Good Form and Christian Etiquette

by S. M. I. Henry

One of the things most commonly seen, and about which all the world smiles, is a boy and girl standing on opposite sides of the gate which opens toward her home. They have walked from school or church together, she has entered and closed the gate, and paused a moment for another word; he has taken this as an invitation to linger, and so they stand laughingly or seriously chatting, sometimes long after dark. The world calls it coquetry, but the young people do not mean it as such; to them it is probably far removed from every evil thought. They are innocent and honest; but you can not make the world, that is looking for evil, believe that they are not consciously flirting. It will estimate them accordingly, and soon begin to say, “That girl knows quite as much as she ought to;” and the good Christian people of the community will grow afraid of her as an associate for their daughters, even if those same daughters do the same thing.

These children have seen older young people, perhaps mother and the minister, stand and talk and laugh in the same way. Some may ask, “Well, why not?” Because it is not good form, because a bad social savor attaches to it, because, no matter who does it, unless they are very aged, or are, like Cæsar’s wife, absolutely above suspicion (and who can venture to assume such a thing for himself), they will lose in dignity, suffer in reputation, become the butt of some sly joke from the class of people who need the help that can only be given by men and women who do not “allow their good to be evil spoken of.”

If children and young people form the habit of stopping to talk at the gate, they will do it as men and women; and by doing it, draw the evil eye, and invite gossip. Teach your boy and girl that good form requires that when they arrive at the gate, if they wish to continue the conversation, both should go on into the house together; or that, after he has opened the gate and closed it after her, she should promptly say “Good morning,” or “Good evening,” and he should as promptly lift his hat, and walk away. If they enter the house together, good form requires that he, if he be young or old, should receive a family greeting, and that the members of the family shall be free to come to the parlor or sitting-room to which he has been taken, to remain and share in the conversation if they wish, until the call is ended.

Two young people should never suppose that they must sit in a parlor with closed doors; that father, mother, and every one else must be kept out of the way because Nellie’s friend (never call him a beau) has come to spend the evening. They should never consider it possible to extend that evening into and past the large hours of the night. This is one of Satan’s most fruitful wrecking devices, of which the young people will never think, themselves, unless their training has tended to push them off away from their natural social guides, and keep bad social models before them.

When the boy, or young man, comes to spend an evening because you have a daughter, give him just as much of yourself as possible; make yourself so indispensable to the young people that they will naturally come to you wherever you prefer to sit, rather than try to entertain each other without you. This is not an unheard of thing, although one will sometimes hear Christian people answer to this teaching as if it were very extreme indeed.

“How then will a young man be able to say anything special to the girl?” To which it may be answered that if he is not able to find some way which is perfectly consistent with every principle of decorum, he is not worth listening to; and if that is true of him, it will be because he did not have his share of the right sort of home life and training.

In the social world, where Good Form is as binding as the Decalogue is to the Christian, fathers and mothers have made it impossible for a young woman to think of entertaining her young man friend shut away alone with him. Strange to say, it has been the modest home, the Christian parent, who has allowed Satan to set this trap for unwary feet by leaving the young daughter, without one word of instruction, to entertain some young man, perhaps a stranger, who passed as her lover, shut away in the “parlor,” while everybody was given to understand that no one must disturb the mysterious solemnities of “keeping company,” even if they should continue into the small hours. And as a result of this disregard of simple good form, which is as a fence against recognized danger, untold sin and sorrow have resulted.

V.

The most worldly society decided long ago that it is very “bad form” for boys and girls of school age to think of lovers, of engagements, or of marriage. Not until the day of childish things is entirely passed, not until a young man has some settled purpose in life, some business or profession which insures an income, does “Good Society,” as it is called, smile upon any “serious intentions” between young people, and every effort is made to hold the children of the social world to this regulation.

All this is because of the fact which can not be repudiated that premature thinking along these channels is unhealthy, and disqualifies the youth for any real earnest preparation for practical life.