Chapter 2 begins Mr. Miner’s deep plunge into the history of chivalrous tradition. The natural starting point is Arthurian legend since “King Arthur is the lightning rod of the chivalric imagination.” Two threads are developed in this chapter that are often interwoven: the literary history of chivalrous tradition and historical information on the training and activities of knights. He not only discusses the chivalric elements of Arthurian legend but also the issues of historical reliability of the traditions. He continues on to training of the page, squire, and the knight, which leads historically to the Knights Templar.

The position of the knight faded away, but the code of chivalric conduct remained. “The model of the true knight was gradually supplanted by the beau ideal of the complete gentlemen, which—arguably—reached its zenith during the long reign of England’s Queen Victoria.” This transition is brought to bear in Chapter 3 in a discussion of the plethora of literature on gentlemen’s code of conduct in the midst of the Victorian era.

The first three chapters are the foundation for the next three. A set of values and characteristics being established historically, Mr. Miner defines three main categories essential to the gentleman: the warrior, the lover, and the monk. Chapter 4 focuses on the martial spirit of the gentleman. According to Mr. Miner’s analysis, honor is to be valued above, even at the expense of death and key to this is being prepared for anything. “The warrior’s way is the way of the dojo: he spars with death, brother against brother. When death wins, the gentleman graciously bows in defeat.” He colors his report with a bit of history and evidences from his own personal experiences.

Certainly my explanation of the problem of Radical Feminism is not without disagreement from some, and so likely will the solution I offer here. I offer it with the explicit warning I may be way off. But even if that is the case, I think my solution has some merit.

Wherein lies the problem, therein is often the solution. The root of the problem, as I came to it in my last post in this series, is the failure of men to take up and fulfill their God-given roles. More simply, men have failed to be men. The failure of women to be women is a problem as well, but is dependent first on the failure of men. Therefore the solution must be that men become men once again. We must not only own up to our failures, but we must seek to change ourselves.

Perhaps in today’s culture to “become a man” means getting around with women, having a high tolerance for alcohol, and an undivided love for football on Sundays. Thankfully I’m not this sort of man nor do I ever hope to be. The type of manhood that should be aspired to is something like the Gentleman. Since being a gentleman now means “nice,” I’ll elaborate on I mean by it.

As Brad Miner characterizes it in his book The Compleat Gentleman, there are three essential elements of being a complete gentleman: the warrior, the lover, and the monk. For a thorough history of chivalry and being a gentleman I recommend his book (though he doesn’t really discuss the demise much). The death of the Gentleman would make for another post sometime, but all I’m really concerned with now is what it the gentleman of the twenty-first century should look like.

I’m still learning what it means to be gentleman and I have many shortcomings. But we must start somewhere, and we must start now. When the culture disconnects us from the good ideals of the past we must make an effort to pick up the pieces and reassemble them. Being a gentleman is not some to-do list that we should follow in the dance hall or at the dinner table, though it has applications at those moments and every other. Just as works are a sign of salvation, actions are only signs of a true gentleman. Rather, the attributes of a gentleman are a set of virtues. Yet another word we have almost forgotten. (It becomes increasingly difficult to communicate past truths to a culture that has forgotten the words.)

Brad Miner quotes from an editorial in the Salisbury Review: “A gentleman is not a person with feminine gender and masculine sex. He was through and through a man. But he was gentle—in all the senses of that lucent word. He was not belligerent, but courageous, not possessive but protective, not aggressive to other men but bold, even tempered, and ready to agree on terms. He was animated by a sense of honor—which means taking responsibility for his actions, and shielding those who depended on him. And his most important attribute was loyalty, which implied that he would not deny his obligations, merely because he was in a position to do so.” Miner sums up his analysis in this way: “They [former knights and gentlemen] may have had feet of clay, but they aspired to the chivalrous attributes: fidelity, prowess, generosity, courtesy, and honor. I’ve suggested that the quality unifying them all is justice. The best men, chivalrous or not, as warriors, lovers, and monks have always been just men. Of all the chivalrous attributes, honor is the greatest, because it brings the burden of justice into every moment of a man’s life.”   more »

More often than not, what’s understood as the “traditional model” of family is that mother stays home with the 2.5 children while father goes off to work. During the day the children are usually off to school leaving mother to clean and cook, and sometimes knit cute fluffy things together. Perhaps Leave it to Beaver did more harm than good in this regard (though I mean to use more as an example of transition than a problem). This model is usually what Feminists point to as oppression and what traditionalists are left defending, and often not understanding why. I’m not sure that this model, as far as it should be what is required of every family, is really all that defensible.

Leave it to Beaver left the true traditional model forgotten in most minds, perhaps not intentionally, but it needed to do so in order to tell us we could lead satisfying lives in (new at the time) postmodernity. Rather, the truly traditional model found father, mother, and children at home. Home was not simply a place for meals and slumber, or where your heart is, but home was the heart, the center of the family’s activities. The children were educated at home and the family’s income was produced at home. The only reason to go out of the home on a regular basis would be to go to the store or to church. Within the home there was a harmony of activities. One could not, generally speaking, point to a part of it and say that it is where economy takes place, and here is for education, and there is for entertainment, and so forth. It all blurred together in a sort of wholeness we today know little of. The closest we can get to it is to picture those few immigrant families who reflect this. They have the restaurant downstairs and the “home” upstairs. But in reality the residence is the entire building, and everyone’s job (including the kids’) is the up keep of the entire residence.

The problem today is women leaving the home, but it is only a problem today because men left it so long ago. Men left the home because the Industrial Revolution forced them to, or at least they thought it did. Some left because it was the only way they could provide for their family, others left for reasons perhaps not so respectable. Regardless, they left. Very little economic work could be done by a mother who was attending to annoying children all day (who must also be educated by her), and so the economy of the home left with father. Eventually the job of education, by which I mean the three Rs, was handed over to the government. This took the children out of the home, after they reached a certain age of course, leaving mother home with an empty house and nothing to do. Did we expect her to be satisfied pushing a vacuum back and forth all day? Perhaps some did, but it should at least be obvious why more change had to occur. We took everything interesting out of the home; only a dolt would want to stay there.   more »