by Robin Degner

Created on: January 15, 2009   Last Updated: February 02, 2010

However you define it, whether as a simple form of politeness, like a man holding a door open for a woman or a younger person holding a door open for the elderly, a man ready to sacrifice his life for a woman or her honor, chivalry has died. I'm not saying no one is ever polite, and I'm not saying there aren't the few who are still chivalrous. I'm saying that chivalry as a whole, as a practice and a way of life, is no more.

In my high school geography class, the first day, I sat, quaking in my shoes as the last class of the day began. The teacher, a tall, slim brunette stood in front of my class and announced, "When I married my husband, I kept my last name because I, am a woman of the nineties." The class was silent as we stood, taking her in. "You will call me Miss Stonebreaker (really). Miss. My name is NOT Mrs. Stonebreaker. I am a woman of the nineties." We sat there, staring, and then, class proceeded smoothly as she had us discuss our summers.

Miss Stonebreaker was my first taste of feminism and my first glimpse into how chivalry died. My friends and classmates who tried to hold doors open for her, because their mothers had taught them it was polite, were bitterly scorned and treated as though they'd suggested she smelled like a skunk.

In college, a small Christian college, the men held the doors open for us women - not like they wanted to, or like they felt they should just to be polite, but as though they only did it because it was expected of them. Whatever you might call it, that's not chivalry. That's barely politeness.

My current boyfriend holds the door open for me when we're going somewhere. I appreciate the gesture and tell him so. He doesn't always pay for dinner. We take turns, like we take turns paying for movies and other activities. (The only thing he always pays for are my drinks if we go to the bar.) I think it works fine. Is it chivalry? Certainly not.

Just before Christmas, I met up with a friend from college and the two of us grabbed breakfast (it was supposed to be lunch, but I arrived way early) in a diner in his hometown. When the check came, he grabbed it. I told him I could pay for my own food, but the look he shot me made me sit back in my chair. "YOU, Robin, are the reason men aren't chivalrous to women. The man should always pay."

I wanted to argue. It's not like we're dating, but I didn't. He held the door open for me when we left, and ran to open my car door open for me. When we transferred to just his car, he held the passenger side door open for me and when we walked a mile and a half over the beautiful frozen Indiana dunes, he frequently grabbed my arm if he felt it was slippery. That... that's the beginning of chivalry.

Chivalry is an attitude that places another person's importance above one's own and shows that that person is important through common gestures of decency, respect and care. That's gone.

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