<p>Lately, I've been reading a lot of Jane Austen books, and love them all! She's an amazing author, in my opinion. Her books are just awesome, I can't put them down!</p>
<p>I was reading the other day, and an interesting thought came to my mind about many of the men during previous eras verses today. They just seemed so polite and respectful... not that independence and stuff isn't great today or anything, but it seemed kind of nice when guys held doors open alot and kissed your hand when they saw you and stuff...</p>
<p>I was curious, what do you guys think? Is chivalry dead?</p>
<p>You probably won’t see too many guys in armor riding stallions and dueling each other for the affections of a girl, but there are definitely nice guys around</p>
<p>I’m a little confused. Isn’t chivalry related to knighthood and medieval times? Are you asking if men today are related to those who were considered honorable?</p>
<p>^I think I see what you are saying:) I would say it depends on the person. I believe that there are still people like that, and I would hope that I’m one of them in terms of being respectful in general. However, it varies. From my experience, I believe it exists, but not to the extent that it once was.</p>
<p>Chivalry started its decline in the 50s when the concept of the “bad boy” came around. Women were gushing over this new kind of man who was different from all of the gents still obliging to them and wanted to experience the wild side. There’s james dean in the 50s, and then it progresses to bands and celebs all personifying that “bad boy” image. Boys look at the fact that girls are gushing over that personality type and try to become that bad boy. Natural selection makes the top males successful in this venture. Other guys end up being the “nice” guys of today. Yes, there are still nice guys out there, but girls have this romantic image from the early 1900s to 40s of this guy that does everything for you, but on top of that he’s a looker too. Nowadays you can’t have it both ways (most of the time), you either get the bad boy or the nice guy. You don’t want the nice guy because of his looks and you wish the bad boy could show some class sometimes. Could change in the future. Who knows</p>
<p>Chivalry comes more from women having a separate and inferior place in society. Since women were seen as fine, weak and fragile, they were treated with kid gloves. When women demanded to be treated as though they weren’t weak and fragile, the kid gloves came off.</p>
<p>I always treat everybody with respect, even if they are jerks to me. I always treat women with a lot of respect as well with opening doors and other stuff such as that. Let’s just say that many girls I’ve run into, don’t like it very much unfortunately. I don’t know exactly why though, but I’ve been told many times that it’s bad being a gentleman.</p>
<p>Most of chivalry is based on women being weak objects of male desire. The show their affections and win the prize, pluck the trophy from the pedestal and then well, pluck her flower.
What little survives of it is common courtesy, and when shown to a date, is often termed chivalry.
So, is chivalry dead? If we consider chivalry to be the ideas surrounding the actions and not the actions themselves, for the most part, yes, and thank goodness.</p>
<p>I think its sweet when guys open doors for girls and all that stuff- it istreating girls nicely which is sweet. But honestly, if we want to be treated the same as guys then-we can’t really expect them to be holding doors for us and helping us step out of limos. Feminism is more important than chivalry so I guess its okay. What is really important is mutual respect btw both partners. And in that light, it is a good thing that chivalry is dead b/c even though the men would protect the women and let them enter buildings first and so on- this did not necessatily connotate respect. It meant that the woman was infertior and delicate. so,in some ways chivalry was not really a positive value. </p>
<p>however, if a guy practices chivalry simply b/c of good manners and not b/c he thinks a woman is more fragile or inferior to any one else. It is sweet.</p>
<p>^ lol. and in general i don’t think girls even want chivalry anymore. they like zac efron style b*tches mostly, which is to say, someone who acts like their BFF but has a dick.</p>