PEDIATRICS Vol. 45 No. 4 April 1970, pp. 597
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HOW BOSTON YOUNG LADIES IN 1836 SHOULD ACT TOWARD YOUNG MEN

T. E. C. Jr. M.D.

Young girls once received much advice about how to behave toward young men. The following is quite typical of the rules of behavior or taught to proper Boston young girls in the 1830's:

If the natural feelings of modesty are not sufficient to guard you from all personal familiarity with the young men of your acquaintance, let good breeding, and good taste, aid you in laying down rules for yourself on this head. Never join in any rude plays, that will subject you to being kissed or handled in any way by gentlemen. Do not suffer your hand to be squeezed, without showing that it displeases you by instantly withdrawing it. If a finger is put out to touch a chain that is round your neck, or a breast-pin that you are wearing, draw back, and take it off for inspection. Accept not unnecessary assistance in putting on cloaks, shawls, over-shoes, or anything of the sort. Be not lifted in and out of carriages, on or off a horse; sit not with another in a place that is too narrow; read not out of the same book; let not your eagerness to see anything induce you to place your head close to another person's. These, and many other little points of delicacy and refinement, deserve to be made fixed habits, and then they will sit easily and gracefully upon you, heightening the respect of all who approach you, and operating as an almost invisible, though a very impenetrable fence, keeping off vulgar familiarity, and that desecration of the person, which has too often led to vice.1