Etiquette Rules For Men

Etiquette:

Etiquette is a system of rules and regulations defining good form or “good manner”. In social, public or official behavior. It originally applied only to conduct  in court circles. But the court has been extended to provide guides for every day living.

The word “etiquette” is derived from the old French “etiquette”, and that, in run, from the old German “stench”, both of which are verbs meaning “to stick”. Some etymologist conjecture that centuries ago regulations to be observed at court were pasted or stuck to a support or wall and eventually became “1 etiquette” (the rules of the day), whence “etiquette”. In France today , however, the code of polite, social conduct is generally termed the rules of knowing how to behave. In English speaking counties, such rules, whether they are guides for ceremonies or deal with ordinary social conventions such as setting a table, are generally classified as etiquette.

An offender faces no formal trial of sentence for breach of etiquette, the penalty lies in the disapproval of other members of the group. Regardless of its level of material culture, any highly stratified society will possess an etiquette in which every person knows the behaviour expected from him toward others and from others toward himself.

Etiquette is the glass of basic rules of politeness, but it is influenced by local or regional customs. For example, etiquette requires that an honored guest be placed next to the host or hostess, and custom dictates what side that shall be. In most of the  western world it is the right side, but in Scandinavian countries it is usually the left side, and in the Orient Or Asian countries it is always  the left.

Regional custom determines the manner of the  greeting when acquaintance meet. In southern Europe close male friends often embrace, as in Asia in Middle East countries male friends usually kiss three times, while embracing. In several European countries a lady rises to extend a hand in spontaneous greeting or when introduced, and in some of these countries, a gentleman may raise her hand to his lips.

According to Beadnell the origin of kiss can be traced to Vedic India (2000 B C). He presumed that it started from the nose kiss. From India, remarks Beadnell, the kiss in one from or another appear to have spread East to China and West to Persia,  Greece and Europe in general. In the Kamasura  OF Vastsayana, we  find vivid descriptions of various varieties of erotic kiss, each with its particular name like the nominal kiss, the touching kiss, the transferred kiss, demonstrative kiss, clasping kiss etc. in the Holy city of Makkah, Hajra-i-Aswad, installed in Holy Kaaba the only stone is being kissed every moment since thousands of years.

Customs, which may reflect deep- rooted cultural mares, are handed down from generation to generation on the other hand, etiquette, which began as rules of protocol and precedence often arbitrarily  conceived by rules to protect them from contact with lesser person, may change swiftly, responding to the voice of a social arbiter or to economic and fashion trends.

The first book to call its contracts rules of etiquette was “The Fine Gentleman’s Etiquette”, published in 1776. However the etiquette book did not really flourish until the 19^th century, with the advance of the Industrial Revolution. The old distinctions between “superiors” and “inferiors” , once accepted unquestioningly and so well understood that only occasionally did they need to be repeated in earlier conduct books, now required sterner safeguards.

         The early purpose of  etiquette, once it moved outside of  royal and aristocratic circles and began to be applied to ordinary social life, seems to have been the protection of the upper class. “Etiquette is the barrier which society drawn around itself as a protection, a shield against the  intrusion of the impertinent, the improper, and the vulgar – a guard against those obtuse who, having neither talent nor delicacy, would be continually thrusting themselves into the society of men to whom their presence might be offensive and even insupportable” , say the book “Etiquette” published in 1836.

Etiquette books explained the rituals and rules followed by 19^th century upper class society. Thus, new comers to wealth were aided in concealing their social inexperience. They could learn that only silver forks were deemed correct at “respectable” tables, and a spoon correct for conveying peas to the mouth. A knife in the mouth? Never! Although this was not only common place among the lower middle class on both sides of the Atlantic but also permissible at most aristocratic tables in Germany , an example of  how etiquette rules can differ. Napkins were not absolutely necessary, and if hosts did not provide them, a gentle man was permitted to use table cloth or his handkerchief.

Japanese etiquette requires that shoes be removed before one enters a home but Chinese do not removed their shoes. At Japanese tables it is bad form to top rice with other food, while Chinese heap their foods, bed a rice.

In the Middle East, customs still dominates Bedouin dinning etiquette. The hand is used in eating and communal pat is dipped into by hand. According to Islamic school of thought it is best to eat by right hand. Many modern societies in Asia also in Pakistan fallows the rules of  Western behavior and used standard cutlery and requiring procedures.

American proponents of etiquette fought to establish some ceremony In the young republic, a difficult task at first in a land were titles, class distinctions, and rules of precedence were disavowed. Americans still harnesses manners to morals and practices the simple rules of virtuous conduct extolled in the behaviour books that preceded the etiquette book. The majority rejected English and continental formalities as undemocratic, freely introduced strangers, exchanged public, greeting spontaneously between sexes, scoffed at calling cards, and offend preferred the knife to the fork as a feeding tool.

In some ways American etiquette has grown more relaxed, but in other ways, noticeably more detailed. The etiquette of wedding progressed from simplicity that could be summed up in a few paragraphs to elaborate details requiring 60 to 80 pages in standard etiquette books.

Etiquette today is based on common sense and consideration of the other person. Since the framework and contexts of the communities of which society is formed are constantly changing, the habits of etiquette can and do change with them.