4 ms·

Surprising how relevant most of that still is.

matt4077 10y ago
Yes, some of them happen to align with behaviour that makes life easier for others, such as answering an invitation early. But, taken as collection, they are inaccurate in what they leave out: The very idea of women having the same agency as men does not make an appearance. Sure, they can reject your "invitation to dance", but without such an invitation, they are, apparently, relegated to "wallflower"-status, soon to be relegated to "old and ugly". "Going home with you" also doesn't make her a _____ anymore than it makes you a _____ to go home with her. From experience and observation, "going home with" someone tends to make people _happy_, and occasionally _a couple_. It's also a textbook example how sexism hurts men as well as women: assuming that a relationship's success depends on her attraction to him as much as his attraction to her, these etiquette fail by using an inefficient search algorithm. He will sort the women according to attractiveness to him and "go home" with the first that is willing to sneak out the back with him. That leaves part of the search space unexplored. Specifically, there could be another woman he is only marginally less attracted to, but that is completely infatuated with him. Unfortunately, she actually believed these rules and failed to get his attention :( Edit: removed Feynman reference
- lisper 10y ago
  I have no idea why you're getting down voted. I thought you presented a very cogent argument.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    Thanks! I noticed it only started after I added the last paragraph, which contains the word a man shall not use on HN, not even in discussing gender etiquette of Victorian Fucking England.
    - hluska 10y ago
      No, that part was fine. Your 'surely you're joking' is extremely passive aggressive and severely weakens your entire comment.
  - Mendenhall 10y ago
    I down voted because of the "surely youre joking" comment. Its a petty passive aggressive insult to the parent, like the parent post was so obtuse that they must be joking. Ironic to me in an etiquette post.
    - matt4077 10y ago
      Oh, but it was just an allusion to him, the venerated (and venereal) God of violating etiquette, Richard Feynman.
- mseebach 10y ago
  The art here is separating the baby and the bath water. If you replace "man" and "woman" in the text with "person with high social capital" and "person with low social capital", the present day relevance reveals itself. If you have high social capital, you have a duty to an every effort to raise those around you who have low social capital, to not draw attention to yourself, and most certainly to be very careful that you're not making anyone feel uncomfortable (infinitely more so if you're the host). Yes, victorian society automatically assigned high capital to men and low capital to women, but they assigned significant duties to the holders of this capital. It's this ethos of duty going with privilege that resonates a lot (with me, at least). As for "going home", there are some pretty straight forward reasons for that: reliable birth control, pre or post conception, was not a thing, and the cost of unwanted pregnancy was disproportionally (to the point of being entirely one sided) on the woman (and, by extension, her family). So, a strong social imperative to avoid this situation existed - but, notably, there is as much a duty on part of the man to not even ask, as there is for the woman to reject it. This constraint has almost entirely gone away, but we still have rather analogous discussions around consent (and rather hyperbolically IMO, but touching on the same notes, rape culture).
  - matt4077 10y ago
    I agree. These rules are a product of their time, and were probably good advice for those seeking to fit in. But I felt it's important to point out how they are actually-not-so-subtly producing the tiered society you mention, if only for the fact that this thread is already filling with comments of how uncanny it is that they are still so relevant. And, yes, that is true in so far as you won't attract much negative attention if you behave as prescribed. But note that the reasons these may have been useful in the past have long since disappeared, so I'm expecting you all to follow that no-gossip rule even if I happen to "go home with" her , or him, or them.
- pjc50 10y ago
  This is the pre-contraception pre-sexual revolution era we're talking about. Maybe people aren't familiar with Pride and Prejudice? Dances of this form are a key part of the social structure that novel revels in. It's an environment where primogeniture and inheritance are extremely important, where women can have no income independent of a man (and may have their ability to own property independently curtailed as well). Marriage in that context requires virginity. Sleeping around is potentially life-ruining for a woman. (Not quite so much for a man, although still indecorous; more sexism) Nobody in that context is going to be exploring the search space though any means other than polite conversation. Men might be sleeping around, but only with women of lower social status who can be paid off or can't refuse (or have their refusal taken seriously: "rape culture"). Women could only acquire agency in this context because the risk of pregnancy was mitigated, so the lifetime costs and medical risks (4% maternal fatality rate!) of a child would not fall on them. In that environment, unmarried wombs were treated like barrels of gunpowder: keep away from naked flames.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    Yes, but what's at issue is the opening comment: > Surprising how relevant most of that still is. ...and how some of these rules, even if they were established in reaction to possible real-world consequences, can be perpetuated long after better methods have been invented to protect against harm.
- zeristor 10y ago
  The Stable Marriage problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem This BBC documentary ("The Secret Rules of Modern Living Algorithms") had a bit about this: https://youtu.be/T1os88EvPc4?t=19m11s https://youtu.be/T1os88EvPc4?t=19m11s
usrusr 10y ago
Well, it's a contemporary digest of a body of rules "far too numerous to cover in a single article", so there's surely a bit of survivorship bias at play here. Still some nice finds there, some of those that are still valid could deserve more recognition.

Yes, some of them happen to align with behaviour that makes life easier for others, such as answering an invitation early. But, taken as collection, they are inaccurate in what they leave out: The very idea of women having the same agency as men does not make an appearance. Sure, they can reject your "invitation to dance", but without such an invitation, they are, apparently, relegated to "wallflower"-status, soon to be relegated to "old and ugly". "Going home with you" also doesn't make her a _____ anymore than it makes you a _____ to go home with her. From experience and observation, "going home with" someone tends to make people _happy_, and occasionally _a couple_. It's also a textbook example how sexism hurts men as well as women: assuming that a relationship's success depends on her attraction to him as much as his attraction to her, these etiquette fail by using an inefficient search algorithm. He will sort the women according to attractiveness to him and "go home" with the first that is willing to sneak out the back with him. That leaves part of the search space unexplored. Specifically, there could be another woman he is only marginally less attracted to, but that is completely infatuated with him. Unfortunately, she actually believed these rules and failed to get his attention :( Edit: removed Feynman reference

lisper 10y ago
I have no idea why you're getting down voted. I thought you presented a very cogent argument.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Thanks! I noticed it only started after I added the last paragraph, which contains the word a man shall not use on HN, not even in discussing gender etiquette of Victorian Fucking England.
  - hluska 10y ago
    No, that part was fine. Your 'surely you're joking' is extremely passive aggressive and severely weakens your entire comment.
- Mendenhall 10y ago
  I down voted because of the "surely youre joking" comment. Its a petty passive aggressive insult to the parent, like the parent post was so obtuse that they must be joking. Ironic to me in an etiquette post.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    Oh, but it was just an allusion to him, the venerated (and venereal) God of violating etiquette, Richard Feynman.
mseebach 10y ago
The art here is separating the baby and the bath water. If you replace "man" and "woman" in the text with "person with high social capital" and "person with low social capital", the present day relevance reveals itself. If you have high social capital, you have a duty to an every effort to raise those around you who have low social capital, to not draw attention to yourself, and most certainly to be very careful that you're not making anyone feel uncomfortable (infinitely more so if you're the host). Yes, victorian society automatically assigned high capital to men and low capital to women, but they assigned significant duties to the holders of this capital. It's this ethos of duty going with privilege that resonates a lot (with me, at least). As for "going home", there are some pretty straight forward reasons for that: reliable birth control, pre or post conception, was not a thing, and the cost of unwanted pregnancy was disproportionally (to the point of being entirely one sided) on the woman (and, by extension, her family). So, a strong social imperative to avoid this situation existed - but, notably, there is as much a duty on part of the man to not even ask, as there is for the woman to reject it. This constraint has almost entirely gone away, but we still have rather analogous discussions around consent (and rather hyperbolically IMO, but touching on the same notes, rape culture).
- matt4077 10y ago
  I agree. These rules are a product of their time, and were probably good advice for those seeking to fit in. But I felt it's important to point out how they are actually-not-so-subtly producing the tiered society you mention, if only for the fact that this thread is already filling with comments of how uncanny it is that they are still so relevant. And, yes, that is true in so far as you won't attract much negative attention if you behave as prescribed. But note that the reasons these may have been useful in the past have long since disappeared, so I'm expecting you all to follow that no-gossip rule even if I happen to "go home with" her , or him, or them.
pjc50 10y ago
This is the pre-contraception pre-sexual revolution era we're talking about. Maybe people aren't familiar with Pride and Prejudice? Dances of this form are a key part of the social structure that novel revels in. It's an environment where primogeniture and inheritance are extremely important, where women can have no income independent of a man (and may have their ability to own property independently curtailed as well). Marriage in that context requires virginity. Sleeping around is potentially life-ruining for a woman. (Not quite so much for a man, although still indecorous; more sexism) Nobody in that context is going to be exploring the search space though any means other than polite conversation. Men might be sleeping around, but only with women of lower social status who can be paid off or can't refuse (or have their refusal taken seriously: "rape culture"). Women could only acquire agency in this context because the risk of pregnancy was mitigated, so the lifetime costs and medical risks (4% maternal fatality rate!) of a child would not fall on them. In that environment, unmarried wombs were treated like barrels of gunpowder: keep away from naked flames.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Yes, but what's at issue is the opening comment: > Surprising how relevant most of that still is. ...and how some of these rules, even if they were established in reaction to possible real-world consequences, can be perpetuated long after better methods have been invented to protect against harm.
zeristor 10y ago
The Stable Marriage problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem This BBC documentary ("The Secret Rules of Modern Living Algorithms") had a bit about this: https://youtu.be/T1os88EvPc4?t=19m11s https://youtu.be/T1os88EvPc4?t=19m11s

usrusr 10y ago

Well, it's a contemporary digest of a body of rules "far too numerous to cover in a single article", so there's surely a bit of survivorship bias at play here. Still some nice finds there, some of those that are still valid could deserve more recognition.