Rally Round Raleigh

Rally 'Round Raleigh

It's somewhere in those few lazy, yet hectic days between Christmas and New Year's, and shopping malls all around the country are displaying a truly fascinating phenomenon. For it is now that the malls are hopelessly clogged not with shoppers, but with returnees. You know what I mean - everyone has found fault with their Christmas gifts, and they are now trying to one-up jolly old Saint Nick. You are among this never-settle-for-second-best crowd, laden with two heavy bags of gifts which, despite the fact that you are a medium-sized man, are all in either extra-large or extra-small. You are approaching the entrance to the mall and are barely able to wedge the door open with your foot, when you see an elderly lady approaching the entrance as well. You courteously (yet clumsily) hold the door as she passes. "Oh, thank you, sir," she says in a heart-warming, Angela-Lansbury-like voice, "the world needs more gentlemen like you." "Oh, it's nothing," you reply, your cheeks turning roughly the shade of a poinsettia. But what a fantastic feeling, you think to yourself, to have done a favor like that just out of the kindness of you heart. Why, you feel almost like Sir Walter Ra-SMACK!!! Your thoughts and good feelings are rudely interrupted by the next woman to pass through the door, and the poinsettia shade is now much brighter and in the shape of a handprint. When you look up, the young woman is squared off in front of you, her accusing finger pointing squarely at your stinging visage. "Chauvinist pig!" she proclaims. Now you might just be hallucinating because of the slap, but you're pretty sure you can see steam coming out of her ears. "It's men like you that make the world the cesspool of sexism that it is today!" As she storms away, you stand there dumbfounded - or perhaps, dumbstruck is more fitting - and let the door swing shut. You obviously have a little to learn about your modern manners before you can face what's on the other side of that door.

Well, that's what I'm here for today - to help you find the chivalry of the new millennium. You know, it seems that one must be a little more prepared to face everyday life these days; you may find yourself unprotected from the accusations of the world if you so much as venture out your front door in anything less than a full-body suit of PC armor. It's true - you must be careful about the words you say, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the car you drive, the paper you write on, the clubs you join, and how many gallons of water you use every time you flush your toilet! All in the interest of not offending anyone - which is a perfectly worthy endeavor. But, in all the hustle and bustle of trying to keep everyone happy at the same time, it's been said that chivalry has died. Is chivalry really dead, or is it just hibernating for the winter of political correctness? Today we'll put our fingers on its pulse and find out.

First of all, it used to be proper for gentlemen to hold doors open for ladies to pass by - but as my lengthy and gratuitously violent introduction showed, now it seems that that can be interpreted as a condescending insult. Fortunately, modern technology has come to our rescue once again - the solution, of course, is the automatic door! It opens for both men and women, every time. It closes on the heels of both men and women, every time. Why, the automatic door is the very model of indiscriminate - or should I say, indiscriminately poor - service. But this really isn't a peace treaty in our gender war, now is it - it's just another shaky ceasefire. Let's try again.

It used to be that when Sir Walter Raleigh, gentleman and ladies man extraordinaire, was courting his lady of the hour, occasionally he would find her dainty feet endangered by a great, wet, and potentially staining puddle of mud lurking in her path. He would not hesitate to dash to her rescue and cast his coat over the offending puddle, thus saving the dayÐ'... and her shoesÐ'... and of course, his reputation. Now, that reaction isn't quite as common. For example, consider the following scenario - a man and his well-dressed wife must cross a considerably large puddle in order to reach their car from the sidewalk. The moment he notices the crisis he begins strategizing. He looks at the car. He looks at the puddle. He looks at his wife, who is by now tapping her foot with impatience. And finally, he looks at his brand new Armani cashmere topcoat. And eventually, in his mind, the puddle seems to become a little bit smaller and his wife seems to become much more athletic. He finds himself coaching her, "Come on, Honey! You can make it! It's just a little hop, and if you don't make it, there are paper towels to clean up with in the car!?!" It never occurs to him that he should have just taken off his coat.

Of course, there are some extremists who feel that chivalry has been feigned all along. They claim that there is simply no genuine good will between the sexes. To them, every compliment is a lie, every favor begrudged, and every dozen roses just too darn expensive. They say that modern romance has nothing to do with caring about each other's feelings, just caring about feeling each other. British poet Anna Wickham also doubts the sincerity of the well-mannered, writing,

"It is well within the order of things

That man should listen when his mate sings;

But the true male never yet walked

Who liked to listen when his mate talked."

There are thousands of other examples out there, but perhaps the state of things is best summed up by Price Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a man who should know as much as anyone about chivalry. He once told a London newspaper that, these days, "When a man opens the car door for his wife, it's either a new