A few years ago, we learned
the essential skill of curtsying like a lady in the 19th century.
So we can all be just like Elizabeth Bennet.
But what if you are
Mr. Darcy meeting Elizabeth Bennet?
How do you bow
like a 19th century gentleman?
Well, that's what we're going to be covering in this video: bowing,
hat tipping and a little bit of handshaking.
If you'd like to learn all about that,
then definitely stay tuned for today's video.
So like I talked about in the video on curtsying, curtsying and bowing in
the 19th century was a way of showing respect for others.
It showed them honor, respect, acknowledgment
and also it had a long and rich history.
Men's bows had evolved over time, and they used to be quite
more physically intense than they were by Jane Austen's time.
Now there were a ton of different reasons
a gentleman in the era would bow from meeting new people, seeing people
he already knew, and pretty much saying hi to them with a bow.
When people left the room, when he was stood up with a partner across
from them on the dance floor at a ball and needed to bow before the dance began.
There were so many bowing opportunities,
but a man needed an elegant and refined bow.
Now, in this era, a gentleman's bow was way simpler than a ladies curtsy.
However, there were some things that could complicate it.
For example, there was specific
footwork in place just to get your feet in the correct position to start bowing.
It was like pre-bow setup.
Now this was pretty much optional.
This was if you wanted to be extra fancy, especially if you
were on the ballroom floor and getting prepared to dance,
you might want to do this preparatory bowing footwork.
And so a gentleman would start standing up just completely straight, shoulders
relaxed, arms hanging to the side
naturally, and feet in this “V” formation.
Now, the first step would be
to take a small step to the side.
You can use whichever foot you feel comfortable with,
but make sure to keep your feet pretty much in a V formation.
So small step still in a V, but just with a space.
Now, from this small step,
you would just step back in with your other foot.
So that's pretty much like step out, step in.
However, when you step back in over here, it's not in a perfect
V formation anymore.
What you want is for the heel of the foot
to be in the arch of your other foot so that they're slightly overlapping.
So from the top, again: V formation; a slight
step out; step back in with heel in arch of foot.
Now this position right here: still completely up
straight, arms hanging to the side, feet slightly overlapping--
this is the position you can start to bow from.
So once you are in the correct foot
position, the rest of the bow really comes from the upper body.
Your legs stay pretty much straight throughout the rest of it
and don't move.
So a man's bow comes from the hips primarily with a slight
further inclination of the head, but pretty much bowing forward from the hips.
Now, this is important.
Also, I've discovered from the side this dress makes me look pregnant.
But just so everyone knows I'm not pregnant, I just thought I would
throw that out there.
When you do bow from the side, it can end up looking
like either this
with your back pretty much straight
or it can end up looking like this.
Now, I've seen this depicted in art
both ways, and usually I feel like the
Mr. Collins-esque characters end up looking more like this.
So try to keep your back straight unless you want to look like Mr. Collins.
So you keep your back as straight as you can, as you bow.
Now your head's going to go a little bit further
and come back up.
What are you doing with your hands and arms?
Well, you left them just hanging to the side
in front of you.
Now, this is very important.
When you're going down, you're looking down.
When you come back up.
Your eyes should naturally remake eye contact with whoever you were bowing to.
So looking down when going down,
making eye contact as you come back up.
So from the top step out, step in.
Bow.
It's really that easy.
So what we just covered would be the gold standard of a gentlemen's
bow in the 19th century.
However, I have seen a lot of art depicting an older
form of bow, that dance manuals and etiquette manuals condemned.
They were like, “This is the wrong way to bow.”
However, it was still obviously practiced because so many artists did depict it
in their work, which is where a gentleman would have one of his feet
out in front and his knees would be bending
while he would be making that same
upper body movement.
I have to say that this really does make it easier,
I think, to keep your balance, and it also makes it easier
to keep your back straight.
However, just a warning.
This was something that was condemned by those in the fashionable world.
So if you were a
gentleman in the Regency era and you were out and about wearing a hat
and you came upon a lady, say you were getting introduced
to one on the street, or you ran into one wall in the marketplace.
You needed to do something with your hat to show respect, and that was remove it.
Now, you may have heard the term tipping your hat before.
Now, this would be something you would do while you were bowing.
So one of your hands would tip your hat
at the same time.
Now there are rules for tipping your hat.
One is that it needs to come all the way off your head.
I think sometimes the term tipping hat gives the impression that you're
just kind of like tipping it like that, but it's pretty much on your head.
You’re just move it up and down.
No, that is not how we tip a hat in the 19th century.
The hat needs to come all the way off of your head.
There needs to be space there. Right? Now when you are lifting up the hat,
that brings us to rule number two.
Whenever you take a hat off of your head whether to hold it, to take it off
or in this case, in tipping it, you always need to make sure to tip it
so that the top of the hat faces the lady, or more
or less that the inside of the hat faces away from her.
The inside of your hat might be gross.
It might have sweat.
It might have foundation, if you're me.
So you don't want to show anyone the inside of your hat when tipping it.
So when you do, lift it up,
make sure that you're lifting it this way.
You don't want to lift it that way to show the inside.
Now, that takes us to rule number three.
When tipping your hat, you need to use the arm that is furthest from the lady,
you are tipping your hat to.
So, for example, if you run into a lady on the street and she is over there,
you need to use this arm to tip your hat to her. Why?
Because if you use this arm, your arm is
now in the direct line of sight between you and the lady.
Right?
And that would be rude.
So you need to tip it with this one
and you can tip it while bowing.
And there we go.
Now, depending on the area and the exact age,
there were a variety of feelings on whether a man,
if talking to a lady on the street, needed to keep his hat off.
It was considered the most respectful thing to do for him to keep it off
the entire time he was talking to her.
And in that case, you could just hold your hat down at your side.
Some men would hold it like this again, keeping the inside
faced away from her or under the arm.
However, of course, if your interaction is going to go far beyond
just a brief conversation on the sidewalk, it would make sense for you
to eventually put your hat back on if you're going to be, like,
hanging out with her all day.
And in fact, even in a brief conversation on the sidewalk, ladies
could also say, “Oh, please put your hat back on.”
And that would
make you not have to hold it the whole time talking to her, too.
Now, from what I could see, there seemed to be quite a bit of debate over
whether it was appropriate for a gentleman to tip their hat to other gentleman.
This did seem to used to be a major thing that happened in the 18th century.
However, it fell out of fashion in the 19th century.
But still, there is a lot of art depicting men
taking off their hats when talking to other men and holding them.
So I do think it's something that's still happened.
So next up, let's talk about handshakes.
So, first of all, you would just not shake hands with everybody
if you were a gentleman back in the day.
You would primarily shake hands with the intimate friends of your intimate friends.
So if your best friend was like, “Hey, let me introduce you to my brother,”
then you would be shaking his hands.
Now, how would you want to shake that hand once you had it in yours?
Well, a hand a book from 1863 says, “The best style of all
is the hearty single clasp, full-handed, warm, momentary, just shaken enough
to make the gentle grasp well felt, but not painful.”
That is the proper way to shake a hand in 1863.
Now, some very important rules revolved around men shaking women's hands.
The number one rule was that it was a lady's prerogative
to offer her hand for the handshake to a man or not.
If a man took a lady's hand in a handshake without her offering it,
that was considered robbery.
Yes. Literally a robbery of her handshake.
Married women were much freer with their handshakes
than single women were, and they would generally shake everyone's hand
that they were having over dinner or as a friend over to their house.
Another important rule is if a lady offered a man a handshake,
he was required to shake her hand.
He could not refuse it.
In fact, we see this in Sense and Sensibility
in London when Marianne finally sees Willoughby again,
she's like, “Willoughby.
What is the meaning of this?
Have you not received my letters?
Will you not shake hands with me?”
It says, “He could not then avoid it, but her touch seemed painful to him,
and he held her hand only for a moment.”
So in that scene, we see Marianne using a lady's right to offer a handshake.
And Willoughby can absolutely not turn it down.
Now, even between gentlemen, if there was a clear
difference between the social status of the gentleman,
it was the social superiors ability to offer the handshake or not.
So just to sum all of this up, men in the 19th century
bowed to each other and to ladies to show respect.
They were required to remove their hats for ladies, and if they were old school,
they would also remove their hats for other gentlemen that they extra respected.
And they made sure that their handshakes were warm but not too tight.
And they would make sure to always wait for a lady to offer a handshake
and then accept it if she so bestowed the great favor of a handshake upon them.
So let me know in the comments down below:
Do you think that we should bring bowing back into everyday fashion?
Do we need more bows and hat tipping?
Of course we need more hats.
I guess you can tip a baseball cap,
technically. The deep thoughts of life here.
Anyway, let me know in the comments down below.
And as always, keep being awesome because you're awesome. Bye!
*happy orchestral music plays*