Etiquette Throwback: 1934, Etiquette, Sitting Gracefully
Emily Post shows us how to sit gracefully in her 1934 edition of Etiquette.
Emily Post, Etiquette, 1934, How To Sit Gracefully
Sometimes, writing about etiquette can feel like instructing someone on how to breathe. Other times, you find delicious details and nuances in very unobserved moments throughout the day. Emily does just this with the act of sitting down.
*Please note that grammar and spelling in the following excerpt follow 20th-century standards.
Cards and Visits
HOW TO SIT GRACEFULLY
pg 94-95
Having shaken hands with the hostess, the visitor, whether a lady or a gentleman, looks about quietly, without hurry, for a convenient chair to sit down upon, or drop into. To sit gracefully one should not perch stiffly on the edge of a straight chair, nor sprawl at length in an easy one. The perfect position is one that is easy, but dignified. In other days, no lady of dignity ever crossed her knees, held her hands on her hips, or twisted herself sideways, or even leaned back in her chair! To-day all these things are done; and the only etiquette left is on the subject of how not to exaggerate them. No lady should cross her knees so that her skirts go above them; neither should her foot be thrust out so that her toes are at knee level. An arm a-kimbo is not a graceful attitude, nor is a twisted spine! Everyone, of course, leans against a chairback, except in a box at the opera and in a ballroom, but a lady should never throw herself almost at full length in a reclining chair or on a wide sofa when she is out in public. Neither does a gentleman in paying a formal visit sit on the middle of his backbone with one ankle supported on the other knee, and both as high as his head. If too weak to sit up he should stay home.
The proper way for a lady to sit is in the center of her chair, or slightly sideways in the corner of a sofa. She may lean back, of course, and easily; her hands relaxed in her lap, her knees together, or if crossed, her foot must not be thrust forward like a pump-handle, or hooked around the chair leg in vine fashion. On informal occasions she can lean back in an easy chair as far as she chooses, with her hands on the arms. In a ball dress a lady of distinction never leans really backward. One cannot picture a beautiful and high-bred woman, wearing a tiara and other ballroom jewels, leaning against anything. This is, however, not so much a rule of etiquette as a question of beauty and fitness.
A gentleman, on very formal occasions, leans against the back of his chair, but he must give the appearance of sitting on a chair, not of lying at ease on a sofa.
Is anyone else sitting comfortably right now? While this section is littered with “don’ts” (especially for the ladies) we do really appreciate the classic Emily move of stating what was in “other days” and then clearly and definitively saying that today this isn’t the case. It’s one of the tactics that the Emily Post brand has consistently continued because it’s effective at both acknowledging traditions or ways of olde and at the same time, honoring and giving examples to the realities of behavior “today” (or “to-day” as the 1934 edition would have it.) While the ladies definitely get more attention in this section, we appreciate that Emily was writing for both male and female audiences. Our one wish if we could go back and wave a magic wand is for this particular section to have been illustrated!
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