Ms Post on etiquette on the street and in public:
"Victorian books on etiquette which said that a gentleman must offer to carry a lady's bundles must have been thought amusingly quaint for many, many years. Bundles never suggested ladies or gentleman to begin with."
(What? It was, in my understanding, how things were done before the advent of shopping bags. Your purchases were wrapped and tied with string...like...well...a bundle.)
Anyways, she goes on: "But since the Second World War's shortage of delivery trucks, package carrying has become necessary, even for officers, who had been hitherto forbidden to carry so much as a box of candy or a single book! Suddenly they found themselves obliged, when on leave at home, either to carry the groceries or go supperless."
(Oh dear god, fetch me the smelling salts! Those poor souls!)
But still, she continues on, as she is wont to do: "The roles therefore have undergone a change. It is still true that a man will gladly stagger under golf bags or suitcases, but to carry a 'bundle'? Not twice! War or no war, any young woman who asks a man to carry something suggestive of a pillow, done up in crinkled paper and odd lengths of string, will wonder, as her grandmother did, why John Nubeau never calls upon her anymore!"
I find myself musing at the dirty minds of society women back then as well as the fragile natures of WWII officers. One would get the idea that carrying home a bag of groceries was so terribly traumatic that the poor men could hardly wait to return to battle.
I read an essay about Emily Post that commended her sense of egalitarianism, the idea that 'class' was not soley dictated by whether or not you had been highborn, but could be achieved by any person who learned to speak properly, behave properly, run their home properly. Her book is a 640 page list of rules.
Not all of them are so ridiculous as the one I've listed above, I suppose.
Again, I am laughing in a manner unbecoming to a woman of breeding and class.
Well, this week it became official--no more plastic bags here in Pittsburgh. I guess bundles it is, and I'm going to look properly undignified carrying one too. Where's a woman when you need one!
ReplyDeleteOh dear. Whatever will you do? Perhaps a wheelbarrow would lend a bit of dignity.
DeleteJohn Nubeau, funny.
ReplyDelete"Again, I am laughing in a manner unbecoming to a woman of breeding and class. " Do you think this is not still the case in England? It may not be phrased as such but it still counts to those who concern themselves with such things. The rest will just think 'Effing Tory tossers'.
She is quite clever at the name calling business.
DeleteThank goodness I have no breeding and class. When we go shopping I frequently say..
ReplyDelete"P, carry my bundles there's a good chap"
And Lord P happily does so thinking he is being indecently propositioned.
DeleteI have a feeling that you may have tittered. We may all have to become basket cases.
ReplyDeleteI love that you give me the benefit of the doubt. No. It was a full blown snort of disgust at how harshly a lady of good breeding would cast aspersions on another woman. I suppose not much has changed in that regard.
DeleteI imagine "Bundles never suggested ladies or gentleman to begin with" because ladies and gentlemen didn't do their own shopping. I'm so glad we've moved past this era of stifling social convention.
ReplyDeleteI must admit that looking at it this way did not even occur to me. Victorian sensibilities have never made any sense to me.
DeleteI don't think I would have liked living back in those days. Too many rules for women!
ReplyDeleteThere are a LOT of rules for the men too. I'm getting there. I'm getting there.
DeleteI imagine that the issue of bundles must have truly been important. No car trunk to shove your shopping in, no nice strong canvas bags with handles. This is a subject I've never really considered at all. But it is truly hard to fathom why a gentleman would not dare to be seen carrying "so much as a single book." And did people often carry around boxes of candy? The mind boggles.
ReplyDeleteConsidering it, I'd have to say that I don't think that is a bad idea, carrying around a box of candy at all times.
DeleteImagine Ms. Post's surprise to learn that all our bundles are delivered right to our door step, many with two days.
ReplyDeleteShe would undoubtedly believe you to be a gentleman.
DeleteThanks for the levity. I remember friends and family clipping the newspapers' columns by various manners-inducing women (why never men I wonder) and sending them along in a letter to me. I must have been their most unmannered friend/relation. But they were always funny!
ReplyDeleteHow insulting! I guess that's the thing that gets me. Her rules come off as a personal critique. I mean, deciding that a bundle looks like a pillow, and then moving that scene right ahead to 'naughtiness'. Mr. Bhaer's sidelong glance at Jo as he carries her bundles in the rain doesn't look so sweet now does it? He looks sly and Jo wantonly.
DeleteI guess she would be shocked of this guy doing all of the grocery shopping and carrying multiple bags. Of course, they are not bundles per se.
ReplyDeleteOh dear, AC. It could be worse. You might be a military officer.
Delete"... laughing in an unladylike manner ..." I assume that means you snort once in awhile in the midst of a heart laugh!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun read ... thank you!!
It's just the funniest thing to consider some hifalutin' lady with her lorgnette (and please do not ask me how that word even came to mind) being horrified that a couple went down the street with a bundle that could be mistake for a pillow. Who thinks like that?
DeleteHave you come to Emily's chapter yet about the etiquette of a wife passing sheet rock to her husband up through a hole in the floor joists? Just wondering. haha
ReplyDeleteBonnie in Minneapolis
Okay. This is funny. I have a feeling that she would believe that I wasn't a lady to begin with. *sigh*
Delete