20+ Etiquette Rules From The Past That Are Completely Incompatible With Today

These days, etiquette rules are becoming more and more liberal and inclusive, but that wasn’t always the case: not so long ago, women couldn’t stop to chat on the street or with their friends. And offering a lady a chicken leg was considered a way of insulting her. Of course, etiquette accompanies society and develops along with it since ancient times, and what for us may seem something unacceptable or even weird, in the past was simply the norm of everyday reality. Etiquette rules from the past are the subject of this post.

We, from incredible.club, we believe that etiquette rules should only refine a person’s good manners and not limit them, as used to happen in the past. Check out!

The ancient Greeks defined an ideal gaze pattern: it should be firm and directed forward. For the Hellenes, only crazy or quite desperate people rolled their eyes, and anyone who narrowed their eyes was considered a traitor.🇧🇷

In ancient Greece, and later in Rome, it was normal at a banquet for guests to eat lying on their sides and throw the leftover food on the floor. These meetings were called a symposium, and every respectable citizen had an obligation to attend them, as such events were closely related to the idea of ​​the political unity of the local society at the time.

At symposiums, it was considered proper and even a show of good manners to perform well in the ancient Greek game. kottabos – a kind of drinking game of antiquity. It was, first and foremost, a competition of precision, in which symposium participants, lying on their sofas, tried to pour the rest of the contents of your wine glasses into a metal container🇧🇷 The drink should not spill beyond the target and, when hitting it, it had to make a characteristic sound.

Unlike the Greeks, who played wine, the Romans threw dice. Whoever got the best result became the conductor of the party and, in fact, started to prepare gifts and small challenges for the guests as a way of entertaining them.

According to one of the versions, the tradition of toasting began in the Middle Ages: it was believed that the act of clinking one glass against the other chased away the demons, which at the time were thought to enter people’s bodies through the mouth. And it is for this reason that people also started covering their mouths while yawning.

The tradition of raising the hat as a greeting also started in the Middle Ages. The difference is that, at that time, the helmet of the armor was lifted – in this way the knight was voluntarily exposing himself to danger, thus demonstrating that he had no bad intention.

In Persia, men of the same social class greeted each other with a short kiss on the mouth. And when they were supposed to greet someone of lower rank, they kissed him on the cheek.

Cutlery as we know it today began to appear in the 12th century. Spoons were only used for eating sweets. Forks, initially, were not very well regarded, as they were considered a tool of the Devil.

In medieval France, people wiped their hands directly on the tablecloth and drank soup directly from the bowl.

The tradition of washing hands before meals dates back to the Middle Ages. But in this case, we must take the phrase literally: people washed their hands while sitting at the table using water brought in by servants. However, if they got food on their hands, they wiped them directly on their clothes.

No man could touch the Spanish queen except her husband—the king. This rule nearly cost the life of Charles II’s wife, Maria Luisa. One day, when she mounted a horse, the animal raised its front legs causing the monarch to fall and get one of her legs caught in the stirrup, then being dragged by the fleeing animal. The queen was saved by two nobles, who immediately fled fearing for their lives🇧🇷 In the end, a mutual friend interceded with the Crown for the pardon of his wife’s saviors, who were eventually pardoned.

During the Victorian Era, exposure of the body was severely repressed. Therefore, people swam with the help of special carriages developed back in the 17th century. Fully clothed, the individual would enter this carriage on the beach, change clothes inside, and then the vehicle would enter the sea. Upon reaching the desired point, he turned to face the sand, blocking the view of the beach, so that the bather could not be seen by others on the shore while enjoying his sea bath.

Single women could not go out unaccompanied. And if during their journey down the street they happened to meet a friend or acquaintance, they could not stop to exchange a few words with her either. In such cases, it was forbidden to even look at the known person.

If a woman met a familiar gentleman on the street and wanted to talk to him, she should offer him her hand. After that, the man had to forget his business for a while and accompany the lady.

A woman was supposed to know absolutely nothing about how children were conceived until she was married. As a result, some women ran scared from their husbands after their wedding night🇧🇷

Victorian etiquette forbade women to even completely disrobe in front of their husbands. During the wedding night, the wife was supposed to wear a special nightgown that covered most of her body.

During pregnancy, a woman should not appear in public. And it was thanks to the Victorian Era etiquette that the expression “being expecting a child” appeared. to indicate that a woman was pregnant.

Women’s legs should always be covered. Regardless of her beauty or figure — they kept hidden under her clothes. The topic of legs was such a taboo at the time that offering a chicken leg to a lady was considered a serious offense.

People could only keep books by authors of different sexes on the same shelf if they were married.

In Russia, Emperor Peter I was the first monarch to pay special attention to etiquette. Through a decree, he recorded the main rules of conduct at the time in a specific book. In it, for example, it was written that men were forbidden to attend a wedding wearing pointed boots, as they could end up damaging the women’s dress.

In 18th century Russia, it was completely normal to urinate in public places. While men only needed to find a corner and turn their backs to the street, women took advantage of their long dresses to “relieve” themselves in public without anyone noticing. For example, the empress Catherine II received ambassadors using a kind of personal urine collection jar, which went completely unnoticed under her seat and the skirt of her dress. Similarly, noble ladies used to use a similar device at balls — the bourdaloue, a kind of portable female potty. This artifact ended up being indispensable for every woman at the time, after all, there were no public toilets in St. Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire, until the end of the 19th century.

An 1886 Russian manual of etiquette recommended against blowing out candles in front of other people.

It was also written that “wearing red and green or pink and yellow at the same time means breaking all the rules of good taste”🇧🇷

It was considered extremely indecent for a woman to appear on the street without wearing gloves, however, it was also forbidden for her to wear them in public. And the same was true of any attempt to adjust hat strings in public – all grooming was to be private and reserved for the home.

It was recommended that young women go to sleep around 1 am, and that they read a French novel before falling asleep, as when falling asleep they should not think of anything sad, unpleasant or heavy – especially in murders, poverty, rats, spiders, hauntings, terrible diseases or fires🇧🇷

To have lewd dreams was considered the height of indecency for a young lady. If that happened, she should wake up immediately.

Do you think that etiquette rules are a thing of the past or that they are still very important in modern society? Tell us in the comments section.