To the one to says chivalry is dead, I disagree.
First, let’s discuss what chivalry was. The term initially meant “to have a horse.” However, England changed the term to be known as a code of ethics after it’s boys returned from war. See, boys would go off to war at age 14 and higher, and they would return in their twenties. These boys grew up in a war zone, where they were told again and again to take everything they wanted by force. When they returned to England, they continued their warlike behavior. These boys raped, stole and hurt people as they pleased.
England developed the chivalry code of honor in order to tame these boys and make them into proper men. It taught the boys to be brave, honorable, respectful and kind.
Now, chivalry never died, as we so often say. Instead, England simply moved on to another code. However, chivalry lived on in the people, and they, in turn, taught their children the code. Chivalry evolved from owning a horse to being a knight to simply being a decent person with some respect. These days, a “knight in shining armor” is basically a figment of our imaginations.
It has been done time and time again by the books and the movies. Frankly, we are bored of it. Chivalry, however, lives on. We may get bored of seeing the same thing portrayed in the mainstream media, but really, who wouldn’t? The romantic inside us all clings to the idea of a knight in shining armor riding up to save us from the mundane.
The problem is exactly that, though. We won’t get a knight, and we won’t see shining armor. Instead, we see a man in a beat up old car trying his best. We see him dress in his nicest clothes to impress us. “Chivalry,” as we call it, lives now in simple manners. Chivalry is not some revolutionary code of ethics that we teach our children to live by; instead, it is the basic manners and respect for others that we teach our children.
Holding a door open for a woman, saying sir and ma’am, picking up the bill on a date. These are all shout-outs to the old code as it lives on in its new form. Chivalry is not dead, chivalry has evolved.
People tend to believe that chivalry means that men deserve some reward for having simple manners. I can’t scream “no” loud enough! Chivalry never demanded a woman reward a man for holding the door open for her. Chivalry never even hinted that men should get something, in any sense, for treating a woman right. Perhaps this is why society believes that chivalry is now dead. However, the men that act this way, the men that believe that they should only treat a woman right in the event that she will reward him, are never to be examples of chivalry in our generation. These men give chivalry a bad name.
