I have three teen girls who enjoy a good drama or rom-com, and we’re no strangers to the Pride and Prejudice movie with Keira Knightley (2005). It’s a fun watch, and there’s something intriguing and compelling about the period, costumes, balls, and the rest. The tale is set just over 200 years ago, but it feels like millennia; one can hardly imagine such a life and customs.
I recently re-read the book and I came away from it thinking about idea of decorum — which basically means “polite behavior.” Decorum refers to when a person’s actions conform to politeness as accepted in society; it’s when what you do takes other people into account.
Today the idea of decorum is considered old-fashioned … and also usually unnecessary and even confining. We moderns often view acting with decorum (or acting “decorously” – yes, it’s a word!) as bowing to custom for its own sake. We see it as doing things the way they’ve always been done, for no real reason. So acting with decorum, this thinking goes, is rote in a bad way —inauthentic to oneself, superficial, or false. After all, who’s to say a person should style their hair a certain way, wear a certain type of clothes, address others by certain terms? Why is that way superior to this way?
And they’re good questions.
But reading Pride and Prejudice helped me see that the point of decorum is really just about behaving in ways that it make it more pleasant for other people to be around you. When the eldest Bennet girl, Jane, describes her love interest, Mr. Bingley, she says he’s just “what a young man ought to be, sensible, good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners!” He is, in short, a pleasant person to spend time with. Being around him is enjoyable for others.
No matter how little our world resembles the Bennets’, this is equally true for us today because there’s timelessness in the human experience. When we interact with a person who’s sensible, good humored, and lively, we enjoy it more than when we interact with a flighty, moody, or dull person. Or one who swears at us or ignores us. Or even one who chews with their mouth open next to us.
So decorum is about sociability (which falls under the umbrella of friendship); it’s treating each other civilly. A whole community is elevated when good decorum is the norm, and it’s worsened when it’s not. It increases the common good.
Let’s think about decorum in three areas: clothing, cleanliness, and ways of speaking.
Clothing. We don’t wear the dress of the 1700s, nor should we. But today, same as then, the clothing we wear signals to those around us whether or not we care about their experience of being around us. It’s logical for our clothing to fit the occasion, and when it doesn’t, we create awkwardness for those we encounter. Whether we shop at the mall in our pajamas (evidently 19 percent of the population) or attend a ball wearing a dress that’s 100 percent transparent, we create circumstances in which others must try to ignore the contrast between what we’re wearing, or not wearing, and the activity of the moment. This is uncomfortable for them. (Note that there’s a huge difference between clothing being appropriate and our culture’s obsession with excessive grooming and perfect presentation – also problematic. The goal in wearing appropriate clothing is considering other people’s comfort; the goal in trying to appear perfect is feeding our own vanity.)
Cleanliness. Basic forms of cleanliness ensure that those around us aren’t distracted by our unkemptness or odor. If we appear at the grocery store with matted hair, food on our face, or the scent of hasn’t-showered-in-three days … we’re again distracting to others. They again have to try to awkwardly pretend that these disorderly elements aren’t present, or avoid us altogether (in the case of scent).
Ways of speaking. One example is the terms we use to address each other – the difference between “hey you” and “excuse me, Miss.” The first is designed to get attention in a lowest common denominator way, the second to approach another so as to incline that person to hear what’s being said. Another example is courtesy language — “please,” “thank you,” and “sorry.” A third is ways of speaking that express basic interest in others and encourage friendly dialogue … versus ways of speaking that express no interest and discourage dialogue. We all know people who speak with courtesy and those who speak without it, and the fact is, we prefer those in the first category.
When we’re around courteous people we don’t feel awkward or disregarded or antagonized or put on the spot – visually, olafactorily, or through words. Interactions are better when we carry and present ourselves in such a way that others we meet sense our basic regard for them.
Last month one of our teenagers started driving lessons on the road to getting her license. The first lesson she had with the instructor, he commented on how she carried on a pleasant conversation with him – and how unusual this was compared to his other drivees. He was, he said, accustomed to silent and awkward hour-long car rides instead of the pleasant conversation that they shared. Silent, awkward car time was much more prevalent now, he said, than ten years ago.
His comments reveal what we all know: the norm today is to put little emphasis on decorum and manners. Children are often not taught how to address elders respectfully, carry on conversations with adults (or anyone), dress in such a way that others don’t feel awkward. It’s just not a priority.
Why is this? I see three reasons. First, our current cultural mood tells us that it’s outdated – that anything “traditional” is old-fashioned, problematic, maybe patriarchal, and generally innately bad. Second, we increasingly relate to each other digitally instead of IRL, and when we engage in disembodied forms – through screens – we lose practice and interest in interacting in sociable ways in person. Third, culture teaches us that being authentic to how we feel is the most important thing. It tells us we don’t owe anyone anything; if anything is owed, it is to us. (This is a mindset that says, “I wear my pajamas and didn’t shower because I didn’t feel like it, and how dare you have a problem with it, you judgmental jerk?”) Entitlement necessarily works against decorum. If we all care only about our own mood, comfort, preferences, then there’s no civility and no corporate pleasantness. There can’t be, because heightened regard for self precludes regard for others. And eventually, the common good is lost: there’s no community worth engaging in at all.
I’m here to say: a world in which decorum is in place is a better world to live in. Common regard for the experiences of others creates in us a basic trust in humanity. We’re looking out for each other; we care about how things go for all of us (not just ourselves).
Would that Jane Bennet’s statement could be said of each of us! That that person is just what a person “ought to be, sensible, good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners.” I’m not for being forced or fake, but for being thoughtful – and accustoming ourselves to behaving thoughtfully. It’s a good aspiration. So I say: decorous living for all of us!
Susan Arico is a New Hampshire-based consultant and writer with focus in digital wellness and the intersection of faith and culture. You can follow her on her substack, For the Sake of the Good, and at her website, www.susanbarico.com.
