Chivalry, on the other hand, had a POINT. And the point was deep and substantive. It was a point that rested on an understanding of human nature, and an earnest desire to battle our basest instincts. The point was never “subjugation of women” or “male dominance.” Quite the opposite, in fact. The point was love, and sacrifice, and service. The point was to make a statement that we are not beasts; we are not mere products of dog-eat-dog evolution. We will not live in a world where just the physically strongest survive. Women can only be slaves in a world like that, as history has proven many times.

This past Christmas Eve, I went to church with my wife, my sister, and my brother-in-law. We arrived a half hour early, which was a half hour too late. All of the seats were taken, and even the standing room in the back was filling quickly.

The four of us were able to carve out a spot to stand near the rear of the church. My wife and I have twin babies, and my sister had just given birth to her first child a week or two before. As we set up shop in the back, I thought to myself: “Well, we’ve got a young woman with a newborn and another woman with twins; surely a couple of the many men already sitting will jump up to offer their seats to my wife and sister. Nick and I can stand for the whole service, but there’s no reason why our wives should.” But my delusions were quickly interrupted by the harsh reality. As I looked around, I saw dozens of other women standing alongside us — many of them with kids in tow.

Maybe the hundreds of gentlemen in the pews just haven’t… noticed?

A few minutes later, I had to run to the car to get the diaper bag we’d left in the backseat. When I returned, my wife and sister were sitting in the pews.

Faith in modern manhood: restored.

For the time being, anyway.

I later found out that Beth and Alissa only ended up in seats because they were approached by two other women who offered to make room for them.

Faith in modern manhood: returned to its original severely diminished state.

I wasn’t going to write about this incident. I didn’t want to put a damper on the Christmas festivities. Then, this morning, I read about a recent survey, which came to the unsurprising conclusion that men are increasingly abandoning chivalrous customs. For their part, women are now more likely to be the ones committing certain acts of chivalry.

Our experience at church came rushing back into my mind.

I guess we need to talk about chivalry.

I can’t convince you that it’s cool or modern, but maybe I can show you why it’s important and necessary.

The study suggests that men who forgo chivalry often do so because they’re afraid that being gentlemen might seem “offensive” to some women. Meanwhile, only a small fraction of women actually report being offended by chivalrous deeds. Regardless, that is a flimsy and embarrassing excuse. If a woman is either pretentious or paranoid enough to take a kind gesture as an attack against her womanly identity, that’s her problem. Most, thankfully, are not nearly so confused. If they are, that isn’t our concern. We should do the right thing because it is the right thing; not because we’ve made a prediction as to how it will be received. If you have direct knowledge that a particular female is often quite horrified when car doors are opened for her or seats are offered to her on the subway, then I suppose you should respect her wishes — as ridiculous as they might be. But men are now dumping chivalry entirely, under the supposed assumption that ALL women take great offense to it. This can’t be justified. And, I suspect, it’s simply another thinly veiled excuse to be lazy, self-centered, and apathetic.

So, what about this chivalry thing? It’s true, I admit, that the whole shtick is horribly out of style. Then again, we live in a culture where “what’s in style” seems to change every three months, and the designations of “in” and “out” are completely contrived, shallow, and meaningless. Saying something is “in style” only means that “this is what people happen to be doing now.” Why are they doing it? Because they are. Why aren’t they doing the things they aren’t doing? Because they aren’t. And around we go in circles, spinning down the nihilistic drain.

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