Touch and sociability [ Communication ]
… introduces a kind of familiarity that would be quite inadmissible in a drawing room. When a gentleman solicits the honour of your hand, it is not a figure of speech; your hand really belongs to him, for the time; and if he persists in … the extent to which young women tolerated the intrusive touch of the hands and lips of men who were keen to do them the honour. It does not suggest that men were less keen to make such advances, although many did respond to signals that set … risk of transgression. As Burney also emphasized, the metropolis was a uniquely threatening world. There was no code of honour for women to identify, manage and revenge a man’s ‘insult’ – except by proxy through a husband or a member of her …
Conduct | Conventions | Dance | Gender | Kissing | Propriety | Touch
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