesting is the author's conclusion on the death of chivalry:

For example, feminism taught women that displays of chivalry were, in many ways demeaning and condescending. The new idea was that since men did not hold doors for each other, why would they do so for any other equal? The image of the chivalrous man protecting the weaker “damsel in distress” did not fit well with the evolving image of the woman as equal, strong and independent.

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I'm going to put my own twist on this, but it also has roots in feminism...

When women began taking on the roles of men, and wanting to be treated as "equal", they began taking away the confidence and leadership that men naturally inherited. Men who were naturally confident didn't have the need to show a woman that he is valuable. Men were already valuable because they displayed manly qualities. Women have taken away these manly qualities with their control. They control the direction of the relationship, reward him with sex, and tell him what he can and can't do. Men in turn have become meek, and have gained more feminine characteristics. They're now the ones who have to ask "the boss" for permission. If her emotions say no, that is how he should behave, or else he isn't getting any.

Now, to say that chivalry is dead is incorrect. Chivalry has been mixed with romance and desperation. A man WILL hold a door open for a woman, pay for the dates, pull her chair out, etc. However, most men are not naturally confident (thanks to women taking it away). They are needy, and focus on trying to impress women in hopes that they will fall madly in love with him. Women find this as a turnoff, because the man is communicating the message (through his actions) that he needs her approval instead of it being the other way around.

Thus, when an unconfident man practices chivalry, it comes off as weak and insecure. A naturally confident man CAN use chivalry, and it will come off as being polite instead of needy.

In short, after an arduous program of attacking and seeking to re-write both chivalry and tradition, today’s so-called “modern” woman is now attacking men for moving away from so-called “old-fashioned” standards.

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I agree. Women are the ones who helped chivalry disintegrate, and now they're complaining that men aren't practicing it.

For every woman who claims to want a man who is old fashioned, the question has to be asked whether or not she can actually cook a meal and whether she is actually willing to invite a man over to her home for a home-cooked meal.

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The woman enjoys pointing the finger at the man, but has she looked at herself? Is she being hypocritical? I'd say the answer is YES.

What happened? Feminism

I lived in Portland, Oregon, for three years -- the man-hating capital of America (Seattle is 2nd). Heard dozens of stories of men opening doors for women, only to be yelled at, "I can do it myself!"

This isn't mutually exclusive to Portland or Seattle, but America in general.

Feminism saw chivalry as an insult, instead of what it really is: honor and respect for women.

That, my folks, is one of the huge problems with feminism. Instead of fighting for good things -- equal employment, for example -- they turned it into man-hating.

Like any movement, when it turns radical it's gone too far.

Re:

As I understood it, chivalry was a "payment" for demure femininity. For the woman who was "classy" and "graceful," not for the woman who wretchedly spits, loses control of her emotions, smokes, drinks like a man, seeks to take charge, offers no benefit except her vagina in a relationship, and generally IS NOT a woman.

As it stands, and was mentioned, the re-defining of sexual roles has begun, and men WILL NOT respond to the ANTI-woman. A woman in a feminine body, maybe beautiful, but wreaks a of a male-like attitude. And it isn't because we can't "play on their level" or take it, because normally any woman thinking they are tough like us IS JUST ACTING.

It's all an act. Either it is anger toward her terrible male past, anger at herself, or society for asking her to be someone she isn't, that supposed strength is a desperate sign of weakness and pain.

Is chilvary dead?

Only if the woman who are deserving of such treatment die, too. Women who get the full rundown are deserving, because in this capitalistic economy of bartering, we STILL trade tit for tat. A man trades future lays, earning, income, time, effort, energy, the huge opportunity cost, for bearing the liability of a woman. Of a person who won't earn nearly as much, on average, who will bear kids and become "disabled," of a person so emotional you become their personal therapist and psychologist, of a person whom you replace their father, good or bad. These do factor into the equation, as a woman is simply a machine that acquires feelings and memories, and acts out of programming on them, habitually.

I love women, but from the proper perspective as it relates to my life, and chivalry awaits those deserving and who demonstrate ABOVE and BEYOND the call of duty. I like White Tigers, too, but I know dang sure I wouldn't put young, edible kids around them. Same thing with women, except they do it to your life.



A-Unit

I still open doors for women but I do it for men as well. Not because it is chivilary but because it is me.

I don't follow a code of ethics but I do follow what I was raised on. Most of chivilary is in it.

The_Next_Big_Thing

Chivalry is simply one of many ideologies that was subsumed by westernized romanticism. Chivalry also applied toward things such as not hitting a man while he wasn't looking or attacking a blatantly undefendable, inferior or even a respected foe. It was originally intended as a code of etheics determined by the Roman Catholic church to control the otherwise lawless and violent natures of soldiers and knighs of the time. What this article is refering to is actually a classic interpretation and bastardization of western romanticisim and the ideologies of 'courtly love', which ironically enough was also an effort by the women of the period intended to better control the men of the early and high Renaissance. Essentially it amounted to a taming of the (at the time) over-dominating masculine influence of the time by laying out a system of prescribed appropriate conditions necessary to satisfy a womans access to her intimacy.

Like today's push for men to better identify with the feminine, the idea of courtly love was to 'encourage' men to explore their feminine sides with odes of divine expressions of love, offering of fantastic (often life threatening) feats to prove ones devotion or presenting gifts beyond compare to again prove ones worth and sincerity to the "object" of his desire - her's being the only gauge for acceptance. This is actually the root of our tradition of buy an expensive wedding ring for a woman. And just like women today, their behaviors rarely matched their stated desires, but far be it from the objective eye to cast a doubt upon them for fear of social ostracization.

I'll open doors for old women, my mother, my wife, my daughter and any other woman I happen to get to the door at the same time with, not because I have some intrinsic need to dominate the vaginas of the world, but because it's my custom. Rituals don't make a man what he is, but his confidence and bearing. We call something 'courteous' beacuse of this 'courtly' dynamic, but it's the man behind the courtesy that makes the difference.