For all that the 1800s etiquette guides are--obviously--derangedly sexist from a modern perspective? They're also mindblowing in how casually they will assert things that MODERN DAY CONSERVATIVES would scream and cry and shit their pants about.
"People back then always married young it's natural!!!" Every single 1800s guide I've ever met casually mentions that, of course, you really shouldn't get married before you're at least 20, and waiting until 25 is usually better.
Or, like. Okay here's a long segment:
Just firmly going "it is crazy sexist to blame The Wife for overspending when thirty seconds of asking questions will immediately establish that her husband was outright lying to her about how much money they had. Talk to your wife like a normal person."
Or--okay, here. A section on being honest and not writing love letters in secret, because that's usually a good sign that there's something untoward going on....
....except that he then immediately acknowledges that sometimes, the reason you're hiding this from your parents is that your parents suck. That there are parents who frankly have not earned the right to approve or disapprove of your partner.
(I realize the phrasing there sounds a lot less strong than my summary, but--trust me on this. When you're familiar with the narrative voice of these kinds of books, this passage is downright radical. The mere acknowledgement that if you treat your kids badly, it's your own damn fault when they don't talk to you? I've genuinely never seen that before in this genre. Don't freak out over "properly trained", either. It's just a linguistic shift--at the time, "training" was used the way we would say "raising" a child today. )
"Delete all the nudes and sexts after a breakup or you're a piece of shit" has been the standard expectation since EIGHT. TEEN. EIGHTY. FIVE.
"Men and women being friends with each other is literally normal. Don't be a controlling freak."
Anyway I was wrong the publishing date is actually 1882 so like.
"If you have to abuse a child to keep order in your classroom then you're a bad teacher."
So like @ the modern Republican party, are the "traditional family values" in the fucking room with us right now--
@mylordshesacactus we don't know each other but I think you'd probably love this.
She's done several videos that feature discussion of these etiquette manuals.
Having been doing some American Revolution era nonfiction reading lately, it's really interesting HOW intense George Washington was about etiquette for himself, as a son of a second wife who had to rely on his stepbrothers to even get him INTO society and then his own manners to keep him there until we're well into the Revolution itself. So much of the mannerisms historians praise him for during the war and his presidency are ones he intentionally adopted back when he was in a MUCH less secure social position and just never dropped.
His 110 "rules of civility" (sold as little books many, many places now) were ones he adopted as a teenager after studying older books on how to behave.
George Washington's Rules of Civility
This is stuff he was trying to memorize at 14 in order to fit in with the high society his stepbrothers could get him access too, and would later serve him pretty much the Rest Of His Life. And some do still work today:
In visiting the Sick, do not Presently play the Physicion if you be not Knowing therein.
Aka: don't play doctor if you don't know what's actually ailing someone, idiot. Think a loooooot of modern people could do with that one.
When a man does all he can though it Succeeds not well blame not him that did it.
If you know someone did all they could and failure was out of their control, don't blame them for it.
Be not hasty to beleive flying Reports to the Disparag[e]ment of any.
This one is about negative gossip and unconfirmed rumors. I think the entire internet could use this one, daily.
